Wesley's Letter 7-28-12

SUP FAMILY AND FRIENDS,

Right now I’m totes writing you from the air-conditioned mission offices here in the heart of Merida. And the rumors are true I’M THE NEW MATERIALS SECRETARY WHOOP, WHOOP!

This whole week has just been fun filled debauchery. I’m really going to miss my little seaside pueblo Champoton, and I’ve officially decided that it’s my favorite area that I’ve had so far in the mish. But I can go with the conscience knowing that I left it in a good state. The last three Sundays the chapel has been filling all the way up and also with the over flow. And good news, they’ve decided to make the chapel there bigger and it might even become a Ward soon. Also, I was sad to leave so many progressing investigators there but I guess the Lord has spoken and my time there was up.

But I really do feel like I had done my job there. Something that I’ve realized here is that you can feel it before you get transferred, something just tells you your time is up, especially because on my last day all of my converts there went to church. After church I had a good opportunity to go and visit a bunch of my converts. Right after the church I went to the families’ house we had just baptized on Saturday and we surprised the dad, Rigoberto, with some ties and we even gave him a suit jacket and pants from one of the other missionaries that had left it there in the house. It was a really cool experience seeing how they had changed. He expressed to us how grateful he was and he also told us that if it wasn’t for us showing up at his house a month and a half ago he might have lost his marriage because they were passing through some hard times and now they’re getting ready to get sealed in a year.

Then that night we ate dinner at another convert’s house named Yadira. And that also was a really cool experience, and now her daughter is planning on getting baptized very soon. I’ll miss it tons. By far my favorite area and I feel I had grown the most love towards the people there in that area than in any other one. Not because they’re better people, it’s just that I’ve grown.

So anyway here’s the what’s what about my new calling; so basically I’m here in the offices every day until 2:00 pm just running errands for the mission and here are my responsibilities:
Materials
Valijas
Ordering and providing pamphlets and Book of Mormons for the entire mission
Correspondencia
Todo moviliario (when an area gets closed I’ve got to go empty it of all the missions stuff)
Cell phones
Nametags
Packages
Credencial cards
Mail
and HAMMACKS

And with each of those comes a list of things to do but honestly I don’t feel that pressured. The sweet benefits of it are that I get to say farewell to and bring in all of the new guys. Something cool about that is that I’m here for a guaranteed 6 months.

Ya, so that means I’ll be the guy receiving Josh when he gets here WHOOP WHOOP! I won’t be training him, but I will literally be one of the first missionaries he sees here, and I’ll be the one to teach him how to tie a hammock when he sleeps here in the offices for the first night. Whoop whoop!

I’ve been crazy tired this week. We’ve been running all around town getting a group of missionaries ready to go home. On Thursday morning we woke up at 3:30 am just to get all of the guys ready to get through customs by 5:00am. It was sad I said bye to a ton of good missionary friends that morning. It was a group of about 15 that went home. And the sad part is that about half of them didn’t get through customs because some customs lady didn’t let them through so they got delayed and missed their flight. So President had to go drive them to Cancun to catch another flight there, so they’d get home that day and fortunately they all made it.

So, the offices aren’t as fun as they used to be but still are pretty fun. For example, there are only 2 of us here in the offices now, and the other secretaries here are an older couple. A sad thing is that they had just barely taken out the secretary van so now I won’t be driving, because some other nimwads crashed it! Also we don’t live here like past secretaries, we teach in the area Airport, so if you can find the airport in Merida, you can find my area. My area’s a little dead right now but we’ll see what we can do with it. I do eat a ton of food now and I do hang out with the assistants a lot more. It’s pretty chill. I think this week we’re going to go eat at a restaurant and next week we’re going to a zoo. Yep pretty cool stuff! Also I’m going to get my letters a lot faster now because I’m the guy that goes and distributes them out before sending them to all the zones in the mission.

Anyway my time writing is almost up. Just know a bunch more crazy stuff happened these last 2 weeks and I would share them with you, but I just don’t have time.

I got my package and stuff. It’s really the best!
Love ya.

For Josh, bring extra sunscreen, bug spray, jacket-no, but the thinnest rain coat you can get and I mean really the THINNEST or he will suffer in the hot rain!



























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Some Extra Pictures from Wesley's Mission

This week Wesley sent us a quick email letting us know that he is back in Merida and that his P-day (preparation day) has changed to Friday. That means that he will be able to email us on Fridays. I thought you might enjoy a few random pictures that he sent us on some cds. I don't think I repeated any that he had sent in his emails over the past 13 months. I hope you enjoy these. I may add more later.
Enjoy,
Wesley's Mom



A bird in the hand is worth 2 in a bush.... Go Wes!








A market place.






Look at this one REALLY closely! It is cool!

