Gooooooooood morning!
Hi! I hope everyone is doing well, I have been thinking about you guys and pray for you! I was maybe even more busy this past week so once again this email could end up being short, but lets be honest I am probably going to hand you another long one.
Well the low point, and definitely highlight too, of this week was the food. Now that might confuse you, so let me start with the lowpoint. My lovely companion decided to change his diet to include more fatty protien or some weird and kind of sus name like that, and so here have been his 3 meals every day so far this week:
>>Breakfast: 4 eggs into one massive omelet, or big piece of scrambled egg? Can’t say I have too much knowledge on ways to serve an egg, but he does it with no seasoning, salt, pepper, nada.
>>Lunch is 4 tuna fish sandwiches with extra mayo and sometimes left over egg
>>Dinner is my least favorite that he eats, which is 2 Walmart fish fillets. Don’t ask what kind of fish, it doesn’t say, (I’ve scoured the packaging) but raw it is a foggy see-through white, and cooked it is yellow and crumbly. No thank you.
As you can imagine, to add to the funness of our apartment conditions, now it always smells like eggs and fish, and it is STRONG because boy does he eat that stuff in grand proportions. Luckily, I think God smiled on be and compensated for the smell, our apartment has only been very slightly flooded in the hallway one time this week. Major improvements.
But never fear, I have managed to avoid eating a single one of those crimes for meals so far, which has been a welcome blessing. Instead, I enjoyed some actually fantastic food this week. Hence, highlight week as far as food goes. On Sunday, we had food at a members house, who gave us (guess what) alphabet soup! After that, I ate 5 hotdogs wrapped in bacon, slathered in salsa. Actually one of the best things I’ve eaten here. I also found some abandoned potatoes in a cupboard one day when I decided to overcome my fears and explore cabinets, so after I lopped off the limbs it had been growing, which were at an alarming length, I chopped up six (don’t worry they were the small kind) of them and made some nummy parmesean potato things! I had basically no idea what I was doing, so I used some form of oil I also found in the back of a cupboard and put them on our little frying pan. I must admit, those things turned out absolutely fantastic, and don’t worry, I will attach a picture. But of course, the food highlight of the week was without question the STREET TACOS that we finallyyyyyy got!! Actually we didn’t really get them by ourselves, our goated mission presidency catered a little taco stand for our Zone Conference this week! It was all you could eat, and I had like 4 al pastor and 3 suadero tacos, and the al pastor might be one of the top 5 most delicious things I have ever eaten. It was unreal. Don’t get me wrong, the al pastor at home is great but this stuff is a different level. It was fantastic. Plus, we got chocolate cake so that was a good day no doubt.
As far as drinks go, I have been getting coke whenever possible, since it is unreal down here, but the members have been serving us some more exotic stuff. The most common, which is actually kind of good, is agua sandilla, which is blended up watermelon, sometimes with canteloupe, and occasionally cucumber, or all 3, mixed with water so it’s not just slush. Very pulpy, but sweet. I didn’t love it at first, but given that it’s probably 50% of my water intake every week, it’s starting to grow on me. We’ve also had a lot of agua jamaica, which is like some flower juice stuff that is delicious, and some strangly mouth-filmy but really good strawberry water stuff. The weirdest thing we got served as far as drinks go was a nice tall pitcher of cold chicken broth! Had lunch at a members house, and my first swig after she poured me some was surprising no doubt. “Te gusta el agua de pollo?” Definitely an interesting one, but I will admit it quenched my thirst quite well, and we did in fact drink the dregs dry of that pitcher.
My least favorite thing we ate by far was this really weird pink foam/jello/slime thing. I am not sure what it was, but allow me to describe its appearance, texture, and flavor to you in way more depth then neccesary. So here I am, being brought out an absolutely massive bowl of bright pink stuff from the fridge, the top quarter which was mandarin pulp, and the rest of it was unidentifiable and really quite nasty. The most accurate description I can think of is that it was that pink orthodontist mold stuff they use on your teeth to form your retainers, once its mostly solidified and like still a little squishy and very slimy but not quite foamy or quite solidified yet, you know? The stuff that always makes you gag and your eyes water? It really doesn’t help that the stuff I was eating was bright pink too, just like the real thing, I had a challenge eating that with a smile on my face and it gave me one monsterous stomach ache once I finished. It tasted just like the stuff they use at the orthodontist too, meaning not too tasty. My favorite part was when the husband took the first bite of his, after I had about half of mine down, gagged, spit it back into his bowl, turned to his wife, and said “Aye aye aye Maria, que paso?? que es eso!?” and she couldn’t stop laughing. I looked over from the TV, which had General Conference on, and was a nice excuse to shield my facial expression, and saw that Maria had only eaten one bite, so who knows, this could’ve just all been one elaborate prank to get us to eat orthodontist molding stuff and maybe another chance to laugh at the guerro. I finished it anyways, “muy muy rica hermana”.
