Week 10 Letter Home

I have decided I will give you guys an updated about once a month.  That way I can give you highlights and my emails will seem more exciting.  Okay, I’ll start with last week was an awesome week although to kick off the week we went to our favorite members house for food. She made Sopes and I ate 10 which was about 5 too many. Basically for the rest of the week I felt the wrath of that mistake.  That said, we got two baptismal dates!  First two in the area in a while.  Our first is named Karen.  She is the daughter of one of the recent converts.  We visited her on Monday, talked about agency and the power of prayer.  We challenged her that night to pray and see if God wanted her to be baptized.  The next night she begrudgingly told us that she received an answer and we had to baptize her.  I am not sure what she was so mad about but we were pumped!  The other investigator is named Sabina.  She is a bit on the older side and has major health problems with the cold which makes it hard for her to go outside.  We committed her to baptism and told her we would wrap her in blankets and carry her to the chapel so she wouldn’t be too cold.  Now she has no excuse not to be baptized!

Got to give my first talk  this week in Sacrament meeting. I gave it on gratitude and it actually helped me a lot with my mindset for my mission and coping with challenges. I finally feel like I am gaining the trust of the members and others in the area which is comforting, and I finally know my way around the city. The weeks are starting to go pretty routine. Basically we study until 12, teach a lesson, eat with a member, then teach a few more lessons and head home by 9 every night. I am happy I have finally hit my stride because for a while things were a little rough for me!

Much love,

Elder Drake

PS  –  Here are some pics I took over the past couple of weeks:

2 Month Mark

Life is getting easier and easier every week. I feel like I can understand more and more Spanish too. Not to mention every preparation day our house gets exponentially cleaner (thanks to the neat freak mentality i got from Mom) but I am so grateful for that. Our house was a disaster before I showed up…

General conference was awesome. I got to hear all of Saturday and the first half of Sunday in english. It was crazy, every question/concern I had about the mission was answered in the talks. Okay crazy story, the reason I wasn’t able to watch the last session in English was because the computer I was using in the church got stolen. While we were all out of the building someone broke in through the roof and stole the computer.

Weird note about the food here. We have Chinese, burgers, and pizza here. All are terrible… the pizza doesn’t have sauce, the burgers are some other kind of meat, and the Chinese food is just really bad Chinese food. Oh but I did find a jewel of food. There is a panini place from across the street that I wanted to try for a while. When we walk in it is just like a little cafe in California. Super hipster. Turns out a french guy runs the place and makes paninis, crepes, and smoothies. This place is heaven. My plan is to eat there every week because it so healthy and sooo awesome.

Jilotepec – Braden’s First Area

Hello Everyone!  This past week I completed my time at the MTC and have now arrived in the mission field.

My area is called Jilotepec, which is about 60 minutes North of Mexico City, by bus (click here for a map link).  Jilotepec is the Aztech word for “hill of corncobs” so you can guess what type of crop is grown here.  My companion is from Colombia – Elder Ortiz who is a recent convert to the Church of about 3 years and only has 3 months in the mission. Our branch is super-tiny like forty or fifty members and most are inactive so there is a ton of work to be done. Our area is huge so we walk like a billion miles everyday so that is fun… NOT. The food here is a lot spicier than I was expecting. Today I bought 8 apples, 3 bananas, and 12 giant carrots as well as 30 eggs to eat for breakfast for the next week.

As for our house, today we had some major cleaning to do because it was nasty. I swept and mopped the whole floor, cleaned the pantry, washed the fridge, washed all my clothes by hand and then cleaned all the dishes. So as of now the house is a lot cleaner than before but still is pretty yucky.

Okay real quick awesome experience, my second day in the field I had to give a priesthood blessing in SPANSH. I had no idea what to say but I know that the spirit guided me!

Okay gotta run.

Much love

Elder Drake

He’ll be there for the next 6-12 weeks.  Below is a picture of the main avenue just North of his apartment.  

In the Mission field – Area 1