Wherein Maelynn Drinks Coca!

February 27, 2017

Hey, happy birthday to me, I'm 2 months old today!!

     Ok so this last week was a little bit nuts.  So every Monday, we travel about an hour to Cuernavaca for reunion de distrito, and then we spend the night because it's late, and then come back on Tuesday.  So we kind of lose our mornings because of traveling, which sucks, but it's all good, just a little bit later start.  

     Then on Wednesday this week, we went out to Santiago, about 1/2 hour in a combi (which is a van like ours, but the seats are just around the inside, and you pile as many people as you can into it, like 20ish) to visit our friend Jeremiah. 

     Let me tell you about Jeremiah. First of all, he's American (yep, we got to teach in ENGLISH!!) He grew up in Cali, his parents were Jewish. The missionaries found him, he was baptized when he was 17, served a mission in Wisconsin when he was 19. Went to BYU, then he got really sick with depression.  He got accepted to a school in Baltimore, so when he moved back east, he told his bishop in Utah that he was going to take a break from the Church for a while (this was like 10 years after he was baptized) he got into drinking and who knows what else, he got on a bunch of medication for his depression, and at one point he had a doctor tell him that to get better he needed to travel (idk, weird) so he literally just bought a plane ticket to somewhere in South America and left, and got really into like plant medicine and meditation and stuff like that, basically he's just been traveling for the last 6ish years, and has lived in over 100 different places! He's been living in Tepoztlan in a meditation/yoga house for the last 2 months and is moving to Peru this week to go learn about Jungle medicine.  So basically he's a total hippy now!  It was just really sad to hear him talk about the church, because he talks really highly of his mission, he loved it and he told us multiple times how lucky we are to have this opportunity, but he talks about the church as a life raft that got thrown to him when he needed help (which is good) and how it helped him keep his head above water just long enough for him to get his footing (which first of all, he does not have his footing, and second of all, the church does not keep you afloat "just long enough" it is the ONLY thing that can keep us from drowning in this life, and not only does it keep our heads above water, but we can walk on the water, but its not a temporary thing, its something that we need to seguir adelante (press forward) and it will ALWAYS be there for us!)  Anyways, as we were leaving, he asked if we had any english Book of Mormons, so we got a hold of a couple and we're going to take them to him tomorrow!

Then Thursday, we had our first English class!  We decided to have English classes to get more investigators because one day we were contacting and this young mom wasn't very interested, but then she asked if we spoke English and we were like, well yeah... and then all of a sudden she was really interested! So our first class was this week, and that same investigator was the only one to show up, but you know what, it was good, and next week there will be more people! Actually its really hard to teach English...I've just always spoken it, I don't know where to even start!

Then Friday it was back to Cuernavaca for divisiones with our STLs. Which was less stressful than I thought it would be, but it made me even more grateful to be in Tepoztlan and not the big city.

CARNAVAL

It's carnaval this week in Tepoz, which means LOTS of people, LOTS of beer, and LOTS of noise.  It started friday (but people started setting up on wednesday) and it goes til wednesday. Basically picture the fair on the busiest day, and multiply that by about a hundred, and ...it's not actually really like the fair at all.  Basically the streets are all full of booths selling clothes or trinkets or food. Most of the food places are exactly the same, some ladies making tortillas and you can get quesadillas or tacos or whatever you want. basically Mexico just lives off of tortillas. and EVERYONE is walking around with their beer with chili dripping off the rim. EVERYONE! 

Saturday night, was hard to sleep because they had fireworks going off all night and a marching band playing the same song over and over and over for hours. it was literally all night, still going when we woke up. 

Sunday we took a taxi to church with a member because we were scared to walk through the streets with all the drunks.  All was well.  We teach gospel principles every week to about 3 people: 2 of our investigators and a recent convert.

Let me tell you about these 2 investigators of ours!

Their names are Teresa y Merche Mendoza Romero, and they are the most prepared people I've ever met!  They've been taking the lessons since October, and they should have been baptized a long time ago, but they can't because they're not married.  (They both have to get divorced first, which is apparently a really difficult process, ay ay ay.) ...but they have stronger testimonies than many of the members that I know. haha  We were finishing a lesson the other day, and my comp was bearing testimony about it saying that she knew that this was true, and Merche was like "yeah me too" and went on for like 10 minutes of his own testimony :)  It actually made us late to a meeting, but it was awesome! BUT they have an 11 year old son, named Fernando, and since he doesn't have to wait for the divorces to go through, he's getting baptized on March 11! (the same day that Landen is going through the temple! Its going to be a special day!)   I'm super pumped for this family, and I just cant wait for them to be able to go to the temple together!!

Ok hopefully that's all for this week, because that was really long!

