Crazy Pedro, Botched Weddings, Satan, And Baptism #1.

Hola Amigos!

Wow I am starting my second month this week and holy cow it has been going by so fast. This week was kind of crazy and not so good but it had its high points. Pdays here are good, we play soccer in the mornings, and today I taught a bunch of mexicans how to play basketball. it was the funniest thing. We had fried platanos this week that were way good! they take the greenest bananas they can find, cut them into like one inch slices, fry them, squish em into a  little pattie and but salt on them. it kinda tastes like fried mashed potatoes and is way good, my comp loves them like cocaine.

The laundry we gave to the member last week is still in altotonga so I am hoping we can get them tomorrow at our district meeting. we will not do that again. we have to have members do it here or wash it ourselves bc the president doesnt want any random person who washes at the lavandarias to be cleaning our g´s. so I will probably wash them in the sink tonight. We ate mole for the first time this week and man mole sucks. it is this spicy chocolate sauce that they dump over tortillas and fried cheese with some chicken it is pretty aweful but not too bad. I got dared to eat a habenero today and I did, and that was stupid, is sucked so bad. I was crying for an hour and it literally burned my tounge to the point that it hurts. I wont do that agian! we eat a ton of bread here and tortillas bc it is filing, its hard to taste bad, and it is hard to get sick from bread. OH and there was a parade here this week on tuesday, we watched from our balcony and it was kinda fun to see all the people.

This week was weird, we go to teziutlan, about 2 hours away on the bus to practice songs for a christmas devotional on the 7th and it is way funny. latins cannot sing! me and this elder from penslyvania are the only ones that can hold a tune out of like 25 of us so we have 3 solos in the devotional out of the 6 ish songs. I see some guys from the mtc at the practice and that is pretty fun.

Any way, this week we were suppoesed to have our investigators miguel and gina get married on friday morning so they could get baptized sunday but no dice because they didnt show up to get married! people here have no sense of being on time to something or even showing up. so they didnt get baptized. Our other investigators joel and lola and their family moved without telling us so we lost them wednesday and our other promising investigator juana dropped of the map today because of the following. We got her as a referal from this family gabby and ernesto, we go over there two or three times a week to visit with them and teach ernesto who isnt a member. well we couldnt find juana for nada this week and saturday we were over at gabby´s house and guess who was there? juana! it was great, we taught a lesson, and her little daughter sat there and talked to both of us during the lesson a ton. well today we talked to gabby and jauna told her that she didnt want to meet with us anymore because we had "knocked on her door at 1 in the morning and her daughter was scared of the guerro or white boy" which I will testify is a bunch of poopoo. so we arent teaching her anymore! Lastly, our investigator brandon doesn´t ever have time to be taught because he is more often than not, high as a kite on pot. so thats pretty cool

Saturday however, we talked to miguel and gina and set a new marriage date and they will be baptized next week. We called this number that was painted on the side of joel and lolas old house and asked their land lord about them and he told us where their new neighborhood was so we knocked doors and asked people in the calle about them for about an hour and found them! which is great. Then saturday night the elders in the area next to ours called and said that I would be baptizing a guy named victor the next day! Victor had been coming to church for 10 years but was never baptized so he met with the missionaries for a week, and I baptized him yesterday. Super cool! I am really loving it here and the work is going pretty well.

We are having right now a big problem with activity and getting investigators to church because the closest chapel is 45 minutes away and kinda expensive to take the bus that far for the people. so we have been working with the mission president a lot and the stake president and bishop to get a house of prayer here in altotonga where we can hold a sacrament meeting and teach sunday school. The stake president is fighting us on it because he thinks the members should sacrifice instead of the church paying to rent a building. SO, we are struggling with that a little, but I talked with president last night and he said if we cant have the stake pres help us out, he is gonna pull us out of perote. We´ll see what happens, and work hard in the meantime!

Now to address satan, and crazy pedro. Crazy pedro is this guy who walks around perote just kicking a corn cob. he is homeless, and yells grossero things all the time and man, it is pretty fun to see where we will find crazy pedro next. we see him every other day ish all in different places in perote, just kicking away at his corn cob.

 Next, there is this guy in our ward, who wont get baptized, meets with the jehovahs witnesses, and comes every week for one reason. at every single baptism, he sits front row and asks the person right before it starts "ya sure you want to do this? it is a big comitment...are you sure youre ready?" like 7 people have not gotten baptized because of this guy! he literally reminds me of satan. yesterday he did it to victor and the district leader grabs him, walks outside, and him and his comp basically told him in a cristian manner to shove it and quit being a korihor. I hate that guy.

Lastly, here is some scriptures I liked this week, go read Mosiah 2:22-25, Isaiah 35:3. they are super good! I came across a new personal mission scripture. It is in 1st corinthians 9:20 and it says "and unto the jew, I became as a jew, that I might gain the Jews" but I change the word jew to mexican as follows "and unto the mexicans, I became as a mexican, that I might gain the Mexicans" I am trying to dive in an be a mexican, but it is hard for a gringo! Everyone here just stares at me and looks like they have never seen a polar bear before! haha good times here in perote.

Anyway, that is it for this week, next week I will have 2 whole months in the mission! Love you guys, keep being gr8 people and God really will bless you. 

Your favorite Mexican,

-Elder Draper