Navidad

hey evreyone,

so this week was really busy and allot of stuff went on. On wed. 24th i went on splits with Glenn my comp fom the mtc. that was cool we worked hard and got alot done. then the 25th we had our christmas party with the zone. it was alright. we ate food and played soccer. then we went home and went to call our families. it was nice to hear from the fam. and it seemewd really normal while i was talking but after it just seemed like a dream. weird.

cambois: so last night we found out the changes. i thought i would go but no. im staying in the area. my comp is going to chalco and im getting a newbie. elder zapata streight from the mtc in mexico. so this should be a pretty interesting change. i think it will go really well and we will have alot of success.

so more random things from mexico.

we were walking up this main street called periferco at about 2 in the afternoon and we looked ito the median and we see a guy walking down the middle. and we looked a little closer and he was peeing right in the middle of the median in brod daylight, i was so shocked. i laughfed allot.

also when i was with glenn we said good afternoon to this old guy sitting outside of his house. and he answered saying "navidad navidad! navidad!" me and elder glenn just started busting up. imagine if you said hello to someone in the states and they answered you by saying christmas! christmas! christmas!.

also on sunday we were at church and i saw some white people walk in. like legitamate whities. i even asked myself what are they doing here? so i talked to them and found out they are from idaho. the guy works at byu idaho and knows Bill Riggins well. that was pretty random that white peolep came to church in mexico and that they actually know someone i know.

well i hope you all had a feliz navidad. love ya

amor y dedos

elder skaggs

The Tepito

whats up SD?

hey so this week was just alright. on wed. we went to the temple with half of the mission. then we had a christmas devotional after. it was way cool to go to the temple again. i felt the spirit so strong and i actually understood evrything which higly surprized me. that was cool.

on friday we had our ward christmas party. it was cool. we ate pasole. which is a soupo like thing with really big corn kearnals and meat. it was good but they ran out of salsa so i didnt get any so it weas lacking a bit of flavor. then we did the piñatas. it was cool. the really little kids started then the young men and then the young women. it was cool. i helped make the piñata go crazy. then we ate cake and played basket ball.

so this week was like the week of the "virgin". on thursday i thjink was day of the virgin. and starting tuesday and wed people started to have partys to the virgin. it was kind of weird. they put up a giant statue or painting of the virgin just so they can have an excuse to drink like crazy. we got some pretty hard stares this week. good times.

on tuesday we started to see people start the walk of the virgin. people traveling to the basilica de la virgin (like 15 miles away). we saw people walking riding bikes in trucks. i counted over 50 peolple in one day. my comp told me that one lady last year went there on her knees. they all get there and worship the virgin and then leave. a bunch of peolpe go there.

so this week i through down some more pansita. if you dont remember its stomach. this time i actually could eat it. it was still pretty gross. it dosnt taste amazingly horrible but the texture gets to ya. but i did it.

so yesterday a member told us that she weas going to take us to a market where we could find shoes cheep. so we got in the car and asked her whear exactly we were going and she said. tepito. so tepito is famous here for two things. like the harmana said stuff dirt cheep. asnd the other. its like the most dangerous place here in DF. the stuff is so cheep cuz you buy it then ten feet later they will steal it back. amazingly we didnt get robbed. that might have been because we didint buy anything. cuz here in mexico it is terribly hard to find shoes big enough for my "giant" feet. people say that my feet are massive which they are compared to their tiny feet here.

well all is well and im doing good. we are working but havnt found much succeess but the Lord will do his thing. love ya lots. keep working hard and keep in touch. amor y dedos

elder skaggs

Algo Differente

hey

this weeek was a little diffrent. we actually had success. this week was good in some areas but bad in others. ill start with the bad. we were working really hard this week. and getting allot of lessons set up. but almost all of them fell through. about 95%. not kidding. so that was kind of a downer.

good news. we had 3 baptisms this week. on wed we had one. a girl named claudia. by finding her we have started to re activate her whole family. mom, grandma, uncles. they are way cool. on sunday we had two more baptisms. Yadira y Diana. a mom and her daughter. they are way cool. Yadira´s sister and mom are members. so they have a way good support.

this weeek was much better. today we went to look for shoes but we couldnt find any good ones on sale. so i think this next monday we are going to another place to look. but i did find a sweet hoodie. its one of the hand made mexi ones. it is blue. and cost me only 90 pesos or like less than 8 dollars.

