Salomon's baptism, he looks super happy ha ha

Hola

Well the ward is pretty big for the mission and normally has at least 2 sets of missionaries but right now were in a low point in the number of missionaries so theres just us. The mission feels super huge because its all city but I know that its not really that big. It takes like 3 hours to get from top to bottom so...like 2 million people live in our stake and sense our ward is the biggest in the stake (the others are pretty small) theres probably several hundred thousand or more people living in the ward limits. Ive never not felt safe. Yeah this week will be the last week of the open house. The prophet was supposed to come but apparently he is sick right now so either Eyring or Uchtorf will come and one of the apostles. Solomons picture was funny huh? Hes a good guy. He reads the book of mormon with a magnifying glass and his face an inch away from the book. 

Thats cool you got to speak. That is a cool topic. Something that we heard in a conference that is basically the same (Im not sure who said it but it was a prophet) that really every women that has a calling has the priesthood because they are set apart and given the authority from God- the priesthood- to act in that area. So all the sister missionaries have the priesthood because they have the authority to preach the gospel and promise blessings to the people its just different than the priesthood that the men have and its the same with all callings.  Thats fun you already had your trek party. We never had ours haha. The primary party sounded fun too. Tell everyone good luck in school, theyll all do great. Thats crazy that Jos in 2nd grade and the triplets in 5th right? Then Jace is in 8th and Annas a Jr. que loco. (how crazy). I hope you have fun camping! Where are you going to go? No I havent been sick..knock on wood... but we have a scale in our house and I have lost like 20lbs haha. Im not sure how much I gained in the CCM but Im sure I did and then just lost a bunch in the feild. I weigh like 165. Was I fat before? No Im not drinking the water. You cant drink it, the people here dont either. Everyone has to buy water from a purifier in 20 liter jugs. Its a pain. My feet are fine but Im trying to find some of those things to put in my shoes to help my arch. They say it should help my posture too (all missionaries have posture problems from walking, our bags, and having to duck down everywhere but Ive been working on my posture alot.) I do love those socks though so the next time you send something I would like more. 

This week Jasmin was baptised. It was really good and she was super ready. She was crying though the whole thing. She says she wants to go bakc to the open house at least one more time because she loved it. Shes sad she has to wait a year to go back and go in the celestial room. We´re trying to teach her 16 year old son because she really wants him to know what she knows but hes not that interested. We dont really have a lot of investigators which is hard because we had a lot in Muzquiz. Elder Pardo is really great but I dont if its just how he is or if hes ready to leave the mission or what but hes kindof just a follower. Which is also weird for me because Ive always worked with my companion on things and shared responsability but now I pretty much just make all the choices and everything. So its been alittle hard because my companion isnt that excited and the people in this area are less friendly and accepting so its hard to find people to teach and to stay excited about contacting. I have learned though that when we trudge through it and keep contacting even though nobody has wanted to listen to us all day we eventually find people that are sincerlly interested so hopefully we´ll have some more dates and baptisms soon. We have one named Radolfo (which is also Elder Pardos name and its not that common so its been weird for him hearing Radolfo all the time) is also super ready, he went to a young single adult retreat with a friend and hes been pretty excited sense, he says he wants to serve a mission and hes not even baptised yet haha. His date is the 6th so he can be confermed the next day and go to the rededication the next week. It will be really good. We also have some others that want to get baptised and are ready but dont have permission. David is 14 and needs his moms permission, Evelyn and her 3 kids and nephew are ready but need permission from the dad that is never around. And Silvia needs to get legally married to her ´husband´ of 25 years who doesnt want to get married which is super stupid after 25 years and 3 kids. But please pray for them and I know we will see a miracle soon for all of them. (Its super rare to find someone outside of the church in Mexico that is legally married so that makes things tough, also the bishops dont have the authority from the government of Mexico to legally officiate a wedding in Mexico). 

Well everything has been great. Today we went to the stake center to play volleyball and hang out as a zone which is cool because normally the zone only gets together for an activity once a month so its shows that our zone is cool and we´re all friends. Oh I forgot to answer what food I miss. Well the food here is super great but I just miss normally food if you know what I mean. And everything here is super greasy and fried so I love it when we have like a salad or fruit. They say that they eat way healthy in Mexico but thats an absolute lie. And then they wonder why everyone has diabetes haha at least the foods delicious though. I havent had one thing I didnt like...well except for papaya..yuck.

