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!)