But I send love from Tepoz, and I can feel your prayers and love!

Talk to you next week!

love,

 Hermana Bailey

Wherein Maelynn Eats Corn!

February 20, 2017

OK... first off, dad, I need exercises to do to keep my knees healthy, because we walk up and down mountains every day, and my knees hurt occasionally and apparently its a problem in the mission, one of the hermanas in our district almost had to go home for knee problems, and I really don't want that to happen!

Secondly,  we don't have a piano at our "church" so we sing with a cd, and we just ignore the fact that the cd is even playing. and when we sing at district/zone meeting it's acapella and it's legitimately AWFUL! like I just have to stop singing so that I don't break out laughing! it's really bad, and really funny!

So we met a family this week, IDK why no one told us about it, but they've been meeting with the missionaries for a while and have all the lessons and all their attendances (your investigators have to go to church 5 times before they can be baptized here) and their testimonies are super awesome! BUT, they were both married before and have been living together for like 7 years and aren't divorced. Ugh. so we're working on getting them divorced so that they can get married and baptized and sealed next year! but they have an 11-year-old son that will be getting baptized in the next couple of weeks!!! 

I didn't eat anything too crazy this week. Here is us with some Nacho corn!

We've just been doing a lot of contacting and if you can tell from my pictures, I'm still keeping up my talent of sharing other people's clothes :)

Ok so one of my companions' friends had this on his mission and so we tried it this week, and then we had it again because it's really so good!

and you all need to try it! 

(dad for one of these days that you just feel like getting everyone in the kitchen to try something new)

step one: make a Pb and J

step two: make pancake batter

step three: dip the sandwich in the pancake batter

step four: cook it like a pancake/ french toast/ grilled cheese. Just cook it

step five: eat the delicious creation

optional, but suggested: eat while warm and dip in syrup

Seriously guys...life changing!

So we have a cool little pyramid in Tepoztlan! which means I got to go hiking!! I love hiking! and almost our whole zone came and hiked with us today!  A less active member family owns a t-shirt place, so she made these for us super cheap. and we're totally going to reactivate them I just know it!

That's so fun to hear about Sadie and Seth! It's surprising how much I miss dance, I didn't think I would, but I really do! Also, we're only allowed to listen to hymns, and sometimes I find myself dancing around our little house to the hymns. Haha I'm

glad to hear that Rocky is still the same! I'm sure it will still be the same next time I get to watch it too, pero quien sabe?

I feel the power of everyone's prayers every day. its really an amazing feeling that I don't know how to describe, but its just another testimony to me of the truthfulness of this church!

Love, Maelynn

Wherein Maelynn Moves into her 1st house in Tepoztlan

February 13, 2017

First a couple things I forgot to tell you from the ccm:

I found an hermana named Jessica Dennert from Idaho Falls, she went to skyline and so she knows all of my Cedar Badge friends, also yes she is cousins with the Dennerts that we know, crazy small world! Also in one of our last devos, the ccm pres TOTALLY quoted Rocky, the part dad always does about, "it doesn't matter how hard you can hit...." and he did the Rocky voice too, way reminded me of dad!  

Me and Hna Torgesen as leaders at the CCM

(these are back from the ccm, while me and mama torg were sister training leaders we had 17 girls in our zone! basically unheard of, and ALL of them were going state side!)

1 week down in the field. I have an american companion from Utah, or as everyone here calls it, the factory. Her name is Hermana Shook, she's been out for 6 months, and we're opening an area together, so lots to learn together, but so far its just been a grand adventure! 

     Our area is called Tepoztlan, its about and hour and a half south of Mexico City and its very touristy.  Also, there are SOOO many hippies here! They are so fun! dread locks down to the floor, yoga/meditation houses all over the place, and when you talk to them they just say stuff like "i used to be religious, but now God's free and i'm free!" and you're just like, okaaaayy, have a nice day!

     But it is super pretty here with mountains and the weather is super nice, a little cool in the mornings, my comp thinks that its freezing but it really just feels nice. also every one here makes tortillas, everyone! I actually got to make a couple last week, much harder that they make it look! also there are these ice cream stores everywhere called Tepoznieve, and they're soo soo soo good! They literally have tons of the weirdest flavors, 84 different flavors, and I'm not exaggerating at all. 

      We sleep under bug nets because there are spiders ALL over our house, also we found a lizard, and several scorpions in our house. yippee.

    

    Other things about the food here: they have lots of different kinds of "aguas" like agua de piña, agua de coco, agua de fresa, basically agua of anything you can think of, and they're delicious! We've also tried some street churros and quesadillas, and they're delicious.  oh and the other night me and my comp made our own agua de piña (and it was actually pretty good, and ridiculously easy (literally just pineapple water and sugar) you should try it!) ... And no bake cookies, but our stove doesn't work, so we made them in the microwave, if that isn't skill, i don't know what is :) 

but there are some things that i don't like...