My favorite non-general conference day of the week was Zone Conference, and even though I couldn’t understand all the Spanish, the messages were great, and the food was delicous, and it was nice to see other missionaries! After that, I went on divisions again but this time with our other Zone Leader, Elder Budge from Texas, and we went to my area!! He was sooo helpful and helped me learn a ton of Spanish just in the couple of hours we were together, and we went contacting just out and about in the streets across like half the area I swear. It was awesome, and I got to see some really cool parts that I hadn’t seen yet. Plus, he and I found 5 interested people, which was a crazy high amount, especially since we have been struggling to find that recently. Guess that means I need to convince my companion to travel a little farther south in the area hahaha but it was seriously awesome, and he was so helpful and funny, and gave me tons of good advice!! I learned a lot from him and was super happy about it, and he interviewed our friend Sebastian, who is officially getting baptized a week from this Sunday, which makes me so so happy and excited for him. So that was an awesome day.
Craziest experience of the week, we were walking to go knocking doors after a lesson we had, and I was looking at the sidewalk to make sure I didn’t step in the multitude of dog craps that litter the sidewalks, and I saw this massive puddle of blood and I was like whoa then saw like a trail with another massive puddle not much farther away. I pointed it out to my companion, so we followed the trail around the corner and foud a guy collapsed against the side of a parked car in a puddle of his own blood. He was concious, and covered in his own blood, all coming from somewhere on his face, so I got to do my best to call the police in Spanish while my companion tried to talk to him and see what happened, where he lived, how we could help him. He kept insisting he didn’t need help, and just had to walk home, but he would collapse every time he tried to stand up and couldn’t talk straight. We never found out what happened to get him there, but the ambulence came and luckily he ended up okay. That was crazy, glad he got helped and ended up being okay.
Alright one last story, hopefully brief but probably my favorite. My companion has an obsession for cologne all of the sudden, and really wants some Diorr Savauge (the name has been drilled into my mind, but I am not sure that’s how you spell it, anyways,) and I heard him telling an employee at one of the stores he wanted “DeeJohn Savage” and the little old lady said, word for word:
“AYE no no no papi, no, es una palabra FRANCES papi, no ingles. Se llama SUHH- VAUEGUH papi. No savage. Y no lo tenemos.”
and I laughed really hard, honestly couldn’t stop lauging, but luckily he was distracted by asking her where he could find some, so hope he didn’t see me dying. The way he enunciates the syllables now, after getting so humiliated by the fancy old Mexican lady, is so hilarious and gets me every time. I feel like McQueen in the quote from Cars 2, one of the greatest movies of all time, “Sally, its 2 syllables. Not 10.” but I haven’t had the courage to say that to him yet. Anyways, I am convinced that there is like only 1 store in all of Mexico City that carries this specific cologne, and my companion is convinced to find it. Oh, and he has never actually smelled it, but is convinced that it is the best, because he has this weird Johnny Depp obsession and apparently it is like his cologne. Anywho, we have been visiting about every possible store that could have cologne, especially on pday, but also during the week. Heres how that works: he loves going to the mall for lunch on the days we get money from the members, then eats really fast so he can go searching his dang cologne during the rest of our lunch time. We have yet to locate the named cologne, but in the process, he has smelled every cologne in every store we have gone to, claiming that “ugh none of these smell as good as Savauge bro” and I never say anything, just raise an eyebrow, since he has told me more than once he has never actually smelled the stuff, just “knows it is the best”. Anyways, I really hope a store here starts carrying the stuff soon, because my nose has about had it from all the smells of cologne. Given the severe dearth of this cologne, which I am going to start calling Johnny Depp Stench, he has recently started considering buying one of the 500 other cologne options. Now, unfortunately, he always asks for my advice on how each cologne smells. Shows me the brand and shoves it towards my nose to smell, or motions to smell his wrist if he has been brave enough to spray it on. He also asks, and I quote, if I know what “skin pH it matches, the range of how far you can smell it, the duration of smell, and if girls like it” like I am some sort of cologne expert. I am tempted to adopt such a niche alter-ego and pretend that indeed, I am a cologne expert, and that I know everything about every cologne ever. I want to just start throwing out numbers, measurements, distances, quote scholarly cologne studies that don’t exist, name fake celebrities and their opinions, and give many 1-10 scales of quality, concentration, public opinion, and etc. At least then I would be able to have some fun in this experience. I actually think I’d come to love our cologne excursions. As for now though, every time he makes me smell another stinkin cologne, I simply say: “Oh HO yes yes yes this one by far, this is the best yet easily I think you really should get this one” but he doesn’t seem to convinced and hasn’t made a decision yet. No doubt there will be more cologne smelling in the immediate future. Hopefully he buys a strong enough cologne to clear out the Walmart fish and Mexican chicken eggs smell in our apartment.
