P-Day update week 13, 05/16/2022

 ¡Hola Hola!

It has been another good week and I'm getting more confident but maybe not for the best haha!

This week I've felt like I'm finally starting to get used to living in Mexico and being a missionary. Lately the buildings haven't been looking as weird, in fact when I first got here the architecture was one of the biggest things that made it clear I wasn't in Kansas anymore haha! But the other day I realized that it's not strange to me anymore. I haven't twisted a doorknob or seen carpet in almost three months but I'm fine with that now :). But with my new found comfort and confidence has also brought about some problem. I've been thinking a little less in the specifics of what I'm saying and have been making less sense when speaking as a result! I've caught myself just putting in English words in the middle of a Spanish sentence without realizing it. I definitely feel like I've got a nice long road ahead of me though my companion tells me I've improved a lot so I can chalk that up to help from on high!

Outside the temple on Sunday night, and after getting my first fade haircut (not requested haha)

Before the transfers were here, there were two areas in Zacapoaxtla, but now there is only one. Elder Nielson and I had a lot more people on our phone that we needed to contact and the other day we had some time so we decided we would try and call up some of the people the other Elders were teaching. We found out that we have about 100 new people that we don't know at all and we decided I could use the practice calling people on the phone. The first few people I called unfortunately didn't answer. It was a little frustrating but no matter! After those first missed calls I actually had someone pick up, but I was so shocked that someone finally answered and didn't really think about what I was saying so I stumbled through a basic greeting where most of it was basically incomprehensible and got hung up on. I can chalk THAT up to my not thinking about what I'm saying before I say it! But one thing I was thinking about was that even if I stumble through my words, or accidently speak English to someone who definitely doesn't understand, I know that the Lord has promised his missionaries that as they open their mouths and teach, the spirit will touch the hearts of his children. So even if all I can say is "yo se que jesucristo vive" (I know that Jesus Christ lives) they will feel the Spirit and make their own decision to come into the fold of God. That gives me a lot of comfort!

Dayanna made us a dessert!

This week we have started teaching a young man named Archie. We found him during a very hard and scary time in his life, he had gotten caught up with some bad stuff and really needed some help. But the good thing is that a member of our branch lived near him and put him in contact with us! Over the past week we have seen him completely changed, he needed help from the Lord and was ready to reach out and grab it! When we first met him he was very quiet and mentioned he was scared, but the other day when we met with him he was all smiles. In fact in our last meeting he mentioned he said he wants to be baptized!! While thinking about his change the only way he could've grown like he did was the Lord, his hand is still stretched out and making miracles!

Bugambilias on this house in three different colors

This week we stopped by one of the families we were teaching and caught the mom making tortillas. So being the people we are we asked if we could give it a shot as well, we have seen people do it before so I felt like it couldn't be that hard. It was. She ripped us off a ball of maza and we made small pucks in our hands, put them in the old tortilla squisher, but that's where the easy stopped!! We had to karate chop the tortillas to stretch em out and make them the right thickness, she made it look so easy. But after two tortillas that got fed to the chickens, I finally made one or two very ugly, but nevertheless complete tortillas :). It was probably the best part of that day, and Nielson told me that stuff like that doesn't happen in the city so I was definitely happy to be in a pueblito at that moment!

Karate chopping a tortilla

Flipping tortillas like a real Mexican!

So probably the most interesting part of this week was definitely our trip to Mexico City (here they just call it "Mexico", and when talking about the country they say "the republic")! So up to this point I have been living in Mexico by the power of my visa, but all good things must come to an end, including my visa. But I very much want to stay in the country so the mission arranged for me to go to immigration in the CDMX! So I've known that I needed to go to Mexico since I first arrived to the field, but I just didn't know when they were gonna send me. A few days ago on Thursday we were having a meal with an hermana in the branch when we received a call from one of the secretaries in our mission, he told us that we needed to be in Mexico by 8:00 am the next day, to get my green card, because if I don't get it by Monday then I would be sent back to the US! The only problem was that it was currently 7:00 pm in Zacapoaxtla and it would take us about 4-5 hours to get there. After a bit of panic we came to the conclusion that we would travel to Mexico on Sunday after church, stay the night somewhere and go to immigration on Monday, my last day to get my green card. So that is exactly what we did, after church on Sunday we headed home to eat some leftover pizza, and headed to Zaragoza to catch our bus to Mexico. This was the first time my companion has been to Mexico since he did CCM online and was reassigned during the pandemic so he was stoked to have the chance to go, and the fact that this is the second time we've left mission boundaries in our time together I felt very cool! We got there and found out that we would be staying the night in the Mexico City temple dormitories! We caught a taxi to the temple and had the chance to enjoy the very popular "Chilango" accent (which was a lot funnier than I thought it was going to be) and showed up at about 9:00pm. We got into the dormitories and were super excited about the day we had just had and the day we were about to have, but just like my visa, all good things must come to an end. We forgot my passport. After five minutes of us sitting in silence wondering how I forgot the most important document for our trip, we decided to start making some calls, after talking with the secretary and a very helpful church employee there in Mexico we came up with a plan. Our branch president lives literally right next to us, so the next day he would take my passport to Zaragoza, and the senior missionaries in Xalapa (Elder and Hermana Day) would drive to Zaragoza at 6:00am then drive through the morning to immigration, give us the passport before immigration closes and head back home. Immigration is only open from 10-12 so we had to do this quickly, but that is what we decided would be best. After a very stressful night's sleep we had breakfast with a senior couple serving at the temple, then headed over to immigration, we waited around for about 30 minutes, and at 10:30 the Days showed up with my passport! After a few hours of waiting in line and trying to decipher this new form of Spanish I was hearing, I popped out at 3:40 with my very own green card! We thanked our church guide, ate tacos de cabeza, went to the American mall next door then finally headed home. It was a very interesting trip to say the least, moral of the story: If you're going to immigration to get a green card, please remember the only piece of identification that holds weight there!

Fat cat outside a member's house

That's about all this week, we went to a Paw Patrol themed birthday party, ate a lot of tacos (which is unusual for us due to our crippling fear of falling ill) let a lot of people go, and had two people say they were ready to covenant with their Father and take upon them the name of Christ. Overall a pretty good week! Also my family is currently at Disney, and I would like them to know that no matter how hard they try to have fun without me, I will never be trunky! hahaha! (But I hope y'all are having a wonderful time!!)

A sliver lining for anyone looking for one this week

I love you all very much and I hope you have a wonderful week, until next time!

-Elder Juan "Chuy" Garnica