July 19, 2010
Hello family.
Well not much to report this week. Our only investigator, the one who lived with the less active family that we were doing our family scripture study with, unexpectedly took off for Mexico to see his mother for some reason or another. They say he will be gone for a month or so. That's kind of a bummer, we were making so much progress with him now we shall have to start at level 0 again when he gets back. So in addition to the ceaseless finding we do every week we've been doing a lot of service with the english elders (that's what english missionaries usually do, they don't have many people to teach and they rarely tract so they just do service, visit active members, and teach and baptize 9 year old children of less active families). This week we've mowed countless lawns of countless old single ladies of the Magnolia 2nd Ward. Though these past couple Saturdays we've done some fun service. The ward is building a house for this single lady in their ward and we go every saturday with the english missionaries to help out. It's pretty fun, hammering nails into wood, using drills and other power tools, (expect for saws). Standing around in the sun watching other people do stuff since there are too many people working on a tiny house. Oh well, it beats tracting in the middle of the day. I've really come to appreciate manual labor on my mission, it's always nice to work mindlessly where you don't have to speak to anyone.
Actually some rather interesting did happen this week. There was a 3 day meeting for all of the mission leaders about a special "new curriculum" from the 1st Presidency. It was way weird, a meeting that long is unheard of. There were rumors going around of an addition to Preach My Gospel or something along those lines. During those 3 days we were stuck with Elder Lewis, and we "Tex-Mex'd" our areas. We call it Tex-Mexing when english and spanish missionaries go together somewhere to save miles or something or another, and we go preach to the Texans and the Mexicans, hence Tex-Mex. So we were in this threesome for three days and it was way weird. Tracting was horribly awkward with 3 people and we gave up on that pretty fast. We went around to his appointments and visited English speaking people and I remembered that I don't like Texans that much. We had a dinner appointment with one member family, an older couple and it was very awkward and quiet, and the food was plain there wasn't very much of it while my companion (who is a rather liberal person) had a terse conversation with the Husband (who works for an oil company like all rich Texans) about cars powered by alternative energy. It was way lame, whenever a hispanic member invites you over to eat it's always a huge party and everyone is eating (good food) and laughing and just having a jolly good time.
Thursday night Elder Hurd came back from the mysterious meeting and he was forbidden to say anything about it to us peasant missionaries of such low standing and we had to wait till the zone meeting of the next day to find out what this was all about. So on friday we go to zone meeting and they're going to be making quite a few changes to the mission. This "New Curriculum" is indeed from the 1st Presidency and they're implementing this throughout all missions in the world. And it is indeed some new material for Preach My Gospel, actually it's not really new, it's pretty much just everything you need to know about being a missionary summarized into 8 bullet points. That's all we know now, they're going to begin teaching this "new curriculum" this week in district meeting. They're also making some major calender changes. Zone Conferences will now be held only 4 times a year (as opposed to every transfer), and they will 6 hours long (ack!). Interviews with the mission President will also be held only 4 times a year rather than every transfer. 3 Day meetings such as this one will be held every other month for all mission leaders and trainers (yuck!), and the mission President is actually going to be out on the front lines with us. Out teaching with us, coming to our district meetings, etc. They're getting the mission president more involved in the work and they want him to be teaching us on a more personal basis. Now I'm not sure what President Hansen will do with us (seeing as though he doesn't speak spanish) but it seems like a good idea. However I don't like the idea of these huge meetings at all. Sitting in a meeting is the most tiring thing for me. Tracting all day doesn't make me nearly as tired as sitting in the same spot for an extended period of time in a suit. I'm also more motivated to be less obedient and less diligent so I won't ever be a district or zone leader so I won't have to go to these 3 day meetings. Har, just kidding, I had to throw that 'just kidding' on there because I know someone will try reprimand me in their next letter to me. I think that sarcasm may be somewhat difficult to detect in a wall of text.
Okay, I'm tired of typing now. I think I'll throw in that questionnaire for the ward newsletter that mom sent me. I had a lot of fun writing about Mexican food:
What church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Seminary, it provided a foundation for my knowledge of the scriptures and of the doctrines of the Church in general.
