Drenched In Sweat

Buenas tardes a todos!

So yeah, everyday is like a pool of sweat lol. The members are really good about feeding us. They give the missionaries a lot and I know they'll be blessed for their efforts. Two children, one is a member and the other an investigator, gave me drawings of me! We walk about 5-10km per day. Our ward is called Nueva Galicia. We have a lot of investigators and less actives that we're working on. The Guerrero Gaxiola family that is supposed to be baptized this Saturday is nervous so I'm not sure if they're going to do it. But they have an 12yr old daughter, Aileen, and she wants to be baptized so we're focusing on her and hoping her family will follow her footsteps. We also have two more investigators, Angel and Helen, a 11yr old boy and 9yr old girl. They want to be baptized and we've taught them all the lessons. We just need to talk to their parents to get permission. I don't think there will be any problems. I've turned to just saying that I'm from Washington DC because no one knows Baltimore. But they confuse Washington DC with Washington state so the people are like, "Oh, so near Seattle?" My area is poor and rich. I found out that there is approx. 50 tons of drugs in Sinaloa. Most of the rich here made their money from narcotics. The people are really friendly to missionaries. Last night we ran out of appointments so we decided to do some contacting. I saw this 50yr old man, sitting on his porch, drinking a beer, and I felt prompted to talk to him. So I said, "Good night, can we present ourselves?" He replied, "No thanks," but his words were slurred so I didn't understand him so I kept talking. I introduced me and my companion, Elder Lugo, and I told him that we would like to share a message with him and that we're missionaries from the "Church of Latter-day Saints." I forgot the Jesus Christ part haha. But then he said that we can come back and share our message with him and his family tonight! So I guess he had a change of heart already! Haha I messed it up but the Spirit did the talking. My Spanish is getting better, not very quickly, but it's improving! My companion and I are considering having an English class for anyone who's interested here. He doesn't speak it but he understands it. So I'm going to be the teacher if we do end up doing it. Members have been asking us about a class so I think it would be a good idea to invite some less actives and investigators to get to know the church and everyone. Yesterday was GAME DAY. Not like in sports, but the day where everything comes together at church for the missionaries and me. We find out whether our investigators and less actives come to church, if they're progressing with their committments, and so on. Thankfully I didn't have to give a talk yesterday in Sacrament. I already have two prepared, one on Obedience and the other Faith. Each is about 3-5 min long. Today is P-day. We woke up, cleaned the house, then went out to Sam's Club. It's a little far so we had a member who lives in the next street over from us give us a ride. I bought a membership for $250 pesos. And then I bought some food to last me a bit because it's cheaper there and we most likely won't go to Sam's Club every week, maybe once a month. After that, we went to the same member's house, using some hamburgers and buns and condiments that we just bought, we had lunch at their house and shared our food with them since they drove me and Elder Lugo around. Afterwards, I washed my clothes by hand. It takes forever. My arms hurt. We have this stone basin out in our backyard that we use to do our laundry by hand. My companion already had liquid detergent and he shared with me since I have the detergent pods. I didn't get to finish. I only finished my whites in an hour and a half. I still have all my socks and other colors to wash tonight before I go to bed. The sun was right on me as I was working on laundry so I was drenched in even more sweat. Mission rules say that we need to take a shower in the morning and at night. Remember the cold water showers from last week? They feel really refreshing at night when I have all this sweat and grime and dirt on me. I also had a cockroach crawl on my foot a couple days ago. I was washing dishes and I felt something crawling on my foot and I was wearing flip flops. One hymn that I've been thinking about the past week when the sun is beating down on me and I'm hiking up a dirt road, is "A donde me mandes Ire" or "I'll go where you want me to go." I know Culiacan is where I'm supposed to be. No one has it better than me! I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else right now. I'm having so much fun getting to know everyone and their unique personalities and cultures. I remembered my camera so I'm sending a lot of pictures!