Well love you lots and have a great week

Elder Inskeep

Hola,

Well this week was interesting. My companion had transfers...haha...he had a girlfriend in the Ward and some other problems before with some of the stake leaders that I dont really know about so he had to leave the área yesterday after the baptism. My new companion is Elder Pardo. He was Elder Castillos trainer so the say hes my grandpa (I dont know if they said stuff like that in your misión dad?). He seems cool even though Ive only had a few hours with him because I had to do divisions today because he went with another Elder to one of their old áreas to say bye to some converts (he leaves in october). One of the cool things that happened was that because Elder Preciado was having problems we had to go to the Temple/offices for an interview and president told us to bring some investigadors to the open house so it wasnt a waste of a trip. Elder Preciado went to the interview and after the investigators were still waiting in line so president said we could go with them. It was SO COOL. And super big. Elder Preciado was telling me that before there used to be escalators and he didnt know if there still was. I thought he was joking but there actually was haha. Its super super big on the second floor all there is is the chapel and then a ton of sealing rooms and then on the third floor is where all the rooms for the sessions and the Celestial room are. So beautiful. And then when we were in the celestial room one of our investigadors Jasmin that we are going to baptise on saturday started to cry she said she felt the spirit super strong. It was lucky that we got to go because we still dont know if the other missionaries will be able to for sure. 

We had a baptism of 3 kids on sunday whos grandparents are members but their parents arent (their parents are also some of the worst people ever) This family is super por. Probably the poorest family I have met here. They live in a super rough part of downtown. Their house is like a super old mansión that used to be cool but now its super run down and people rent individual rooms. In some of the bigger rooms and in the courtyard people built shacks. Their grandparents are super good people but kind of oblivious to the world and super mellow. Probably from so many years of living in such a rough place. The kids are Tomas (8) Jorge (9) and Jose Armando (12). I dont think theyve left their neighboorhood very much because when we took them to the church for their interview they were amazed by every Little thing. The airplanes, a soccer field, the part of the metro that is above ground, my camera WOW,WOW,WOW! I feel really sad for them but the church will help them a lot. Jose was living with his mom in a different house and he never went to school so he doesnt know how to read. Then his mom decided she wanted to go the US and she just left him here...

There áre a ton of other kids in this building that love to talk to us so we are hopefully going to be able to help a bunch of them. 

Anyways at the baptism I got to baptise Jose and Tomas and then our neighboor that is preparing for his misión was going to baptise Jorge (thats how the kids wanted it and it shows how great of a missionary Preciado is, he didnt want to baptise any of them) I baptised Jose and then Tomas and then it was Jorges turn. He started freaking out, he was super scared of the wáter (a ton of mexicans are because hardly anyone knows how to swim but he was more than scared, screaming and crying as his grandma tried to make him get in the Font.) So they closed the Font and we went out in the hall and tried to talk to him and calm him down so he could be baptised (I felt bad for our neighbor (Kevin) because it was going to be his first baptism and he was super excited) after a while we finally got him to get into the wáter on his own (as the congregation was singing hymns for amost 45 minutes) Kevin baptised him and did really good but as Jorge was going into the wáter he started to get scared again and his hand came out of the wáter, so we would have had to do it again but he started freaking out again so we eventually decided that we cant forcé him and we´ll try to talk him into it for the next week. It was sad but it was a good baptism with a whole bunch of non member family members there that seemed interested so we´ll see what happens with them. 

Sounds like youve all been super busy still. Thats great the bathrooms are almost done and even though it really isnt its funny that Jo has so many cavities. Im not surprised. Shes funny. 

Salomon did get baptised! I was so sad that I wasnt there but Im super happy for him. The Elders there say that he still talks about me a lot so that makes me happy. Im going to count him as my convert even though I wasnt there when he was baptised because I taught him all the lessons and hes such a great guy I love him. Monse was also baptised and her sister has a date so thats great. They are going to baptise a 13 year old kid we found our last week and Xicoténcatl next week too so thats all super happy. Hopefully I can visit them all soon. Also Margarita because shes super great. 

Que mas...what else.

Well for the most part things are good I still dont know the área but it will be good to have a companion that will work more and we can learn and find more people to teach. The members and the área are super awesome.. Yep super. Did you know that super is a Word in spanish too?! 

