No ATM card yet, freight trains in the middle of the night. 4245 blog hits

This is a picture of a sticker everyone puts on their door that says: "This home is catholic, forgive us brethren. We can’t listen to Jehovah Witness, Mormons or missionaries from other congregations that aren’t Catholic. Let god be your companion, we live the faith that our fathers left us."

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Hey Mom and pops,

Things here are going ok. My comp and I are working like crazy because we don’t have too many investigators right now. Celaya is ok, it’s not a very beautiful/nice place to live but to say the least it is interesting. There is a big freight train depot in the middle of Celaya, and when the freight trains pass through my area the people find a way to stop it, open the freight cars and basically loot or rob all they can as fast as they can. It’s absolutely unreal seeing people grabbing things and running.

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Elder Richards is doing well. He has about 3 1/2 weeks here in Mexico. We should have 1 baptism at the end of this week. Right now we are working on getting 2 people married, but as of right now they don’t seem too excited about getting married and baptized, we will see what happens.

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I am having fun being a ZL, although it is a lot of stress. If my zone does well and baptizes a lot, Elder Holt and I receive A LOT of the credit but at the same time if we don’t do well and don’t baptize, we receive ALL the blame! So it’s a lot of pressure. But I enjoy being involved with my companions and helping them out.
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That’s really awesome to hear that someone (Mike and Candy Young) in the ward is from Penjamo, Guanajuato. I will definitely pass that reference on to the corresponding elders. Penjamo is a little town that was actually part of my first area in Irapuato.

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**Thanks to Sue Clark for sending me the referral information!!

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Anyways, things are ok here except for the fact I STILL don’t have my ATM card. I called my old comp Elder Whittle last night and he said that it is still not there. So please, please, please, pay to have it overnighted or something because its hard not having money and I need shoes, I feel bad for constantly borrowing from my comps (even though they understand my situation). This time send it to the mission offices please. As for a package, I am doing well, whatever you decide to send me will be fine. I do need Tylenol but I can probably buy that here for even cheaper.

Love ya!

I will now answer your questions!

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1. Tell us about Celaya?

------It is known for being a big candy producing city. Especially this type of candy called Cajeta. It’s basically caramel but it’s really good. Celaya is also known for its high crime rate. Lots of poor people and lots of drugs here. Since I have been here I have seen about 5 police raids with the Federal Police here. Interesting to watch but scary to know that I probably knock the doors of drug dealers everyday.

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2. How is your new ward, big or small?

------It’s a good size ward, we normally average 100,110 in assistance, which is average to above average here. There are a lot of Priesthood holders in the ward, which is a good thing. Our building is the stake center so it’s bigger than most buildings. When I lived with my zone leader Elder Dalton in San Luis he was actually in the exact same ward I am in now before coming to SLP. So he showed me pictures of a lot of his converts and members he was friends with. So it was funny going to church because I have already seen and heard of some of the members there.

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3. Tell us about your new Bishop?

------I actually don’t know him too well yet, but he seems nice. He’s older than most of the bishops I have had. He’s probably 45-50. But he served a mission and everything. I heard he’s really good

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4. How is your new apartment, size, cost, location?

------We live in a two story house because there are 4 of us in one house. It is 2 bedroom 1 bathroom (rough!) it is pretty nice. Rent is about 2000 pesos ($200) a month. It’s an ok house. We live in a pretty nice neighborhood. Which is nice because we don’t have to worry about people breaking in. The only bad thing is that we live about 10 houses from the freight train depot. So we hear trains all night.

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5. Does the ward help in the missionary work with splits, referrals?

------They do. When we push them for referrals they usually give us the names of their friends, etc. As for splits. I’m not too sure because I still don’t know the members too well yet, but they all seem nice enough to help us out.