Greenie Week

I finally made it to Xalapa!

I'm in a tiny pueblo called Tlapacoyan, (about 3 hours from Xalapa) and if you look it up its basically in the middle of a jungle.  The cash crop here is bananas so you see a banana tree pretty much everywhere you go.  Mexico is definitely a trip, sometimes I think I might have gotten a little culture shock but that's ok.

My companion/trainer is Elder Lopez and he's from Monterey, Mexico.  He's been out for 21 months and leaves home basically after I'm done training.  He doesn't speak hardly any English and yeah it's sometimes difficult to communicate.  Hahahahah.  But I learn a lot of Spanish cada dia (every day).  I thought I had a good handle on the language, but I didn't calculate on all the slang that Mexicans speak. Lulz.  It's like learning a 3rd language!  So I speak super proper and sometimes they don't understand me, but it's no biggie.

The work here is hard, there's only one ward in the whole town and it's suffering.  They have so many inactive members and our goal this week is to invite every one of them back to church.  The closest town to us is Martinez de la Torre and its about 40 miles away.  Our area is the whole town and it used to be covered by 3 sets of missionaries.  Now it's just me and my companion. Hahahah. I guess the last sets of missionaries lost the trust of the ward, so they took them out and put us in.  So another goal of ours is to gain the trust of the ward back.  The closest town to us is Martinez de la Torre and it's away, so it's us against the world.  I actually thought I was the only gringo (white person) for miles, but then I saw one on Sunday.  It was quite a relief.  Because we're basically covering 3 areas we walk a lot!  I am getting in shape. Hahah.  We also have more investigators than all the other missionaries combined.  We're working muy duro! (very hard.)

This week was actually kind of rough, I got super homesick and it stunk.  The first couple of days all I could think about was home, and it was really distracting.  But as I started working and filling all my time in the Lord's field I didn't have time to think about home, which is good.  There is great news however; we had a baptism on Saturday!! Yayayaya my first baptism!  His name is Orlando and he's a tiny little fella.  Only 9 years old and a rascal but he's super funny. (Yah I'm the whitest person ever.)  (The picture he sent didn't come through. I assume it is of him and his new friend. When he sends it,  I will try to update this post.)

I love you all so much and miss you a ton!  Thank you for your prayers and love!  I want you to know that this work is hard, but the Lord is on our side and always helping us.  I see his hand at work everyday!  I can't wait to call you guys this Sunday!

Until then,

Elder Murphy