Elder Geoffrey Palmer: November 21st, 2011

O.k...well a little birdie seems to tell me that my family wants more details about my life and mission. So, I will do my best to write details and little nitpicky things to sound like me and not a weekly reporter. This first photo is with my new companion. And yes, those are two snakes that are my little buddies.

This is in the house of a family in the ward; the mom used to be the Mamita for many years for the Elders...but they just abolished that. However, we eat there on Mondays, and I like playing with their pet snakes. One is named Taquito.

The next photo is from a baptism a few weeks ago with Elder Dìaz. (Arlette and Yuleimi are being baptized).

Now with Elder Sanchez, we get along really well. He is really funny, speaks the best english out of all of the mexican missionaries I know, and maybe will go to BYU afterwards. We enjoy being companions, and it has been the smoothest transition going to being his companion: in teaching, talking, contacting, etc.

Um...honestly...we did get to this area with very few investigators (none with baptismal date). Im kind of used to it...getting to a new area, asking who do we have, and hearing about few people. It isn`t bad about Elder Sanchez...because they just baptized the investigators they had, but we are going to have to do lots of contacting. We tried all sorts of creative contacting ways (even to singing hymns on the doorstep...that was fun). We found one young man-Fernando-who has a family member who is a Mormon and Elder Sanchez knows him from Mexico D.F. He accepted a baptismal date, and we will see where that goes.

Our house is pretty good actually. It is the first time I have drawers or a closet to put my clothes in while in Mexico...score! Xochimilco is in the same District as Jardines, so I still am stomping on the ground of my last area a lot (district meetings, etc.). My companion is a district leader for the first time, and his first baptismal interview was Marcelo (the young man that I taught). Marcelo still isn`t ready for baptism. However, if yall remember Flor de Maria (the awesome lady who has attended church for 4 years and not been baptized), she will be baptized this saturday, and the President gave permission so that I can baptize her in the baptismal service this Saturday.

Chapter nine of Preach My Gospel is about how we can find people that are prepared. I am studying, and I think I will be restudying that Chapter this whole transfer.

The Church is good...the ward is small and a little too calm. We will do what we can to get the members excited and increase the attendance. It is really sad to see how many less actives there are in these areas. Some wards have like 60 people active, and like 400 inactive. However, there are a number of families here that were part of the pioneering in Tapachula, and they are very strong.

How else can I be detailed? Oh, there is a Chedraui in our area! It is the mexican walmart. So, that is crazy. Um...what else. Oh ya...in that third photo is a picture of the milk and water here. We have to drink water from a Garrafon (20 liter jug) because we can`t drink from the tap, and the milk comes in a box. I will miss a lot of Mexican food when I return one day, but I will not miss the boxed milk. It tastes funny.