Life.

Muy buenas tardes!

There is never a dull moment in Mexico. I will tell you that much!  Each week it is new experiences, adventures and so on!  

To answer some fan mail...On average we teach 30 to 40 lessons a week. a lesson is a prayer to open, at least two principles, an  invitation to action and a closing prayer.  So we do a lot of contacts and partial lessons, but we only "count" the full complete lessons. We try our hardest to get members to accompany us on visits but they are so hard to find where we live. plus, no one has cars around here.  We try and get at least 12 to 15 member present lessons a week.  

We have been asked to not contact in the streets by playing soccer...but, occasionally a loose ball goes flying by and i am always the first one to take off to go get it, do a couple tricks and send it back haha. honestly, it is a fantastic way to contact, i have found a few new investigators that way! 
Our P Days...well those took a drastic change about a month ago. We aren't sure what went down somewhere here in Mexico in another mission...but we have been given new direction on Zone and district activities from the Area Presidency (Mission President"s Boss) and so now we cannot go out in public with a group of more than 4 missionaries.  We cant even go to the church to play soccer.  So, we don't do activities anymore.  Occasionally we will take two other missionaries to go eat somewhere, but we have to avoid the other elders if they are there too with their group of 4. It is rather sad. We have 6 elders in our ward, so we received permission to do the dinner the other week with the members. 
The tie tradition is great huh!? you burn a tie at 6 months, a shirt at a year and a suit on your last day.  

This 4th of July was a bit different, I was in interchanges with Elder Watts again, that was great. Two Americans working together, trying our hardest not to think about home and our families haha.  We worked really hard all day, we were so happy too! We get a long very  well. to celebrate, we had bought tacos, and then later that day some pizza to celebrate.  It was so much fun.  But i cant lie, i missed my family and the US a ton that day haha.

I don't know what it is with Americans and getting sick here in TJ. It happens a lot.  A few Americans here have been getting super sick repeatedly, and this week, it was my turn.  I woke up one morning and was just super nauseated  went to the restroom and got sick. real sick.  I headed over to other missionaries house and ended up throwing up there.  Then the same thing on our way back home in a store, and then again in our home when we finally got home again.  We talked to the doctors of the mission and judging from what was happening i had to go get an IV or drink some suerros and get checked out.  After a long ride to the offices i was checked out by the doctors for about an hour and a half, and then they drove me back to the house, there i received two huge injectors for the vomiting.  i almost passed out during the second injection. that was intense.  So far i feel a lot better. in over 48 hours i have hardly eaten anything, some fruit and crackers and that's all i can hold down. but I'm not hungry in the slightest.  I'm up and working today and i worked yesterday too.  Not sure what it was man haha. But it was rough!  Just some viruses we pick up here, us Americans. in the food, in the air. There is a long history of Americans getting sick here in TJ, and in this zone.  

My companion took a pic of me praying for my dinner. the only food i have really had in 50 something hours...ha. 

Work wise, we are finding people who are so so ready to receive the gospel! and we are working really hard trying to activate less actives. our calling as missionaries is very important in not just baptizing, but retaining members and reactivation. A few of our great investigators still have to get married, here money is a huge struggle and no one has the means to get married.  So they say.  Its either put food on the table or get married.  Luckily, we are having collective weddings this months and we are trying to get several couples ready for the weddings and baptism!  Nothing too exciting down here, just killing sin on a daily, doing our best to help save all of these families!  Hopefully we can find a miracle and baptize a woman and her two children next week!

I love you all! please take care of yourselves! And....Go Holland!

Elder Westbroek