January 14, 2012

Hey Everyone!
      Sorry my email was so short last week, we were in Tuxtepec almost the whole day, but today i´ve got my hour so im happy. Thats pretty awesome the Harwards are going to Cancun! Tuxtepec is really an extremely beautiful place, but the people here say that Cancun is a "paraiso", its like a days ride in a bus from where i am right now, so im not even close haha Well this week went really well for us, we are seeing alot more success in Tuxtepec right now than we were seeing last year, when i got here we had about 40 people at church in our ward, but this week we had 62 people at church, we are growing little by little. The members here help us alot with giving us references, we have been told that we cant knock random doors anymore here in the mexican missions, we have to work from pure members references, they are helping us out alot. Last week we had an amazing baptism of a woman named Angela Fidencio Carretero. She is probably the humblest person i have baptized on my mission, and is an amazing example to me. Angela was a reference that we got from the second counselor in the bishopric, she is a 58 year old lady that lives alone on the outskirts of Tuxtepec. She had a house made out of dried palm tree leaves, but about 3 months ago, her house got set on fire and completely burned to the ground and lost everything. She hasnt had the money to pay someone to help her build her new house because she doesn't have a job because she never learned how to read so she lives in a little makeshift house out of a little wood and lamina. What she does for work is cuts fire wood and sells it around the city. When we got to her house for the first time she was cutting some wood that she carried to her house, and for the first two weeks in teaching her, all we did was go to her house and cut wood for her, that's how we gained her trust :) Its pretty sad when a 58 year old lady can cut a tree down faster and better then two, 20 year old missionaries with a machete haha after teaching her a little more and after she went the church for the first time we invited her to be baptized, at first she was a little afraid of the whole thing, but she eventually accepted. She got baptized on a sunday right after we got done with church so the whole ward was there. My companion baptized her and had to do it 3 times because her feet kept coming out of the water, it was great :) now she is telling everyone about how amazing the church is, and now we are teaching one of her daughters and one of her neighbors. Angela is like my mexican grandma of my mission haha. ok well i gotta go, i love you all and miss you all a ton!
                                           Elder Snow