Let's get busy!

Elders Pena, O'Brien and Santiago

Hey Fam!


Well everything is going great! I have been really busy! I had the hardest time understanding anything when I first got here because both my companions are Mexican. Their names are Elder Santiago and Elder Pena. They use a lot of the words I know but they just speak so fast I couldn't catch a word of it! It's still hard to completely understand them but I am getting a lot better! Though I do ask 创 Que significa创 and 创como se dice创 a lot. Those mean 创what does....mean创 and 创how do you say创. By the end we are always able to get the message across though.

with Elder Jones from Gilbert, AZ

Well like I said I am on the outskirts of Guadalajara. It is a giant city! It's really pretty poor out here. Everyone lives in these tiny little houses and a ton of people just own little stores either connected to or just outside of their house. 

My first day of work we all went downtown and had an open house where we had a little cut of the Christus in a tent then a bunch of tables set up with posters on them with information about Christ and the church. I was a bit hesitant about contacting people but after the first couple times I was doing it by myself for the rest of the day. I actually taught the lesson part with the tables 3 times with an Elder from Arizona but I taught it by myself twice. That was pretty cool! I told the people it was only my second day in Mexico so be sure to ask me a lot of questions so they could understand. Hopefully I properly told them that or I might have confused them even more! haha. 

We have been eating really good. Twice we have gone to buffets where you can buy all you can eat tacos to the equivalent of about 8 U.S. dollars. The tacos are WAY good too. Quite the deal! In one of my pictures I sent it just looks like a bunch of tin houses but we were actually at the top of what is pretty much a four story flea market. I am not kidding when I say you can buy anything there! Deifinitely a place where you keep a good hold on your wallet though! 

The Flea Market

There is a lot of graffiti everywhere! That was a surprise. I mean if there is a wall without graffiti it is a surprise! They take good care of the churches though! Have nice tall fences with locks so that no one can get in haha. 

Well we are hoping to baptize two young girls this week. Marta and Alexa. We are just trying to convince their mother to sign a permission slip that will allow it. She is inactive and feels her daughters aren't ready. We also got a referral this week to a woman and her family and we are going to ask them to get baptized either tonight or tomorrow for a couple weeks away! They are so ready so I am really excited to ask them!

My first day here we just went to the offices and stayed the night. We went on splits for a little while and I understood about 2 sentences of the entire time we were there! That scared me a little bit but the spanish is definitely coming quick! Learned a ton this week! 

The next morning is when we had breakfast and orientation with President Jesperson and his wife. They were great!  After breakfast and orientation we had lunch and got to meet our companions. Since then we have just been working hard to do as much as we can.

Funny story....we had dinner with the stake President and his wife on Sunday and it was great but we had beets......and we all know my childhood experience with dad and beets. I am not kidding when I literally spent a hour trying to properly proportion my intake of the other food to beets. No joke when the childhood experience with beets almost occurred again. I thought I was gonna throw up for sure! Those things are nasty!! Don't worry though I stayed strong!!

Well that should keep you entertained for a while haha. That's a very brief overview of my first week here in Mexico! Look forward to hearing from you!

Love ya!

Elder O'Brien