Wesley's Letter 2-27-12

Hey FAM and Friends,

I’m just writing ya here from sunny Cancun. Fun fact: Cancun means land of many serpents in English. Also, in case anyone wants to look up where I live here, I live in a neighborhood called La Selva, so hopefully now at least you can more easily pinpoint where I’m livin.

Today, I feel like I’ll write a more inspirational letter and less about the culture.

Okay, so here’s a pretty good one, so the other day we found this one guy named Luis and he invited us to talk to him. As it turns out he’s an alcoholic and when I say that I mean he literally destroyed his life in alcoholism. When we found him he had been drinking for 10 days straight. The problem is that when he drinks he told us he doesn’t eat because it hurts him too much so he had been literally on a 10 day binge drink while fasting.

I can’t explain to you just how depressed and how horrible he looked. He told us his story and it was pretty messed up. He started out in Mexico City with a taco stand, had a family and over all a pretty decent life, but because of his alcoholism and other things that happened with the law, he fled to the US for 7 years then came back to Cancun, where he’s been ever since, drinking. He told us a lot more tragedies that happened in his life that I won’t share for lack of time.

Anyway, he told us he would do anything to change his life, so we shared with him some spiritual stuff and gave him the means by which he could change his life with God’s help. So, the next day we walked by his house he still looked like a mess but he did stop drinking. The next after that we found him looking a little better, he was cleaning up his house, and building a table outside. The next day we walked by and my companion said, “look, LOOK!” And I looked and it was pretty impressive, he had turned the front of his house into a little taco shop. As we got closer we noticed he was all clean-shaven, his hair was combed, he had stopped drinking completely, and he had a big ol grin.

He had about 3 other employees helping him sell tacos and you know what, his business was actually doing pretty well! There was a line of people in front. He offered us both some tacos and a drink and they were way good. There’s actually a picture here of my companion eating some of those fat tacos at the shop. I wish I could explain these stories more deeply but I really never have enough time :( Anyway, that was by far the most dramatic change I’ve ever seen in a person in 4 days and it would seem even more impressive to you guys if you had heard his entire story.

That’s all I’ve got for today I’ll tell ya more stuff next week...

Hey, tell Garrett and Nigel they need to write me a letter.

Much love,
Smith








Elder and sister missionaries















Wasps or bees

















Where Wesley had his birthday lunch.

Wesley's Letter 2-20-12

Buenas mañanitas familita y amigotes.

Yo les hablo cien por ciento en español para que parezca chido. De modo hoy yo cumplo vente años chispas soy viajititisimo. Me siento que como si fuera solo ayer que llegué en el ccm de los estados unidos. Lo siento pero esta semana no voy a poder enviar las fotos como yo habría querido porque dejé mi camera en la casa y me da flojera para recogerla. No me diga Cancun es bien padre cada elder aquí es bien chido y la gente es bien tranquila. Me sentìa freaking estresado alla porque toda la gente son bien tradicionales y aun despues de saber lo que enseñamos es verdad no quieren dejar sus tradiciones como adorar a los imagines pero aqui no es una problema.

Translation:
(“I’m writing you in Spanish so I’ll appear to be cool. Seeing now I am 20 years old today that makes me an old man. It seems like just yesterday that I arrived in the MTC (missionary training center) in Utah.

I am so sorry that I can’t send any photos this week as I wanted to because I left my camera at the house and I’m too lazy to go get it.

Cancun is really nice, the elders here are cool and the people are nice. I was often stressed in my last area because the people were very locked in their traditions. Even after knowing what we taught was true, they didn’t want to leave their traditions like worshiping images.
But here that is not a problem”)

Alright I’m speaking in English now so anyway, another cool thing about here is I don’t need to take 3 busses to get to a Wal-Mart, we have a chederaui like 10 minutes away walking, which literally is the same thing as Wal-Mart just everything’s in Spanish instead of English... I’m almost outta time but later today were going to a buffet in a plaza here that’s called la plaza de las Americas, you can look it up and know that’s where I’ll be at 3:00 today.

Just one story before I go. The guy that had a dream last week had another one this week where this time he’s covered in bees and to get rid of the bees someone submerges him in the water and all the bees stayed in the water. Pretty awesome huh?

Mom, actually Elder Laudie was in my zone for the last 5 months in Merida so ya I know him. He kills it at yoyo-ing, he’s pretty chill.

So far my birthday’s going well, I think I am going to go eat at a buffet so thanks (Mom) for throwin me some dough! Oh, and the house I’m in has only 2 missionaries, but our ward has 4.
So, love ya lots,
Your baby boy

Con Amor Elder Smith

Wesley's Letter 2-13-12

Sup Brosifinas? I’m just kickin it here in Cancun whatever,

So anyway here’s the what’s what in Cancun. My area is a lot smaller now and a lot more easy-awesome. The ward here is like an actual ward you could find in the USA and a large group of members actually have cars. This area is awesome! Its still pretty ghetto and such, but a lot less than my old area. It’s also a lot less stupid-hot here. In the evening a nice sea breeze comes rolling through and sometimes I actually get a little cold.

Probably the best part of all is that there’s a chederaui within walking distance. Everything’s just a lot more tranquilo chill. I mean just this morning I went and pulled a coconut off the neighbor’s tree, chopped that suckachump with a machete and enjoyed a nice cool piña colada.
(non- alcoholic)

As of now the coolest story this week is that we found this guy whose been having dreams, about him climbing a hill and raising 2 books to a crowd of angry holy men, pastors, monks, padres and as he raises the 2 books some of the people fall to the ground bewildered and others run away in fear. What are these 2 books? Those of you who are members can probably guess. We’re teaching him and his family right now and I’m pretty sure they’ll all be baptized.

Ok as for these photos the picture of the Mexican holding a cat that’s my companion and the cat is a street cat that keeps on running in our house so now its basically ours, so we called it Pepita.

The picture of the dog in the hammock just proves how chill Cancun is. That is the dog’s bed! He’s a straight up Mayan and his masters named him Rio McQueen, like the car from the movie "Cars". They also have a cat named Tom Cruze.

I think I’m sending a picture of me on the bus ride here, not sure if I put it in the file.

I’m all outa time-Smith out

Wesley's letter 2-6-12

Guess what fam and friends my time is up in Merida, Yucatan and now I’m a Cancun missionary, I just got to my area about 2 hours ago after a 6 hour bus ride, so I still don’t know much about it except that its called Kabah 2 and I’m with an elder named Elder Suarez. He’s pretty chill sauce.

This area is a lot less gigantic than my last area and is a lot more cityish. I’ll let you know how it goes here next week when I know more about it.

Alright, so I forgot my camera connector in the house, so I won't be able to send pics this week but I will tell some stories of the last few weeks.

So any ways, funny story, before I left Merida I left my companion to teach an entire band of about 16 members all are between 14-30 years old, 7 of which attentively listen to the lessons we teach. My comp will tell me if they end up getting baptized, but until then I’m pretty sure you can find them on YouTube, they’re called Estampede Musical and they’re supposedly pretty famous.

Yep, so actually this week I don’t have a ton of stuff to say and I’m short on time but I’ll see ya later crocodiles.

Ps Mom I got the package, and it was awesome I’m super syked on all the sugary goodness inside.