Hola Padre y Madre,

Padrito, tu español esta bien, hay cosas que pues...si necessita trabajar pero sin embargo esta bien. Yo tengo que aprender muchas cosas, durante las dias aqui en mexico, cada dia hay palabras y personas que yo no entiendo. Translation ->("Father, your spanish is very good. There are things that I still need to work on but this is good nevertheless. I must learn many things, during the days here in Mexico. Every day there are words and people I do not understand. ") Hahaha, there's my spanish for ya. I really enjoyed both of your emails, I figured because I have 4 of your emails since last week (we must have barely missed each other) I would write one big one for the both of you. This past week, yeah we had the opportunity to baptize the family of 4 and another nice kid name jorge, he's 25 years old but a really good person.

As you may or may not know there is no temple in the state of Guanajuato, the closest temple is 2.5 hours away westward in the state of Guadalajara. Every other Saturday the stake here rents a Greyhound bus and all the members travel to the temple, they are really dedicated, its amazing. When I arrived here in Leon I was talking with the president and he told me he has 2 goals here. The 1st is to baptize 300 in one month (if we do this Elder Bednar promised to come to the Leon mission and speak to us) and the 2nd goal is to increase the number of members who pay an honest, consistent tithe so that they can have a temple here in this state. I told him that I would make his goals my goals and would do everything I could to see those two things happen. Last week I printed a couple photos of the Newport Temple and pasted them in my scriptures, seeing photos of all 3 of our temples really brings me closer to home.

Nathan wrote me an email a couple weeks ago and told me that Yosh was moving out, Yosh has been a friend of Nathan and Justin for almost 10 years, I think since Nathan was a sophomore. I think they will miss his presence. Imagine having a roommate that doesnt speak english, ahahah.

Congrats to Nathan for his job promotion, he lives in a land of opportunity. I have seen very few people with real success here, partly because its so hard to come by here. Well, things here have been OK. I am doing fine personally, but the work here is really tough, we started this transfer with 0 investigators so we spend our days knocking doors in the sun and contacting people in the street. It sounds crazy but we knock more or less 100 doors a day, and sometimes teach no more than 5 lessons a day. But on Friday we found 4 new investigators that are really solid, so we have some hope right now. I dont know if I have explained much about the city i'm in right now, Irapuato. But just to give you a quick description it's alot like east LA. Its very poor (which I knew and expected coming to Mexico). But as of lately I have realized somethings that make me unhappy with the people here (excluding the members). As missionaries of the restored Church of Jesus Christ we offer a message that truly improves the lives of every person we meet in every aspect, yet the people here just do not understand this. They only understand that their parents were catholic, also their grandparents, great grandparents etc., and that's why they are catholic and will not give us 5 minutes to share something with them. Also, here in Irapuato there are TONS of gangsters. The other day my comp and I saw 2 gangsters in the street with their pitbulls. Their pitbulls had chains around their necks and were dragging car tires, these cholos are training their dogs to fight. I have seen lots of things here... Its amazing the things going on here...

Well, to answer your questions dad...

1. We arent in the APT. that much... from 630am to 10am we get up, (I exercise, he sleeps), breakfast and study. And we come home at 9/930 to 1030 we plan for the next day and we sleep. But we talk alot in the street. We talk about everything, movies, family, investigators, things that are happening in the street. etc.

2. My spanish is pretty good, I feel pretty confident. When we knock a street my comp knocks on one side of the street and I knock on the other side, so I feel pretty good. Now and then when we are with members and they talk about things that aren't very common (cars, medical things, etc.) Its a little more difficult

3. P'day, we get up, study, go back to sleep a little bit (because we have nothing to do). We clean the apartment, wash clothes, write our families, and write letters to the president. At 5pm to 6pm we have a zone meeting with all the other missionaries in irapuato. After 6 we usually have an appointment with a member family, or investigators we are teaching, or have a family home evening with the members. It's a really relaxing day.

Well I gotta move on to the next email, thank you for writing me! It really picks me up during the week and gives me lots to think about when we are walking in the street (we walk ALOT). I hope you're enjoying the Olympics, my comp and I heard that there are about 600 american atheletes? Not positive...and we heard there are 86 Mexican atheletes. So I have been teasing him alot... =D.

Love ya!

Elder Salazar