Rollin' 2: How Lucky We All Are Living in the States

This week has gone by pretty fast!! To start off we dropped Jose Luis. He never came to any of the appointments that we had and all he really wanted was money! He knows where the chapel is and if he wants something he knows where to find us!

Christmas is definitely different here! It really doesn´t even feel like Christmas because it is like 75 degrees everyday! It is nice though not having to deal with the cold! We did get a Christmas present from President and Sister Stutznegger though and we got a heater because at nights it gets a little chilly! However, it really doesn´t feel much like Christmas!! Some people have Christmas trees some people don´t. They don´t really get as into it I guess! Part of it could be that people where I am at are really poor and so we were talking to some kids that Santa has never brought them anything for Christmas and it is really quite sad!! We got Javier(the cool twelve year old whose parents won´t let him get baptized) some cards and then we gave him a couple ties because he only has a clip on that he wears to church! It is crazy to see the poverty here and I just think about how lucky we all are living in the states! Nobody can really even understand the life that people have here!!

The donkey was just some guy we asked if we could take a picture with because we see donkeys on the street like four times a day haha so we just asked the guy if we could take a picture on his donkey and the guy was so excited because we told him we were going to send the pictures to our families and now he thinks that his donkey will be famous.

Let's see... we don´t really have any great stories to tell this week! We met a new investigator this week and she came to church so that is exciting!! Her name is Marienela and we go back and see her again tomorrow night! We only have two progressing investigators right now so that is kind of crappy but we are looking for more and more people every day! We did go to a Christmas party this week! They said be there at 7 because that is when it will start so we started at 8! That is one thing that is not good about the culture is nothing starts on time!! Haha, I am picking up a bad habit! Church usually starts at like 10:20. It is just a completely different culture down here!!

Nothing too exciting has gone on this week!! Just another week of the mission! We now have three Americans and one Dominican in our ward but I am still the baby!! I will be calling between 9 and 10 so that is what you guys should plan for!! I try to continue with the Spanish and it is going fine! I would say that I am still pretty far from native but thats okay I guess! Hopefully by about six months I will be fluent!

I enjoyed my package, thank you very much!! It was nice to have all the United States things!! Especially the oatmeal!! There isn´t any brown sugar yet that we have found! According to one of the members they do have it so we asked her to buy us some if it is true!

Also the word of the week is Dadiva. It means gift. This is funny because we have to teach all the Mexicans here this word anytime we talk about it.

I just got done and realized this is a crappy letter!! SO in other news me and Elder Lund are trying to teach ourselves the guitar!! We sound pretty good if you are to ask us!! We can play the song Reindeer´s are Better Than People from Frozen so that is pretty exciting!!

We are looking forward to having a good Christmas week and finding someone that we can teach so we can get some baptisms lined up!! I will talk to you guys on Thursday. Hopefully something exciting happens before then!

I love you,

Elder Orchard