Hola,
Life is going pretty good. Had the worst day of my mission though yesterday. Elder Horton and I have been working our butts of and doing everything we can to get people to church, but only 1 person showed up again. We seriously called like 10 people, stopped by like 7 houses, and nobody would wake up. So lame cus we seriously do everything possible and they choose not to do anything about what we teach. I guess they cant wake up for 9 oclock church. It mostly frustrating cus the other Elders in our ward had 8 people at church! Im happy for them but it makes me feel like Im not doing good enough when I know I am. We are meeting all of our goals, working our butts off, but I guess we just aren't finding the prepared people. I think Ill get over it tho haha.
Anyway we had a huge storm last week. After I wrote my emails, we went to Walmart and it was kinda cloudy. We go home and change our clothes, cus we are gonna go to Harlingen, which is the bigget city I guess, where the stake center is. So we change and it starts POURING! It was so crazy. We ran out to the car and were totally drenched in like 5 seconds! I'm not even joking we couldnt even see out the windshield for most of the 25 minute trip. It was fun tho, and we made it to Harlingen safely haha. Once we were there we were kickin it with a bunch of missionaries in the area, playin some basketball, and volleyball and just having fun. It was really crazy how fast the storm came in tho. Gotta love Texas haha.
So my basic schedule is this: Wake up at 630, work out till 7, shower, eat, write some letters, start personal study at 8, comp study at 9 and then language study from 10-11. Then we start workin from 11 till about 2 or 3, we have lunch for an hour, which usually includes a nap, or some letter writing, then we work till 9, usually 930 and plan from either 9-930 or 930-940 haha. Then I eat, screw around, and go to sleep. It usually goes by really fast and is a lot of fun. Tuesdays we have District Meeting in Harlingen, with our district which is the 4 of us in Raymondville, and 4 sisters in a town by Harlingen. We have English Classes that we teach tuesday night at the church. Friday we have weekly planning from 11-230, which helps us out a lot. Then Sunday we have church from 9-12, and dinner at the Lopez home from 5-630. Monday is Pday, we still have our normal studies in the morning, then we go email right now, from like 1115-1215 or 1230. Then we go shopping at Walmart for about an hour, and after we usually clean and then either play some ball at the park, in Harlingen if we have enough miles on our car, or we sleep. We have that time till 6 and then its back to work, but we have dinner with the Barreras at 7 usually. So basicly thats our schedule.
I have enough money to survive. I spent about 25-30 bucks a week. We go to bed at 1030 (usually 11) every night. I guess its enough sleep haha. The library is really close, like 2 miles. Raymondville is tiny haha. Walmart only a couple miles away too. There arent really very many other stores. Theres a Stars, which is basicly the same as Sonic, and a Whataburger or something like that. Theres a McDonalds kinda by the Walmart. And we have a H.E.B. which is kinda like Ralphs I guess. Other than that theres just random shops and stuff. Our church building is TINY! the chapel holds like 50-60 people. There are like 5 classrooms and 2 offices for Presidente and the clerk. Its so funny Presidente Ramos just calls on people to pray while hes conducting. Hes like the first oracion (prayer) will be...hmmm....Hermana Lopez. Haha he totally just picks them randomly. Hes only been a member for 2 years so hes figuring it out slowly. His Tex Mex is so bad. He tells stories and says one sentance in English, then one in Spanish. Gotta love it tho, makes me laugh. I havnt been asked to play the piano, my comp plays. I can still play a little bit tho. If I had time to practice I could pick it back up fairly easily.
So did you get my pics? I dont need you to print any of them cus I do it at Walmart. Dad could you email a couple good ones to Dylan for me tho. Gracias. Got letters from the Grandparents this week which was nice.
Oh yea mom, for Breakfast I eat cereal every morning, and twice a week I have cinnamon roles that I buy from Walmart. 8 for myself haha. Lunch I either have MacNCheese, usually a Turkey Sandwhich, or a Quesodilla. The tortillas here are so bomb. Dinner is usually about the same. Ive learned to eat tortillas with everything tho at meals at members houses. Basicly you mix everything together and scoop it with the tortilla haha. It isnt too bad. I actually kinda like rice now. Still cant stand beans!
So we met this crazy lady who is really cool. Basicly shes been with the same guy for 12 years, they arent married, and he does some job and she wont see him for a month. Shes met with the missionaries a lot and sees that we help her life but shes never been baptized. So she basicly told us her whole life story the 2nd time we talked with her. Not even gonna go into that. Her husband is cheating on her through MySpace and her kids are terrible. The oldest is 13 and wants to be gangsta and life all the other thugz in Raymondville. We talked to him about gangs and why smoking weed is bad. Then there is this other girl who is always at there house who is 13, her life is Hell. Her dads in prison, her mom basicly sold her for drugs. Now she lives with her grandma, and hates her grandma and tries to hurt her cus she hates her life. She wants to die, and has tried to commit suicide. She is an extremely cute girl for how young she is and I guess some pastor or priest or something did some terrible stuff to her so now she doesnt believe in God. So we are really trying to work with her and make her life happier cus I feel terrible for her. Thats part of the reason why I felt like crap yesterday. By the Way they told us all this the 2nd time we talked to them. People really trust missionaries I guess. So we're trying to help these people as much as we can. Its really pretty sad tho. Ill let you know how it progresses.
On a happy note, note tho we did have a cool experience. It was Friday, we didnt have a lot of time to work with, so we had to pick between driving out to La Sara, which is like 10 miles away, and we barely had any miles to spare, or to stay in Raymondville. We didnt know if we would even get to talk to the person we were looking for in La Sara so that was our issue. So we were really confused, not knowing what to do, so we decided to pray. Both of us felt like we should go try to find Joe in La Sara. So we did and sure enough. He was there! It was a really cool experience.
For Halloween we just kicked it in Harlingen for the night with all the missionaries, from like 6-9. It was a lot of fun and I had Ice Cream for the first time in almost a month haha.
Alright well I think thats all Ive got to say. Hope everyone is doing well. Tell Tyler to write me. Love you all.
-Elder Given
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