Love you lots and thanks for everything. Ill read the talk tonight dad Im going to print it and thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Tell everyone hola. Hasta luego

Elder Inskeep

Hola,

Well its actually 11 metro stations we learned...You can tell how great my companion is when you hear that he didnt know that the 11th one existed. Its going to be a hard cycle but Im going to try not to complain so much. If your trying to seach where I am I live close to Metro Station Fray Servando, the church is super old on of the older ones in mexico from the ugly time period in arcetecture its right next to metro Mixihuca. We also have half of Zocalo which is where the goverment buildings are including the presidents palace and the legislature building. The 4 corners of the area are Zocalo, San Lazaro metro bus center, Metro Mixihuca, and the corners of Avenida San Antonio and Avenida Santa Anita if you can find either of those. The colonia we live in is super nice I like it a lot and it has this really cool park 2 streets from our apartment that looks like a forest and has all these cool bike paths and playgrounds and stuff. Our house is super small but we have a super cool ´patio´and the members that live below us are really cool. Its the families of two grandmas that are sisters and each of them has 2 children that live in the building with their kids so the house is divided in 5 houses and we live on the top of one haha its nice and they have a WASHING MACHINE!!! Im so happy for that. The District Federal is sooo much nicer than the State of Mexico. The streets are clean and theres bright street lights on every street. Transportation is also way cheaper and theres a ton of really cool old buildings and churches. One bad thing is we are close to the airport so we hear the airplanes all day and all night. 

We dont have that many investigators because they didnt work much before but we have two colombian immigrants (sisters) that are two of the most beautiful people I have seen in my life that are actually progressing really well they just had a few doubts. (One of the sisters was a model and her boyfriend is governor of one of the delegations (divisions like Manahattan or the Bronx in NYC) in the city) I told them that if they read the book of mormon and pray every single day with the intent to recieve an answer they will have the answers to theyre questions and they said they would be baptised if they recieve answers so that might be this week. Then we have a family of mom and dad three kids and a nephew that lives with them, everyone wants to be baptised except the dad and he wont give permission. They are going to take him to the open house and hopefully he´ll change his mind. The brother of the mom is a member and returned missionary so that has helped too. (We cant go to the temple open house with our investigators because its going to be so busy president says like 6 thousand people daily and you have to have an appointment. We just have to help them make appointments and have members go with them. Its been on the news and we´ve been giving out a bunch of invitations and stuff so people will go. Its soo cool. Today is the first day the press day when all the news stations and important people like the president of the republic are there. All the sister missionaries, area seventy, and president and his wife are there with the press. I think we have an assigned day this month we can go and then we get to go threw one of the first sessions after the dedication). Then theres one more investigator who has already been attending with her boyfriend who we are going to teach and baptise in the next 2 weeks. 

Today for the zone activity we all brought/made food from where we are from I brought the dried  Idahoan potatos haha, how crazy is that that they sell idahoan potatos in walmart in Mexico. Kind of lame but I dont know how to cook or anything soo... haha We had tortas, kentucky fried chicken, jello (from utah haha), corndogs, guacamole, and a ton of other stuff, it was way cool, best activity Ive been too. Then we also played kickball, district verses district and now Im in changes with my grandpa in the mission (The trainer of my trainer) because my companion went somewhere with the zone leaders. Its been fun.

Im glad you all have been having fun and been staying busy. You have to find out which part of Mexico Trenton is going to serve! Time is going so fast and I hope to have a lot more to tell you and show you next week. Hopefully Ill get to go to Salomons baptism this week (he wasnt baptised yesterday for some reason...) Love you so much and have an awesome week. 

Hasta luego 

Elder Inskeep

Elder Sumano and I in the visitor center before he left

The Zone Activity when we all brought food from where we are all from.

Some empanadas that some super cool converts made us. 

