What is up?!

Hermanas Chavez and Houghton in their tradition Mexican outfits

It´s SO good to hear from you all, and to hear about your Labor Day and First week of school adventures!  A lot has happened this past week in Bosques, and things have been a bit crazy, but it´s all good!  I want to really briefly answer some questions that I have received and then I´ll add a few fun thoughts :)

Who are we teaching?  Wellll.....   The truth is, because of the Temple Open house, it´s been rather difficult to get to our appointments and teach very many people each day.  We have been there from 8:30 (leave at 8:00) until 3:00 (get back by 3:30-4:00) every day, and then we usually have to rush to "Comida" which recently has been almost a half-hour walk from our area (because there are two sets of missionaries in our ward) in a place called Lago, where we aren´t technically allowed to go without Elders.  So we usually only have about 2-3 hours to teach and visit people before we have to be in our house.  It´s been rather frustrating, also because a lot of our appointments have been falling through, and we have now post-poned a baptism for almost a month.  But we´re really looking forward to making the last week of this cycle count!  

Are you really going to be training after one cycle? It looks like I will be (in mission terms) "6-weeks-and-pregnant!"  Because I am almost for-sure going to be training an American Hermana starting next week.  Pray for me.  My companion will most likely be traveling to the sister-training-leader area of the mission (because she is the sister-training leader) and training again.  

A lychee fruit

Do you actually eat Mexican food?  Well.... So Mexican food isn´t all Taco Bell cracks it up to be.  We eat a lot of pachuga (chicken pounded flat and fried), tortillas (which, BTW, are not AT ALL like the corn tortillas you buy at the store, they´re much fresher, and you ALWAYS eat them warm), salsa (aka picante), tajin (a kind of chili-salt-thing that we put on... basically everything; pineapple, mango, cucumber, etc.), fruit (this week I tried lychee fruits (see pictures), tunas (cactus fruit), and guayabas), rice, and beans.  Also crema (I think it´s basically just straight creme, but we eat it on meat, beans, in tortillas, with canned fruit, etc.).  It is delicious.  AAannndd if you feel like being a little Mexican today, I dare you to chop up some mango, watermelon, cantelope, etc., and then just pour some chili powder and salt over it, and then squeeze a whole lime over the whole thing.  It´s pretty much amazing.  Also, today I drank coconut water fresh from the coconut, from a bag.  BUT.  We don´t actually eat a lot of burritos, tacos, etc.  Because at comidas they just serve soup/pasta, meat, (maybe vegetables if you´re lucky), and dessert (usually jello, or flan, or fruit) and then you throw in the tortillas, crema, beans, and salsa as you wish. One sad thing: Mexicans aren´t addicted to chocolate like Americans, so they don´t sell it everywhere or put it on everything imaginable.  Instead, they put chili on everything (yes, including candy and desserts).  Also, they pretty much just drink soda or "agua de _________" (a fruit) all the time.  Or Coca-Cola, which (fun-fact) we aren´t allowed to drink in our mission).

Ok, if you have any questions, please send them my way and I will try to answer them in the next email.

The Open House at the temple finished up yesterday, and since we worked the evening shift on Saturday and Sunday, we ended up sleeping over with the Visitor´s Center sisters in the old Mexico MTC dormitories for two nights.  It was pretty exciting, but also exhausting because we were on our feet talking with people for about 6 hours.  But we got to all wear our traditional Mexican clothing on Saturday, so that was fun :)  (see pictures).  Today, we bought groceries, did laundry, got hair cuts (not me, my companion), bought "helado" (ice cream), went to walmart and Sam´s Club (which was actually a big event since we had to leave our area and take the metro to get there), and now we´re emailing! Tonight we get the official word on who needs to be in the training meeting tomorrow morning, but in our mission, we don't find out until 10:30 the night before who will be transferring areas, so I can´t tell you about that until next week.  (BTW, I will probably be emailing on Tuesday because we are getting the newbies on Monday, and we have transfers on Tuesday). 

I love you all bunches and bunches!!  Be safe and happy please!

Love,

Hermana Houghton #3

 This is where we do laundry!  (also, shout-out to Grandma Houghton,
whose letter I got, and whose gift I am wearing in this picture :) )

 The lovely graffiti at our Micro stop--love note to Mom!