So there's this quote that's attributed to Abraham Lincoln, that is actually a bible verse. I don't have my English bible with me and I choose not to spend my free time memorizing Abraham Lincoln quotes, but it goes something like, "A house divided cannot stand." Well on Tuesday, we did DIVISIONS, and my district leader can't STAND me! (haha get it?) I actually really enjoyed doing divisions because we were in Jardín, so I was the one that knew my way around. Well, so I thought. We had climbed a fairly substantial hill to get to one appointment, and I wanted to avoid having to walk all the way back down to the base of the mountain, just to walk back up another really big hill with a missionary who has never had a hilly area in his mission. So we took a callejón (a really small street) that I was hoping would just cut across the side of the mountain. I was wrong. That callejón dead-ended into a stairs, then the stairs dead-ended into a dirt path, then before I knew it my shortcut felt more like one of them hikes with Grandpa B back in the day (ohh the memories) and we ended up at the base of the mountain anyways. I thought it was kind of fun. Elder Sánchez did not.
Later that day I went with Elder Sánchez to a doctors appointment. The doctor was looking at x-rays of his foot. He looked at them backwards and sideways and after literally 10 minutes of looking at the x-rays, Dr. turns around and says, "Ok, amigo. What happened is that you have foot problems because your fat. And if you want to have less foot problems you will need to get less fat." Mexico is not for people with soft feelings.
Wednesday, we had a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast from Salt Lake. It was the first time I had heard live translators. It was comical. They would be talking at a normal rate in their super dramatic translator voice, then the people on the screen would stop talking and all of a sudden the translator would start talking in hyper speed in order to finish before the next person started talking. It was quite entertaining.
We had interviews with Presidente y Hermana Ávila. I love Presidente because he's super forgiving, so before we even started the interview, I knew we weren't going to be concerned about my kidnapping or the donuts I gave him for Christmas. Hermana Ávila on the other hand started out wanting to know why we would let her think we got kidnapped. I seriously love Presidente y Hermana Ávila. It was so good to be able to talk with them this last week.
The reason I'm emailing on Wednesday instead of Monday is because we found out at noon on Monday that we had bus tickets to Cuernavaca at 4:30 from a bus terminal 2 hours away. So I threw some gym shorts and my toothbrush in a backpack and we headed out. We left the house at 2 and didn't get in to Cuernavaca until 9. It was terrible.
On the bright side, we got to go to Cuernavaca! It actually gets (relatively) cold at night in Cuernavaca, and it was amazing. I think it's important to leave Acapulco every couple months or so, just as a reminder that a world really does exist where you aren't constantly dripping in sweat. But Elder Starks got his green card taken care of, and now here we are. Dripping in sweat. But I can also see the ocean. So ha.
PSA: It's my birthday on Monday.
PICTURES
1) We went to Atoyac. But nothing exciting happened there.
2)We came home the other day and the neighbor kid was chillin in front of our house, chuggin a Coke, pretending to be drunk.
3-6) CUERNAVACA
I hope everyone has a fantastic week! I love all y'all!
-Elder Tyler Steven Aldrich