Queridos papas, 

(papas means mom and dad) Como están. Well this week was interesting, Elder Sumano left on Friday morning and I went with the missionaries in the Ward that shares the building with us Barrio Valle. I like them both a lot but its also hard to be in a trio. We had a good weekend with a lot of good lessons but all in the other Ward so it was a Little frustrating that I couldnt visit the investigators in Muzquiz. Then on sunday I went to 6 hours of church Muzquiz and Valle and then we went to the visitor center with some recient converts and their non member friends. It was good and there was a special event going on so we got to listen to a really good choir while we were there. Its cool because the spanish hymns are starting to sound normal and Im loosing the desire to sing them in english. Then on Monday early in the morning we recieved a call saying that Elder Boyle (who was going to be training the next cycle) needed to be at the Temple in 3 hours to pick up his new companion and go to his new área and that I needed to pack up my stuff and move to Valle for the night because a new pair of missionaries are going to be in Muzquiz and I have changes. I was sooooo sad. Solomon and Monse are going to be baptised this week and a bunch of others super son. Things were going to well and I was so happy, they had also just called a really cool hermano as Ward misión leader, everything was perfect and I was so sad to leave. So I waited for Elder Boyle to pack up his stuff and then we ran back to Muzquiz threw all my stuff in my luggage and went to Valle for the night. Then this morning I learned that I would be going to Estaca Moctezuma, (like Moctezumas revenge, the sickness you get if you drink the wáter here haha...Moctezuma was an Aztec Chief or something) one of the Stakes in the  downtown área. Sense I was the only one from the zone going I had to go in Taxi by myself and I had no idea where the Moctezuma stake center was, I only had the address but like I said before the addresses here do not make any sense. So I showed the taxi driver the address and he said he knew where it was more or less so we went. Moctezuma is close to the airport and traffic is always really bad here so it took about an hour and a half and then we spent 15 minutes driving around the área looking for the church until we stopped and asked somebody on the Street. The taxi cost me 100 pesos which isnt that much in dollars (like $6) but its a lot of pesos. Im now in Barrio Mixihuca (Me shoe cu) and its cool because we´re in the corner of the misión where a whole bunch of misions meet and we have a big part of the actual downtown. The área is super big and it normally has two sets of misionaries but because the numbers of missionaries are going down right now, for now there is only me and my compañero, Elder Preciado from Monterrey Mexico. Ive only been with him for a few hours but I think he´ll be good. The área has a lot of cool stuff and 10 metro stations (yeah thats how big it is) so Im excited. They also have a lot of good investigators apparently so thatll be great. Because we are in the downtown housing is more expensive and we live in a one room apartment on the third floor of a building that some members own that a bunch of other members live in so thats cool.

It was fun to hear about the camping trip and see the pictures. Mom the hike sounded fun and it sounds like Josie had fun fishing, sad that she didnt catch anything. Thanks so much for the letters they were great. 

I just realized from dads letter that in english you say transfer, Ive been saying changes because in spanish its cambios which is changes haha funny, I knew it sounded weird but I couldnt remember what the Word was. 

I knew mom wasnt mad I just wanted to make sure you knew I was sorry. 

Love you bunches and hope this was a good letter! 

Hasta luego!

Elder Inskeep

 Me Marilu, Marilu´s daughter Marlen who is a member, and Elder Sumano

My hair looks really bad but dont worry I got a hair cut. 

Hola

Well Im really sorry about last week but I didnt get your letter. Also sorry about the last few letters, I dont know what to say half of the time. I´m glad to hear that you had a good time on the trek. Sounds crazy.  

This week was good. Our 3 next baptisms will be Monse(the 14 year old), Salomon (a blind man that contacted us on the street, he´s really cool and he has 2 sisters that are active members), and Xicotencatl all of them were at church yesterday and theyre all progressing really well. Monse even went to EFY all last week. We´re going to the Visitor Center with Xicotencalt tomorrow. We also have some investagadors Josefina (pronounced Jose feena an old catholic woman that is having a hard time giving up praying to the Virgin Guadalupe) David (a guy that sells shoes and wants to learn more before baptism...) Noe and Estela (are a couple that own a butcher shop they are reading the book of mormon they just never can come to church) Maru (who sells clothing late into the night so shes hard to find) Irene (a lady we contacted a while back who is interested just super busy) Fanny (the friend of a member that needs to seperate from her abusive boyfriend before she can be baptised) Adriana and her sister (We contacted Adriana´s dad and he told us his daughter learning english was having a hard time learning english so we have been helping her, shes studying medicen in the Harvard of Mexico so shes super smart, Im glad Elder Sumano knows english so well because its hard to teach, a lot of weird rules I dont know why we talk the way we do, shes also pretty interested in the church too so its great and another great thing is they make and sell ice cream for a living so we always get free ice cream!) and Sandra and her family (a big family that are all interested just hard to teach because there is so many of them and they are also busy so its hard to keep appointments) and those are all of the major investigators right now. 

Im a little bit sad because Elder Sumano leaves this week so Ill have a temporary companion for the weekend probably someone whos companion is going home too and then next tuesday Ill get a new one, then I will write on Wednesday next week. Then after that everything for the temple will start happening so thats exciting. We had interviews this week too so that was fun, our president is really great. Then weve been doing interchanges with the other Elders in our district and the zone leaders. I dont know if Ive already told you about my friend Elder Walker from IF yet but hes really cool and hes also going home this week but I learned that his dad was a seventy a couple years ago so thats cool and when he was a little kid he was a mission president in Chile, Elder Walkers first words were in spanish but he forgot them all. Im sad a lot of my friends are leaving. They were working on the sewage in our street this week so we couldnt use the water for a few days so we stayed with the Elders in the ward next to ours. And thats about everything I can think of that happened this week, I hope it was good enough but more than anything I love you and Im thankful for your support and love, I hope youre not too mad at me. Im excited for the next letter. Love you lots

Elder Inskeep