Visit to TJ

View of the Mexico Tijuana Temple at night.  Nearly completed

Dear All,

So this week has been pretty fun. Monday I had to go to Tijuana to

finalize my visa stuff, so we woke up at 5, took the 7:00 bus to TJ,

finished at the consulate at 10, and then had the rest of the day

free. It was super cool. We walked around the city, found the Mexican

equvalent of Cici's, and then went to the temple.

Lemme just talk about it for a sec. It is straight up breathtaking.

Like dang. The outside is pretty much done, and the grounds behind the

temple are done too, so right now you can get a pretty good picture of

what its gonna look like and dang. Dang dang dang. This city is gonna

be so blessed.

Then we spent the night with the assistants and like 20 other

missionaries who had come in for a District Leader Training, and Elder

Vega is our District Leader. That was wild. And the funny thing was of

the twenty, like 17 were Americans, so it was the first time I've been

able to speak English freely in like 2 weeks. It was weird cause it

like took a minute to switch modes from Spanish to English and even

then it was like Spanlish. It's already happening haha.

The rest of the week was alright, we did lots of good work, but didn't

really get anywhere. We had to drop J, as well as A and

T, from our list of investiagators with baptismal dates, cause

they missed church two weeks in a row now. Also, we've been hearing

rumors that Jose isn't exactly the most honest dude in the whole

world. We went over and taught him the 10 commandments and had him

read the "Thou shall not rob" and it was super funny.

ALSO I MET MY FIRST JESUS. We left the apartment and elder Vega was

like "hey did you bring any money? cause lets just take the bus, I

dont feel like walking" but for some reason I had this super strong

feeling like nope we are gonna walk and so we did. We got about 1/4 of

the way there when this van pulled up next to us and this dude said

"hey elders, hop in" I didn't know him and the look on Elder Vega's

face told me he didnt either but we got in this dudes van (which btw

didnt have door handles, just ropes tied to the edges of the doors

lol) and went off. Thats when I found out that his name was Jesus. He

was taking the discussions from the Missionaries in Tijuana, but then

he moved to Ensenada and hasn't seen missionaries since. We told him

where the chapel was and who the missionaries in his area were, and

then he dropped us off and we havent seen him since but still. Super

cool.

More fun things. They've started this game in our neighborhood called

"lets wait until the elders are in the shower or about to wash dishes

and then turn off the water" and also "lets wait until the washer is

halfway done and then lets kill the power." So yeah that's annoying.

Speaking of water, there is no such thing as "juice" here. Everything

is "auga de..." and then a fruit or a country that is somehow

represented by grape juice. It makes me laugh every time.

Speaking of fruit I ate one of the world's largest bananas on

Saturday. Actually that's another funny story. So we were walking home

and we saw a lady at the bus stop and Elder Vega was like "hey go

contact that lady" So I did. The whole shpeal. We're missionaries

representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we

would like to pass by your house and share our message with you. The

lady looked really interested and then said "sure, how about tomorrow

when it's my turn to feed you two." I turned around and Elder Vega was

dying. She was a member. Sweet. But anyway she has this banana tree

and the bananas she grows are straight up huge. They're like the

length of normal banana but I couldn't fit my hand around it. It was

so dang good.

Two good things and one bad thing from this weekend. Good thing:

because of Halloween, evey time we go to a house the parents make

their kids give us a piece of candy. So that's dope. Good thing:

There's no cemetery in our area, so Dia de los Muertos was basically

nothing. Bad thing: the only thing from Dia de los Muertos was that

the neighbors had a party that started at 10 with a live freaking

mariachi band. So that was nice to fall asleep too.

Scripture of the week this week: 2 Corinthians 3:17. I started reading

the BoM in Spanish and its amazing to me how many propecies about

America there are, so I looked up some others. This is one.

Also I started reading Jesus the Christ two weeks ago and I'm already

3/4 done. That book is straight spiritual dope.

De Mexico con tanto amor,

Elder Rawlings

Jenson in front Mexico Tijuana Temple, Temple soon to be completed