      Let me tell you about chicharon. oh chicharon. so, it's pig skin. yeah. and they eat it in 2 different ways, one way is kind of dry and crunchy like chips kind of, and like that it just tastes like crispy bacon grease, not good but i can handle it. the other way they eat it is in salsa. Ok, this is not just not good, its really bad.  It is literally huge chunks of soggy fat soaking in a soup, I had it with more of the cactus and beans. and it actually made me really sick. the next day we had zone training in Cuernavaca, and we almost didn't go because I was feeling so awful! let's just say chicharon is not something that I would ever suggest to anyone.

      Something cool that our mission does is something called actividad de rescate, which is where everyone in a district goes to one specific area for a day to visit lots of menos activos and just to a bunch of contacting and they go to each area once every 6 weeks. so this week it was in our area, so our whole district came, and we had a few members help us and we just all went out and visited people and contacted a ton! it was awesome and now we have a ton of references to visit this week! 

oh a weird habit of some Mexican people that my companion picked up is plucking her leg hairs. How weird is that!?  Who knows, maybe ill start doing in too, but right now i just think its super super weird!

So we have found a way to take warm showers!!! we have this nifty little metal coil that you put in a bucket of water and plug into the wall (if that isn't the safest thing you've ever heard of) and it heats the water.  Then to shower, you just use a cup to pour it on you.  Not the nicest showers I've ever taken, but the waters warm! :) 

Ok, church...

first of all, our little 'casa de oracion' is literally about a 25 minute walk from our casa and up a huge hill!  So at 9 on Sunday there were literally 4 people at the church. Sacrament didn't start until about 915 and by then there were about 30 people there.  Also we found out Saturday night that we will be speaking every second Sunday, which just so happened to be this week.   Luckily this week just my comp had to, not me.  But also, we went and sat down in the gospel principles class, and everyone was looking at us kind of weird, and finally someone told us that we were supposed to be teaching! Wow ok, so my comp winged a lesson because I don't really know Spanish still. so we will be teaching every week and speaking once a month. cool beans. 

dude, church was so weird and just way different than what I'm used to! 

Also, on the weekends, this place is crazy! Since its touristy, the entire main street is just like a giant farmers market. not really, but I don't really know what else to compare it to.  It's super fun and actually really distracting!  Too bad p days aren't on Saturday. 

 The language is hard, the food is sometimes questionable, our living conditions are not exactly desirable, but the work is absolutely wonderful and I'm so happy to be out here learning and serving!

love you and miss you all lots and lots

love from Mexico, 

Hermana Bailey

And here is our little house:

My lovely little laundry room (I just did my laundry this morning here and I don't know how clean my clothes are, but I feel quite accomplished!)

Wherein Maelynn leaves the MTC

Feb. 1, 2017

Si solo español. and its actually semana seis! I'm really excited but also really scared!  We leave Monday morning and we luckily don't have to fly so we don't have to worry about weighing our bags which is a huge blessing because we got like 20 pounds of books here!

Nothing really exciting happened this week except for the temple which is the highlight of the 

last 6 weeks! oh and also i forgot to tell you guys that i got strep last week but no biggy, just 

took like 1000mg tabs of amoxicilliin and were all good! :) We got our travel plans and me and 

my comp and 8 other missionaries going to Cuernavaca ( 4 americans and 6 latinos) leave at 

5:30 Monday morning and drive to the airport, BUT were not flying thank goodness! then we get

 on a bus from the airport and enjoy a couple of hours of driving together and then i have no 

idea what happens after that but its a bit terrifying because i still don't know any Spanish!  I've

 been more frustrated this week than any other week with Spanish because i feel like i should

 know a lot more that i do after being here for 6 weeks, but anytime a latino talks to me i have to 

ask them to repeat themselves and even then sometimes i don't understand. aye aye aye.

 Spanish is muy difícil! 

typical selfie for ya. 

we tied these ties ourselves! you should be so proud!

please keep sending lots of pics! they make me so happy!

February 6th, 2017:

We left the ccm at 530 this morning and drive to the airport and caught a bus to Cuernavaca! It feels so good to finally be here! it already feels like home! I love it! I don't know who my new companion is yet or what area i will be serving or when my p days are or how to speak Spanish or yeah basically i know nothing, but i am really really really happy to be here and I'm really excited to keep learning! I'm alive and smiling and well fed so I don't really know what else I could ask for :) 

love you guys mucho,

love Hermana Bailey

[Also i was very very very excited to hear about Landen's mission call. I cried for the first time since I've been gone, other that when i got priesthood blessings. happy tears :) ]