Guaymas, Mexico September 20

Eric ran into Barry Daniels at the Salt Lake Airport before he left for Mexico

The new elders and their new companions outside the mission home.

Eric and his first companion Elder Uribe

Eric and a 6 year old girl in the back of a member's truck in Guaymas

The spider Eric found in his apartment

So I don´t even know where to start. First if you could forward this to Ann Gilbert for the newsletter thing I´d appreciate it. But phew. Mexico is insane!!!!! We got here Monday and met with president and his wife. We had lunch ( which was lasagna!?! jaja!) but it was great. Then they talked to us for a couple hours. In spanish. So I only understood about nothing because I was so tired. jaja but its ok! Then we each had our interviews and did a lot of other things. THen we each had interviews with president which were in spanish too because no one speaks english. Then we slept in the mission house. Not the home but its some other place where the assitants live. It was so nice!!!!! Hermosillo is a huge city. A lot of nice house, rich people, tons of restaurants, stores, malls, and tons of crazy nice stuff. The next day, Tuesday, we did all our stuff for immigration. It took forever, but then that afternoon we got our companions and left for our areas. My companion is Elder Uribe from Mexico City. He´s so awesome!!! But he doesn´t speak more than 5 words in English. So its rough. But fun. We took a bus from Hermosillo to Guaymas and then got a ride from a member to our house. I rode in the bed of her truck with her daughter who´s as old as Shayla. She was so cute. I showed her my camera and she took pictures of everything. It was a lot of fun. Then that night we went out tracting. It wasn´t too hot since there was no sun but the next day was insane. Our area is called Bahia and we´re over the ward here. Our area is all dirt roads and it´s huge!!!!!!! To get from colonia to colonia we hitch hike. It´s so funny. We´ll just wait at a corner for a truck and then just jump in the back and then jump out when we´re closer to our area. Our area is about the size of south ogden and it wraps around a peninsula of the ocean. It´s so cool!!! But so hot!!!! I imagened hot but not this much hot. Its around 108 or so everyday and we walk from 11 to 9 with an hour break for lunch. I´m soaked at the end of everyday from my sweat and my shirts are already all yellow and brown. Its disgusting. But its one of those mission things i guess. jaja at least our house has a little a/c unit that keeps it cool at night. One night it didn´t work and I thought I was going to die. All the houses are cement so inside is hotter than outside because it acts as an oven. Teaching lessons is sometimes really hard if the poorer people don´t have fans becuase the whole lesson I have sweat pooring down my face and I don´t know what anyone is saying. But it´s ok!!! The language will come and it should cool down here in a couple weeks. Hopefully. Mexico is just how I thought it would be. Well at least this area. It´s all dirt roads with dogs roaming around everywhere, trash, weird smells, street vendors selling tacos, burritos, and even hot dogs mexican style with chilis and bacon. jaja so crazy!!! Some areas are richer than others. Some people have nice cars, driveways, a/c´s, couches, but other colonias are broken down cement houses. It´s crazy! But so much fun. I don´t have much time to explain everything because we have to go wash our clothes. We have to take a bus to a member´s home because they have a washer!!!! no dryer but at least we´re blessed that way. It´s way nice.

Mexico is way fun, really hot, crazy, smelly, but awesome!!! We teach so much and talk to so many people and the work is going great. I got the flu this weeked from the crazy atmosphere change so yesterday was really bad. It was super hot, I didn´t know what anyone was saying in church or in our lessons, and I was really sick. But its just one of those mission things. I don´t know what else to tell you. It already seems like home here. Just pray that I can start being able to speak. I´ve taught a little but I want to be fluent. It´ll talk time but pray that it´ll come sooner than later.

Oh last night I was getting ready for bed and I saw a huge spider on my wall!!! It was bigger than my tag. So we spent a couple minutes trying to kill. Just crazy stuff like that happens all the time. It´s a lot of fun here but everything is going good. I´m kind of getting used to the hot now and I¨m getting over the flu so next on the list is to learn spanish. jaja I´ll send some pictures. I wish I had more time to explain but we have to do a lot on pday because everything is far away and we have to walk or take buses. But I love you all. Mexico is awesome and crazy hot. I´ll talk to you next week.