Hi mother, well I cannot tell you how shocked I was to see the photos from your email. Its incredible I can honestly remember when Dakota was born, it is just incredible how big she is getting. I feel like the whole world is getting slowly flipped upside down while I have been out here. The longer I have been out here, the more I realize that so many of the things that I missed at the start of my mission, that seemed so important just no longer hold the value to me that they used to. I mean so often we put so much value on things like Television and other forms of entertainment that we so often fail to realize how much time we lose from those things in our lives. I was thinking about one of my favorite series when I was younger, it was 100 episodes long, each for a little less that a half hour. When added up, this means that I wasted literally two complete days of my life watching just this one show, not to mention all of the other things such as video games listening to music, etc. I used to think that those things made me happy, but I have just started to learn that those things aren't real, they're just in our heads, the things that truly matter, our families, our friends, people who are truly suffering deserve our attention. This is not to say I wont ever do anything that's fun again (that would be quite dull indeed) but I really have changed my priorities since being out here. I only mention that because as I saw all of those photos, I remembered all of the days when dad would take me to do drip castles in the sand, I don't remember most of all any video game or anything like that, but I remember the times when like you guys took me to the beach or to San Francisco, all of those moments which I didn't appreciate at the time, but now are my treasures.
It makes me happy to hear how you have involved so many people in ward activities, if I could only get people to be that involved in activities! I certainly have not developed your party planning abilities! Anyways, I only lack 2 more weeks here in Cosamaloapan, and I can honestly say that I love this place. It is so weird how nothing ever seems to change here, its like life is always the same, the weather changes, but it feels like back there everything is always different. I am with a newbie, and its really funny because he mentions so many things that have changed in the world that it has shocked me. By the way, if you guys would tell me whats going on with politics that would be super appreciated, I miss it, and the only thing I heard about was that Donald Trump hates Latinos (they flipped out about it)
Anyways, as far as the work goes, it keeps progressing. The highlight of the week was from Zone Conference, President is honestly making me feel stupid, he is way way smarter than me, and honestly has taught us how to teach so much faster and more efficiently. My companion and I then applied this in a lesson and it was great. We taught this woman who is a bit like a catholic version of a seminary teacher, and she really liked it, and wants to go to church. I am a little sad because we were hoping to finally complete with Mexico´s standard of baptize every week, but this next week the person who was going to get baptized was super sick and couldn't come to church, so there is the problem.
Something that seriously was powerful this week was a fast that my companion did. I asked President if because of the heat here, we could drink water when fasting, and he said basically no that isn't fasting then. (this is very different than the old president) my companion and I did a fast, and honestly it felt like for the whole day my body was on fire, I honestly could hardly stand it. We ended after planning and had like no food in the house and when our neighbors found out that we had done this all day, they cooked us up some fish and picadas (i will make some for you when I see you). In that moment a feeling of overwhelming gratitude came over me. I have gotten so accustomed to the sisters giving us to eat lunch everyday that it has become something expected. They take such good care of us, so I really hope to be more grateful for what they do in the weeks to come. Anyways, those are the most memorable moments, take care, love you!
Elder Standridge
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