First week in Mexico!

Hola!

I love it here so far!! The weather is great. I'm already getting some awesome tan lines. The food is way good. And all the people are really nice :) We take bucket showers but we have a fancy tool to make it warm...so I feel pretty spoiled :) Happy Birthday little miss Kennedy!!! 9 today. Then Ryker and Madison this week too!!! And Miranda hits her year mark this week! How exciting! Congrats Madison on passing your drivers test!! Be safe. I can't believe your 16 already!! Stay away from boys. They are no good.. til after your mission :) Oh and congrats Alyssa on your mission call!!! You will love serving in a Visitors Center. The one here is gorgeous. My comp is a sister training leader so I was able to give tours for a couple hours this week while she was in a meeting. It was pretty sweet! You will love the mission!

Our birds

Our dog Waffles. He is really nice and always greets us and is sad when we leave. He looks and barks really intimidating so he's like our guard dog. :) Not like we need one tho. Our area is really safe.

My companion is Hermana Burrola. She is AWESOME!! She is very obedient and passionate about the gospel and missionary work. We work really hard together. Shes 23 and grew up in San Diego. She spoke Spanish in her home growing up so she speaks fluent already. She has only been out 3 months and in this area for 6 weeks before I came. It's a newer area so we have been working hard to find new investigators. There isn't very many Hermanas in my mission. I was surprised because there are SO many at the MTC going to Mexico but not many here so pretty much all the Hermanas that are training just finished their training. Our mission is only 12 miles by 6 miles but there are SO many people here. 30 million in the city. They describe it as being the size of Rhode Island with close to as many people as the whole state of California. We live in part of a inactive members house. They are really sweet and we go over and share read the Book of Mormon with them a few times a week. I sent lots of pictures of where we live and more MTC goodbyes.

Our room

My desk

My Stuff

Our kitchen

The rest of the apartment

Saying goodbye to Hermano Wright

Saying goodbye to Brother and Sister Parks They were in our branch presidency.  Some of the nicest people ever.

This is my district with the other district from our zone that was leaving to Mexico from the mtc.

We don't like to carry our cameras around just to be safe but I'll bring it out eventually and get some fun pictures :) My area is Bosques de Anaituac and the Bosques ward. There are 4 Elders assigned to our ward plus my comp and I. We all stay busy! The members here are awesome and the church is growing fast. This mission wasn't a tracting mission for the past while but they just gave us permission a couple weeks ago to start contacting on the streets again because we weren't getting enough references from members. Our area has several little store..small business things. We teach lots of the people who work there and have made lots of friends. Jorge is one of my favorites. He gives us free ice cream and is very open to the gospel too :)

Park across the street I run at.

I love the food here! They make way good fruit juices and the mangoes and bananas are SO good! We eat with members everyday around 2 or 3. Usually feed us chicken with rice and salsa and ALWAYS tortillas. Warm and sometimes homemade. They are SO good. We had spaghetti at one house that was way good. They put sour cream with it or something. They don't ever pressure us to eat lots and I haven't been fed anything weird or gross :) I eat everything and am not picky. Dad would be proud. My comp is actually a vegetarian so I'm not the picky one for once :) Some people here really don't have much at all and others seem pretty well off. The first house we ate at had concrete walls and floors. They were feeding all 6 missionaries in the ward. The pulled out a wood table and some plastic chairs and covered it with a Christmas table cloth. We had to be careful because the ground was uneven so the table would rock. I couldn't even keep track of how many people lived there. The little kids were all so sweet and were serving us the whole time. It's amazing to me that people who have so little will give so much.

The breakfast we had the first morning at President's house. Was way good!

The language is hard but its coming. It's been very very humbling. Tuesday evening when we went out to work I felt totally useless. I thought I had the language somewhat well in the MTC but I literally couldn't understand anything. But its already gotten so much better! Now Ive gotten to where I always know what's going on but can't pick up every word. I've learned that I can't do anything on my own. I have to be completely dependent on the Spirit to know where to go and what to say. It's really quite wise how Heavenly Father works. Sending me to a new place with a new language. I am constantly praying that I will be able to understand and that I will know what is going on and what to say. I love the people here. I've realized that you don't have to know what someone is saying to get to know them and feel their Spirit. I know it will come with time and am way grateful for the opportunity I have to learn to better submit to the Lord's will. Wish I could write more and tell you more about all of our awesome investigators but I'm out of time! 

I love it here and am learning LOTS!! Hope everything is going well at home.

Con Amor,

Hermana Rhoten 2