Some major culture shock
Hola familia!
Hahaha there really must be a six week curse!! I'm so glad Kate survived! I've been worried about him! Sounds like it's been a pretty crazy week! For me too. Yikes, painting the walls and replacing the carpet?? Cam, I NEED to see your purple hair! Jarrad, I appreciate the reduction in my monthly fee. 6000 pesos is a little more reasonable with the air I'm wasting down here! And I want to hear every single detail of your dating life! Moana, good. Let me know how the theater goes! JJ, that's awesome! You have to send me pictures! Ez, "woman" in Spanish is mujer :)
As for my week, wow. I've been experiencing some major culture shock! I guess you're probably wondering where I am :) I'm in Tuxtla Aguilas! With my beautiful companion Hermana Marrero! About my comp, she's amazing! She's from Torreon, Mexico and her first name is Abish. She's the first missionary in her family and has two younger brothers. She's been in the mission for six months. She's from here in Mexico but speaks perfect English as well as Spanish! Which is super helpful for me when I don't understand something or know a word! She's probably the most positive person I've ever met! And she is so friendly, she has an incredible ability to connect with people. She's a one woman band, she could do this all without me, which she basically has been doing with my abilities... haha. And this is a new area! So she's opening an area and training at the same time! Because it's new we've been doing a lot of visiting members and recent converts and contacting, and just trying to understand the streets.
As for Tuxtla, I don't know if I can express how different it is! For starters it's super hot and super poor and super dirty! All in a good way ;) It's way humid, I don't know if I like heat anymore... all the houses are connected to each other. The pavement is super uneven! It's hard to walk down the street, and there's trash everywhere. And dogs! There's like as many dogs as people! And I don't think there are laws here. I really don't. On my first day Hermana George had all eight of us pile into her five seater car and that's how we rode to to mission home.
I thought my new name here would be "Hermana Larsen", but it's actually "Guera". White girl. We spent all morning washing our clothes, by hand. I have a new appreciation for washing machines! And our toilet flushes sometimes. I'm not so sure I'm 65% fluent anymore... sometimes I'm not sure I learned the right language... haha that's not true. But people speak soooo fast! I understand most of the words people say, but I can't keep up! It takes me a minute to translate, and by the time I figure out what the first half of their sentence meant I missed the last half and don't know what they're talking about anymore. I feel like I'm on a run with someone really in shape. They're always 100 ft. ahead of me. I can catch up to where they were, but once I get there they're 100 ft. ahead of me again. I didn't get anything from the Christmas devotional yesterday...
My feet have been swollen every day this week. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but I literally don't have ankles anymore. It's straight leg. And I'm getting eaten alive by something! I don't know what because there really aren't that many mosquitoes in my area, but I always have new bites when I come home! We also room with a very nice family of spiders and a not so nice family of ants. They're everywhere!
Thus far I've told people I'm a Jehova's Witness and I have 19 brothers. And this one family we visited has a really hard last name that starts with an A. They asked me to say the closing prayer and instead of their last name I accidentally said "Familia Apellido" Family Last Name... I had the right idea.
In simple terms, it's been a little bit of a rough week, but on the bright side it can only get better! Hope you guys have a wonderful week!
Les amo mucho much!
Hermana Larsen
Hahaha there really must be a six week curse!! I'm so glad Kate survived! I've been worried about him! Sounds like it's been a pretty crazy week! For me too. Yikes, painting the walls and replacing the carpet?? Cam, I NEED to see your purple hair! Jarrad, I appreciate the reduction in my monthly fee. 6000 pesos is a little more reasonable with the air I'm wasting down here! And I want to hear every single detail of your dating life! Moana, good. Let me know how the theater goes! JJ, that's awesome! You have to send me pictures! Ez, "woman" in Spanish is mujer :)
As for my week, wow. I've been experiencing some major culture shock! I guess you're probably wondering where I am :) I'm in Tuxtla Aguilas! With my beautiful companion Hermana Marrero! About my comp, she's amazing! She's from Torreon, Mexico and her first name is Abish. She's the first missionary in her family and has two younger brothers. She's been in the mission for six months. She's from here in Mexico but speaks perfect English as well as Spanish! Which is super helpful for me when I don't understand something or know a word! She's probably the most positive person I've ever met! And she is so friendly, she has an incredible ability to connect with people. She's a one woman band, she could do this all without me, which she basically has been doing with my abilities... haha. And this is a new area! So she's opening an area and training at the same time! Because it's new we've been doing a lot of visiting members and recent converts and contacting, and just trying to understand the streets.
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| Hermanas Larsen and Marrero |
As for Tuxtla, I don't know if I can express how different it is! For starters it's super hot and super poor and super dirty! All in a good way ;) It's way humid, I don't know if I like heat anymore... all the houses are connected to each other. The pavement is super uneven! It's hard to walk down the street, and there's trash everywhere. And dogs! There's like as many dogs as people! And I don't think there are laws here. I really don't. On my first day Hermana George had all eight of us pile into her five seater car and that's how we rode to to mission home.
I thought my new name here would be "Hermana Larsen", but it's actually "Guera". White girl. We spent all morning washing our clothes, by hand. I have a new appreciation for washing machines! And our toilet flushes sometimes. I'm not so sure I'm 65% fluent anymore... sometimes I'm not sure I learned the right language... haha that's not true. But people speak soooo fast! I understand most of the words people say, but I can't keep up! It takes me a minute to translate, and by the time I figure out what the first half of their sentence meant I missed the last half and don't know what they're talking about anymore. I feel like I'm on a run with someone really in shape. They're always 100 ft. ahead of me. I can catch up to where they were, but once I get there they're 100 ft. ahead of me again. I didn't get anything from the Christmas devotional yesterday...
My feet have been swollen every day this week. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but I literally don't have ankles anymore. It's straight leg. And I'm getting eaten alive by something! I don't know what because there really aren't that many mosquitoes in my area, but I always have new bites when I come home! We also room with a very nice family of spiders and a not so nice family of ants. They're everywhere!
Thus far I've told people I'm a Jehova's Witness and I have 19 brothers. And this one family we visited has a really hard last name that starts with an A. They asked me to say the closing prayer and instead of their last name I accidentally said "Familia Apellido" Family Last Name... I had the right idea.
In simple terms, it's been a little bit of a rough week, but on the bright side it can only get better! Hope you guys have a wonderful week!
Les amo mucho much!
Hermana Larsen
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| Companeras Nuevas |
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| President and Sister George with two new companions |
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| Hola, me llamo Hermana Larsen... |
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| Happy to be together |
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| Streets of Tuxtla |
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| A home at night |
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| Sunset |
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| Sunset from the rooftop |
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| Tour of apartment |
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| Look at those hangars... |
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| And this is where I hang my clothes to dry |
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| From the apartment |
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| Glorioso Cristo de Chiapas |
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| Swollen feet... I don't think there's anything we can do except stop walking! |
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