Super Hard Week

Happy P-Day! 

This has been a super hard week. General Conference made it a lot better though!

Everyone here was gone for vacation all week because of Semana Santa and Easter and all of that. No one really wanted to hear from the missionaries this week, so it was tough. We did a lot of walking in the hot Oaxacan sun with not very many lessons. 

Going to the temple was an interesting experience with all of it being in Spanish. I got through it though and it was a special experience. Later this week we found out that our water in our house was cut off. It made a tough week even harder. We couldn't shower or use the bathroom in our house for a couple days so we had to wake up early and go to the Elder´s house closest to us to shower. They had a nice shower with hot water though so I didn't mind it :) It was the first time I didn't shower with a bucket here in Oaxaca.

We just bought some water this morning and filled this well in the back of our house, outside. Yesterday we were using a bucket and a rope to get a little bit of water out of the well because there was some at the very bottom. But when Elder Erikson was pulling up some water the rope broke and the bucket fell to the bottom. We had to get that bucket out, so Elder Erickson held my ankles and lowered me down so I could retrieve the bucket. It wasn't a very deep well at all but if he dropped me, it wouldn't have felt good. 

Conference was a life saver after this week. It was nice just to have a break and watch Conference all day Saturday and Sunday. There were so many super good talks. I loved the theme of families that many of the speakers spoke of. Elder Holland was like always so great too. I loved his story of the two brothers rock climbing. The Lord will always be there to catch us even when we think we have no hope. I have definitely felt pretty alone and helpless at times here, but I know that the Lord has been walking every step with me while I have been here.

Even though the work is hard here, Oaxaca is truly an adventure. A lot of people here wear t-shirts with english on them and they the people here usually dont know what there shirts say. This leads to some funny moments. Last week, we were at the big super market here and we saw a 60 year old woman with a pink shirt on. The shirt said in big sparkley letters "Class Flirt". Elder Erickson and I tried to compose ourselves the best we could. Its funny how they have no idea...haha. We teach and come across a lot of people that tell us about their families who are in the US illegally or just left to try and cross the border up north. It's definitely strange to be talking with them and saying we'll be praying for their families. One woman said she was just told that her brother was captured by Border Control and being held in some prison all week. 

Today for P-Day we went to a site where they filmed part of the movie "Nacho Libre". It was the cliffs where Nacho climed to get to the Eagle Nest for anybody who has seen it. I posted pictures of it on dropbox. And then we also went to the Baseball stadium here to buy a Oaxaca Guerreros(Warriors) hat! I also posted a picture of me with it. We want to convince President to let us go to a game sometime but I doubt that will happen haha. Pretty soon in the next few weeks we´re going to some of the ruins here. Monte Alban and Mitla are the two ruins near the city.

I hope you all had an amazing spring break and Easter weekend! Love You!!!

 -Elder Smith