Well that’s basically life here the past week, except of course the absolute highlight of the week, General Conference! General conference was unreal this time, and I absolutely loved it. I got to put in my headphones and listen to it in English, and I got tons of good stuff from it and am so excited to reread some of the talks, and rewatch some too! It was amazing. I missed a few talks (meals at members houses, and it was playing in spanish in the background) but from what I heard, I got a few themes.
One was all about the love, grace, and power of Jesus Christ, and how we can never, no matter what we do, sink beyond His grace and His love. It is never too late to come back to Him, and every time we do, He will help, support, and guide us. I loved that.
I also loved the talks about the gathering of Israel; bringing all of God’s children (ie everyone) to a knowledge of their Redeemer and His gospel. I am so grateful that I have the oppurtunity to participate in that work! I wrote down a quote from President Nelson, who had an amazing talk:
“Every sincere seeker of Jesus Christ will find Him in the temple. He will answer all of our hardest and most vexing questions.”
“To whom or to what will you give your life? Rededicate your life, right now, to Jesus Christ.”
“The hastening of the building of temples shows the work of the Lord hastening before His second coming. Gather Israel, and prepare the world for the Second Coming of the Lord.”
I LOVED that talk, and so many others, like Elder Bednar’s about overcoming pride and becoming humble, without being compelled or forced to do so. Or Elder Holland’s, about “Whom seek ye?” Let us seek only Jesus, the only way for true and lasting joy and life. There were too many good talks and quotes to list them all, so I would highly encourage you all to go back and read or watch some of the talks. The Spirit you will feel is amazing, powerful, and real, and so are the answers you can and will receive to questions.
I will finish this email off with a quote from the last chapter of 2nd Nephi. Chapter 33 verse 10, where Nephi testifies, before his death, that the words he has written are true, that the words of the Book of Mormon are true, and that they testify of Jesus Christ. Here are some of his last recorded words to his people:
“All ye ends of the earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye believe not in these words, believe in Christ.”
“And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all that they should do good.”
“I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for He hath redeemed my soul.”
I would urge you to read the Book of Mormon, please. If not for your sake, then do it for mine. I promise you that the words in this Book testify of Christ, of His teachings and visit to the people of the ancient Americas, and tell us the things we can do to follow His perfect example, live after His precepts, and return to Him. His commandments are not to bind us down or keep us from having happiness, they are there to help us overcome the world and the natural man, to help us find a higher and holier path, and to return to God. The commandments aren’t there to take away happiness, but rather to bring us joy, joy that lasts for more than a couple hours, days, weeks, or years. Joy that lasts for an eternity.
So, please please read the Book of Mormon. Whether you’ve never read it, or stopped reading it, or don’t read it often, please start now. It was written for OUR day by prophets called of God, to help us. Christ commanded the words to be written in this Book,for our benefit. It is never too late to come to Christ, He stands waiting for you with outstretched arms. I promise it will bring you closer to Him and your Heavenly Father, and bring you joy beyond what you could otherwise have, that will last for eternity. Read it!
Well, as my friend Jared recently said, some of you are going to think this email was too long, and probably mostly pointless, but I hope you enjoyed some of it anyways! I miss you all so much and I pray for you. I am so thankful for your support, help, prayers, and love. I really do feel so blessed by you at home being here. So, even though I miss you, I promise to focus on the work here and do my best!! Thank you all for being the best to me.
That’s all I got for you this week! Nos hablamos en la proxima semana pues! Los amo mucho y tengo confianza en ustedes para haz lo justo. Chao!
All the love,
Elder Crockett
Pictures, of course.
