I am in Mexico City South in the Contreras area. My area is so dope. It is on the side of the mountains. Everyone here is very poor and living in houses made of concrete and metal sheeting. The people here are the nicest people I’ve ever met.
The food is great except when it’s not. Chicharrón is not great, it’s essentially the fat of a pig, not to be mistaken for chancho which is fat pig. And they love this thing called mole. It’s literally every pepper they can find all mixed into one salsa. It is a dark, scary brown and it haunts my dreams. We have a semi-working toilet and a sometimes-working shower and sometimes we shower with buckets.
My companion is from Monterey, Mexico and is way funny and all the people here love him. The buses here are nuts, everyone jumps on and there is so little room it’s insane. I’ve hung on the edge of the door with one hand and a foot haha, going 40 weaving through slow traffic hahah.
Wow, so on Saturday I went on exchanges with the zone leaders to their zone and they had an event where they gathered up a lot of clothes from the local ward (congregation). We organized and packed up the clothes, then we went to this small group of houses called the Colonia de Fam Juarez. It was an community of about 25-35 people living in real poverty. We went there and started handing out the clothes with some of the members who lived nearby. The people were so grateful. Then, we started handing out Book of Mormons and they all grabbed one and started heading back to their houses. As they were leaving, me and Elder May (my zone leader) stood on this stone pillar and started testifying of the truth of the Book of Mormon. There were about 5 people at first who were by us, but we kept going and people kept gathering around us more and more until all 30 or so people were back out listening to us. Then I said ¨I don’t know much Spanish, but I know this book is true and I know it can help you in your lives as it has helped me in mine”, all in broken Spanish. I said a bit more but idk what I said hahaha. I was just speaking. But we got most of their names and Elder May and his comp are teaching them all now. They also all came to church. It was an amazing experience.
Sunday was pretty rough at first we traveled back to our area for church then back to another area for food, then back to our house. We spent most the day on buses and we finally got to our house around 5:00 in the afternoon. I was so exhausted. Then, we had an appointment fall through after we walked to their house, so we were pretty bummed. We started walking back and we saw a person that had been to church twice but we had never taught him cause he was always busy. We walked him home and began to teach him a lesson about the Sabbath day. The entire lesson, I felt the strongest urge to talk about baptism. I was like “What the heck, we’re talking about Sundays and I barely know Spanish” but the feeling kept coming back, so I ended up relating Sabbath day to baptism a couple times like, “Why did God and Jesus rest on the 7th day? To show us an example…like he did when he was baptized.” Afterwards he stopped us and told us that he had a concern: How could he get baptized under water if he had a surgery that doesn’t allow him to get wet on his chest? I told him the Lord desired that he be baptized, so we’d find a way. Baptismal date: 6 de January. I love it!
To anyone who hasn’t read the Book of Mormon: read it. It is true and it is amazing!
Elder Turner
Wow, I love the way that Slade jumped right in. Even preaching from a soapbox like the early missionaries. He looks great, happy and committed. Sending blessings to the whole family for raising such a fine young man. As each week passes we will feel part of this mission to Mexico City through his letters.