Mexicali, "The Promised Land"

Dear All,

What a wonderful weekend. Conference was super cool, it wasn't super super hot, and I started to see why they call Mexicali "The Promised Land". 

So we started off going to work on Tuesday with a district meeting, which was different because there are only 2 companionships in our district. So it felt quite empty. But it was alright. Then we started working and right off the bat that day we found 3 new people to teach and set a baptismal date. On Wednesday we found 8 more people and set 5 more baptismal dates. And the rest of the week went pretty much like that. It was pretty dope.

Mexicali does have its downsides though, especially where we are at. Our area is quite large, but we don't have bikes because they would get robbed really quickly. So that should give you an idea of what this place is like. The places where we go at night are much fewer than the places we avoid. And everyone here drinks SO MUCH. It is insane. Literally every single house on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday had at least one person on the porch with their giant beer. And they play music really loud. But aside from that, this place is sweet. Its crazy flat. Like I've been trying to think of a way to describe to you guys how it is, and this is the best I could come up with. If you were to set a marble on the ground at any given point in the city, it would not roll unless you pushed it. It is so weird. And because it's so flat, there really aren't any cool views or anything notable to take pictures of, so yeah.

But yeah the conference was super awesome. We had 4 investigators come with us. 3 of them are part of a family, but the couple isn't married. And they were there in the first session, when the whole theme was marriage and the blessings it brings. So they left with that in their heads. It was pretty cool. 

The one talk that stood out to me the most was the one from some Seventy or something. It was the one where he talked about "I can teach you to dance, but you have to hear the music." That really hit me. I started thinking about how, as missionaries, we study the scriptures and PMG every day so that we can know how to help people and to be able to teach and defend what we know. Therefore, we know how to dance. And it's fairly easy to teach our message with pure logic, but what really counts is the music, or rather, the Spirit. If we aren't fully in tune and in step with the Spirit, our teaching won't get anywhere. We'll end up teaching people once and then never seeing them again because we couldn't help them feel "the music". So really it works both ways. We as missionaries have to know how to dance according to the music, and then when we teach others how to dance, they have to hear the music so that they have the confidence to bust a sweet move (and get baptized). 

But yeah. That's my week.

Les quiero mucho,

Elder Rawlings