What non-church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Hanging out with people not of our faith. It's rather strange and awkward at first when you find yourself spending the majority of your time with people who's beliefs are very different from yours. I'm glad that I knew a few non-members at home and worked with them. I've seen the difference between me and those who have also grown up in Utah without ever having talked with a non-member, they're far more awkward.
What is your favorite Latino food?
This is a hard one. I've decided that of all Latino food, Mexican food is definitely the best. Then again it's most of what I've eaten. Central American food (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.) is far more simple, not very spicy, and does not have much variety. My favorite foods I've eaten are Sopes, a sope is a thick flour tortilla soaked in lime juice with pinched sides, it's fried and is rather thick and firm but not not brittle. On top of it they put almost anything, usually they put chicken with a green or red salsa with crumbled mexican cheese, and crema (basically a celestialized version of sour cream).
Also good are Tacos al Pastor, or Tacos de Trompo. Which is pork cooked in a special manner, they have this big huge metal cylinder thing they call a Trompo (spinning top), about 2-3 feet in diamter and about 4 feet high. They run this pole through the middle of it with a handle on the pole, it's basically a vertical spit inside a tube. You skewer the pork on there and layer it with pineapple. In the bottom of the Trompo is a bunch of hot charcoal and you let it sit in there for a while slowly turning the spit. Then you open it up, use a knife to carve off the outermost layers of this big stack of pork and pineapple, then close it again and let the remaining meat cook some more. Then you put it on some tortillas with lime juice, onions, cilantro and salsa. Most of the time you don't even need the salsa, it's that good. They are to die for and they are the best tacos I've ever eaten in my entire life.
Okay one more, this one I only just had recently but they are Elotes, which you all would recognize from Nacho Libre, that corn that that one guy always has and the one that he throws in the other guys eye in that one absurdly hilarious part. It's really simple and I've been thinking about making some lately. It's corn on the cob, boiled. Then you smear the whole thing with mayonnaise, sprinkle queso fresco all over it and then this special chile/lime powder all over it. It's very good, not very healthy at all, but very tasty, it's a popular street food in Mexico.
What is your favorite food to prepare on your own?
I'm not sure, I get bored of making the same thing over and over again, a few months ago I made a lot of fried rice but I got tired of it so lately I've just been making just simple things like tomato soup, macaroni & cheese, and omelets, but I always add things like spinach, bell peppers, beans, corn, etc. I've been trying to keep my diet varied with lots of vegetables. And no soda, because every time we get into some one's door they always give us soda, hispanics love soda and drink it like it's water, they never drink milk nor fruit juice. (Well they do drink Tampico type juices which will be like 5% juice).
Was learning spanish hard for you especially after knowing German really well?
It kind of was at first. The way I see it, being multi-lingual ls like those claw game machines. You have two buckets, your native language which is huge and your foreign language bucket which is much smaller. When your speaking and you suddenly can't think of a word the claw goes into the foreign language bucket and grabs something. Early on in the MTC the claw would go down and grab a German word because then my German vocabulary was far more extensive than my spanish vocabulary, so the odds were that I was more likely to spit out a German word while wanting a Spanish one. Now it's the other way around, now that my Spanish is pretty good and I've pretty much forgotten German the foreign language bucket has overflowed and even spilled into my english bucket. Sometimes when we end up teaching english people I cannot for the life of me remember some gospel terms in english. In one particular incident I spent 3 minutes trying to remember the word for the atonement in english. It was kind of embarrassing, of all words to forget I forgot the word for the most important thing that ever happened. But overall I say that learning German did help me out a lot, I already knew how to tackle a task such as learning another language.
What advice would give to the young men in our ward to help them prepare for a mission? What about the primary children?
I would say that you need to find a good reason for going on a mission, a reason that actually means something to you. If you just go because that's what everyone expects of you... I'd doubt that'd your conviction would be that strong. Also get a job and get a little taste of working hard and being miserable some of the time. Because there will come many days when you are just completely miserable, so get used to laughing such things off.
What can a young man do to best prepare for dealing with dogs as a missionary?
Don't be afraid, they say that animals can smell your fear and that seems to be mostly true, just show the dog who's higher in the food chain and ignore it. Don't stop and stare at it just keep on walking and ignore it as if it wasn't there. After a while you start to be able to tell which dogs are push-overs, and which dogs are genuinely dangerous. And never run, they can always outrun you.
I love you all, peace out.
-- Elder Rice
