Mexico!!

Well i'm finally in mexico. The keyboard is going to take a little getting used to because of the shifts and the punctuation stuff, and it says everything that I write is wrong because its not in spanish. So i've only been here for two days, really just one night and today, but it has been so amazing. My mission president is way cool and everything is great. I'll go through our trip a little bit. So sunday night we were at the presidents house (SLC) and I was with 4 other elders from my mtc district that were leaving with me to mexico. We didnt get to bed until like 12 because of stuff we were doing and had to wake up at 530 and then we traveled. We got a ride from a shuttle that was just a big van and we got 7 elders and all of our lugage in the van/on top of it, so that was pretty crazy. Travels went well. We went from slc to mexico city to villahermosa. we didnt have too much time in between mexico city and villahermosa though because we got a little confused about where to go. When we got to villahermosa the president was there waiting for us with two elders that work in the office and he took a ton of pictures with all of us and even took videos and stuff. it reminded me a little of mom and dad when we are hiking because he ran ahead of us and had us all walk by with our luggage haha. He is an awesome president and a lot like his brother that I met. He doesnt speak very much english, but it is about the same level as my spanish so in our interview it was about half spanish half english and it worked out pretty well ha. My interview was funny because he had us fill out a form that had one of the questions being what our interests were. I put down basketball, piano, guitar, and singing. He asked me how long i'd taken piano and if i could play well, and he actually had me play at his house when we went over to eat. he then asked me what i sang (bass or tenor). I said bass and then he asked me to sing something for him haha. He told me to sing i know that my redeemer lives. then he started singing along with me and then we sang i am a child of god and that primary song that says whenever i feel the rain on my face.... It was funny but it was actually a cool experience. He then told me how important music was and how I need to share it and teach the people in the areas that i am in. Last nightwe went driving through the city and everything was so crazy. it is surreal to finally be here in my mission and i am so excited to get out and work! we stayed at the missionaries house who help in the mission office and it is a lot like elder bullocks it seems like. we can go up on the roof and look out at everything. there is no warm water so its going to be cold showers everyday for the next 19 months. there is a big tank that we have to turn on every night. Villahermosa is the nicest place around though. people here have really nice cars and stuff, but i'm pretty sure they spend more on their cars than anything else. It has also been way weird going just about anywhere. Everywhere we go, people stare at us. We have gone into stores a few times and when we stand at the end of the checkout line, all of the other lines down on both sides are all staring at us and whispering things. there arent very many white people here. basically just the missionaries. It is pretty dang cool to be the minority for once haha. We havent done too much here yet. we have been in the mission office for most of our time having orientation. we went over to the mission president's house for lunch today and they live in the nicest house ever. like really nice. its in a gated community and i'm pretty sure they are used for really rich peoples vacation homes or something. when i got here I saw elder eliason and elder hausman who were in my mtc district. they are both working in the office because they got hurt. elder E hurt his knee playing basketball and elder hausman got into a car crash. also elder green got here one month ago and is out on the island in my mission. elder e has also been here for a month and elder h has been here for 2 months because he stayed in the mtc longer. oh ya and the craziest thing is that people drive sooooo crazy here. there literally are like no rules. its kind of like go karts and people drive wherever they want. we dont get to drive, but we take buses and taxis everywhere. tomorrow i am going to get my new companion and area. i'm going to learn spanish and everything so much faster now that i can finally speak it. i am sure that it is probably going to be pretty frustrating for a little while though, but i'm excited to be able to learn everything and to finally be here in Mexico!

Before i left, i had one experience that i want to share about christmas. my christmas was really good and i got to visit a few people. on christmas day i went with elder mueller and elder martin again to go visit the ramirez family. since the dad broke his arm and hasnt been working for a while, they didnt have anything for christmas at all. elder martin and mueller went out and bought a bunch of gifts for all of them and i got them a few things also and we went over there with a big box of presents for them and then stayed with them for a little bit while they opened and played with everything. It was so fun to be able to see them again and then to be able to help them to have a merry christmas. they were saying things like "this is the best christmas ever!" and things like that. it did really make you feel good and I had a smile on my face the whole time! I also stopped by Jose one last time. he got dropped by the spanish elders that are now in that area which is really sad, but i told him to keep going and keep working towards baptism. I told him what he needed to do and i bore my testimony to him. it is sad to have to leave all of those people and especially because i'm going to miss the ramirez's baptism where i probably would have gotten to actually baptize one of them, but i'm way excited to be here and to serve here in mexico. It was also really nice to call and talk to my family and i'm glad that you all are doing so well. I love you and I miss you and will let you know more when i find out.

Oh ya, pday is on monday and i only get letters every like 4 weeks or something depending when zone leaders come to the office. usually not any more than every four weeks so thats different, but i'll be okay.

love elder smith