Aug. 19th

Hola Familia and Friends!

Ok! where to start! haha Well this week has been great! With ups and downs, to start of I'm writing today because we were having a big activity with all the missionaries in the Tuxtla area, we all went to Zoomat! It was awesome and there were lots of animals I had never seen before and the spiders! Holy cow! I would never want to see them in my house or yard! This week I got sick and I don't know what my body was doing! But during the day my stomach started to feel sick so we went home and as soon as I got home I started to throw up a ton! It was not fun! Then the next morning I was on the toilet for 30 min! with the runs! (sorry if I'm creating nasty pictures, but its the truth) I was miserable. haha.  I'm laughing about it now cause I feel fine now. I think it was the chicken I ate, we were at a investigators house and they gave me some nastly looking chicken that was cold but I ate it anyways cause I didn't want to be rude. There are so many bugs here! haha I always have to shake out my clothes and shoes before putting them on cause there's always bugs or spiders that like to say hi to me......some days I feel like I'm not progressing at all and they are very rough! The language is very difficult to speak but I have been learning a lot about patience here! My Spanish has improved though and when it does I get super happy! haha. My reading skills have been getting better but I still don't understand a thing! It's very frustrating! I have my first baptism here! it didn't feel very special to me though cause I didn't teach her anything, Elder Muñoz taught her before I came, but it was still awesome! The sad and devastating news was that the next day she called and said she didn't want to got to church any more! WHAT?? She said she didn't like the baptismal service, oh well, its sad because baptism is the gate... Well I'll still pray for her and visit and hope that she will change her mind. The area that I am in is so poor! WOW! And the other missionaries here say it gets even more poor in Tapachula and next to the coast, well there was one area where the houses were little shacks made out of metal boards! and Elder Muñoz and I crossed this giant water tube that stretched across a river! It was awesome and scary at the same time, if we misplaced our feet we would fall to our death, but I'm alive and here typing so no worries haha. I love talking to the kids down here! I can't speak very well and they think its hilarious! But they love to talk and learn English from me. Elder Muñoz and I are doing great, we get along with each other really well, but we can't hardly communicate which is really funny! Oh! And we were at a members house eating lunch and after we sung a hymn with them, after the hymn I wanted to say that this hymn we sung is not in the English hymn, hahah but what I really said was "this mosquito is not in the English hymn!" hahaha, The family and my companion had a  good laugh, haha well I finally met up with Hermana Hickman, I talked to her at the zoo and I told her I had been looking at her blog before the mission and told her how exited I was because of the stories she had and the pictures. it was great! Well I'll go for now and I can't wait to write back next week! Adios!

Elder Portlock

 

The crazy pipe bridge

Food

These spiders are everywhere