Wesley's Letter 7-16-12

Sup FAM and friends what’s good wit it?

¿Baáx kaualiíc sokuúmó?

This weeks been pretty chill. We’ve been doing some work and things have been pretty good down here. These last few days have been way too hot, holy moly ...like REALLY HOT!

Ya, so this last week we’ve been working really hard with the civil registry to help people get married. It’s been tons of work and pretty annoying but in the end it’s been worth it. So this next week we should be marrying 2 more couples then one more the week that follows. Also this week we’ve got some baptisms all planned out. We’re baptizing a young family, and a girl, that we’re helping to get married. It’s pretty legit.

I’m totally in love with this area! It’s interesting, pretty much 4 out of every 5 people I’ve baptized have been people that I had dropped (stopped teaching) as investigators because they had stopped progressing. Then after a month of letting them rethink their lives without the missionaries they realize how much harder their lives became without God’s help. Then they come back wiser and get baptized. This family is no exception. They totally didn’t do any of the homework we were leaving them and stopped progressing. Then we dropped them for a week. As we came back they were more receptive and now are the most awesome investigators we have! Their names are Rigoberto and Ruth and they are the chillest.

So the other day I looked at a calendar and I noticed that Josh is going to arrive here in only 2 transfers then he’ll be a little greeny hehe. Tell him I have 2 more suggestions: 1. One jacket wouldn’t be a bad idea because as he gets used to the summer heat here, and then winter comes you do get a little chilly. But just make sure you bring like a bed sheet because that’s about the perfect thickness you’re going to want as your blanket, for the heat, and the biggest reason is to keep the mosquitoes off of you. Also, second suggestion, buy a strong camera that’s like waterproof and won’t break when you drop it because, you’re going to want it while you’re here. Josh listen to my suggestions and you’ll skip the first 2 transfers of being a little greeny wuss and it’ll make everything a lot less horrible when you get here. The only reason it was so hard for me in the beginning is because I was really prideful and didn’t listen to others, also I didn’t have anyone in the mission field to give me hinters before the mission, so use this ADVICE.

I hope I’m training the transfer that you get here but I wouldn’t count on me training you because in this mission it’s extremely rare for a gringo to train a different gringo. Hope we’re in the same zone or something. See you in October. Actually I’m pretty sure you’re going to be in a pretty big generation because the biggest generation in the field is leaving the transfer that you get here.

Oh yeah, I don’t know if I told you guys yet but Elder Higginson is the new assistant.

I miss all of you so much. WRITE ME YOU LAZY FRIENDS!

All right that’s all I’ve gotta say about that,
Smitty out.

Ps. Mom be sure to give those cards to Brian and Alec

Wesley's Letter 7-9-12

Sup fam and friends,

Just the same ol same ol here in Maya-land. This week we baptized Patricia and Ernesto, so that was real sweet. On Friday we went to the small pueblo of Sihochac to go see them get married. We left at like 10:30 am in a bus from like the fifties, after going down a small road and 40 minutes later, we got there.

Then when we got there they told us we were going to have to wait for a while because there wasn’t a single bus leaving from there until three. Ya pretty back-woods, anyway so they got married then after that at about 2:45 we went to the only bus stop in town and waited for an hour and a half. We gave up waiting and got a combi (its like a shuttle van) that was going to Campeche. Took that to the next closest bigger pueblo, then from there got a taxi that we took back to Champoton. We got back at like five.

Also this week there have been some heavy rainstorms rollin through. Last Monday I had just barely bought an umbrella and it only lasted one storm, before the wind broke it. Ha-ha so next package a new umbrella is what I want. But the sketchy part about the storms here is the lightning. From the same storm that broke my umbrella, lightning had apparently stuck a truck of some guys going home after work on the highway and it killed three of them. This being a small town, when some one dies it becomes big news. Two of the people we had talked to this week were either good friends with or cousins with one of the guys that had been killed. That’s some sad stuff.

Other news there’s been some recent civil unrest or something about some law, so now we missionaries were not allowed to go to any American stores, and if someone random starts to talk to us we have to keep walking because we don’t know if its some crazy weirdo or something. I have been noticing a lot more hostility recently towards us as gringos. Nothing too bad, but some guy came up to shake my hand the other day and as he shook it he called me some pretty bad words to my face as if I didn’t understand Spanish. I just kind of gave him a small glare then said bye in Spanish, but in a way to let him know I understood everything he told me.

Whelp out of time, don’t forget to write me. I haven’t gotten any letters from any friends in like some long while. Actually tell Matt Monahan I did get his card and that he’s awesome! Oh and that I would say hi to his comp if I was in Campeche, but I’m totally not. I’m in Champoton, it is a magical pueblo.

Write more,
Smith Out