last night we had the Christmas devotional brodcasted to the stake center. i was kind of dissapointed with the show. i wanted to hear more music. i have appreciated english music more since i got here cuz the people here can not sing if their life counted on it. im being serious. the wards sound terrible. no one knows the tunes or how to hit notes. im not saying that i can sing good but i can follow a tune allright.

so this wed we get to go to the temple as a mission. that will be so cool. im looking forward to that allot. it will be interesting in spanish.

i hope you are all doing good. love ya lots and keep in touch.

elder skaggs

Temple celebration and rededication

hey evryone! this weekend was probably the best weekend of my life. not kidding. no i didnt go to acapulco or veracruz. hahah but some really cool things went down this week. ill start from the begining.

friday: we had multi zone conf. prez talked to us about the temple and really motivated me. it was a good confrence. i also got to see some of my buddies from my generation. elder loser, glenn, gillespie and elmer. i also got to see my old dl elder ewell. it was good to cetch up on the good old times.

saturday: we worked up until 12 and then ate with a member. then we left for the Estadio Azteca. the biggest futbol stadium in latin america or the world i dont remember. we got there around three. i got to see almost evryone from my gen. there. i also saw my dad elder bentancourt and my brother elder alverez. also i got to see about half of the members from my first area. they were all really excited to see me but i didint have time to talk for a while so i gust shook their hands and said hi. but it was really cool to see them.

then we got into the stadium. it is huge. it is almost the same as qualcom but way bigger. it is the same shape and evrything. but we sat in zones and missions. i sat next to elder loser. it was cool to hang with him for the whole thing. so then we started to sing, evryone in the stadium hymns to wait for the prophet. it was really cool. i felt the spirit really strong as we sang almost all of the members from DF together. then the prophet came and waved to evryone it was really cool.

then we started. prayer, song, the usual. then president eyring spoke and then the Prophet spoke. they both gave short talks but they were both really good talks. then they started the dances. all of the stakes from DF danced it was cool but we were siting so low that we couldnt see well. then they told us that we were going soon and that we needed to go out of the stadium to go in from the botom onto the feild. we all (2000 missionaries from DF Puebla and Cornavaca) left our seats and headed to the ramps. we were like a herd of cows. it was crazy we all moved like one person down this really steep ramp. i couldnt stop. it was crazy. then we were about to enter the feild.

the young men from DF dressed up like missionaries and went on the feild and started to sing a missionarie song. i dont remember what it was but it was cool. then we started to walk on the feild singing "Called to Serve" it was way cool. the people whent crazy. i could feel how much the members here really support and love the missionaries. then we were all out there on the feild and the prophet was waving his hankerchif at us and then the whole stadium did it. it was awesome.

then we left the feild and the stadium. we were the last act. then we got tortas and went home. and slept

sunday: we went to the rededicaion at 12. we went to the stake center to watch it. it was soo cool i felt the Holy Ghost so strong during most of the session. it was a great experiance to see a Prophet of the Lord rededicate a Temple.

sory for the long email but this weeek a lot of things happened. we had transfers last night and we are both staying here in Mirasoles. but we got a new Zone Leader. guess who. Elder Glenn my comp from the MTC. that is way cool. he is an awsesom missionarie and has been fluent for like 3 months. crazy huh?

thats about it for this week. love ya much

elder skaggs

Shoelaces-6 months in the field

hey evryone,

this week was just alright. my comp is dead and doesnt want to work real hard but thats fine i guess. if i stay another transfer(transfers are this coming week) i will ressurect him. im trying now but its hard. especially when its really hot and he doesnt want to work and also saturdays are hard cuz we waste lots of time in the tiangies. another weird thing about my comp is that he punches things. we`ll be walking along and he will punch a tree or a wall randomly. i dont really know what to think about that but it doewsnt bother me much.

zapatos: this week i bought new shoes. i got some sweet brown slip ons. they are really comfy but i think they are going to run out really fast. i bought them for 250 pesos or about 19 dollars. so im sure they wont last. it was kind of a dumb purchase looking back but im only going to use them on sundays and tuesdays to make them last. at least they look good.

fronton: you guys probably dont remember but i wrote about fronton in my first area. its a game that they play alot here. there is a big wall that they hit a tennis ball against with their hand. its like raquet ball i guess. but today we were were going to play. me and my comp but all of the walls were taken. rayos! but ill try to play next week and tell you how it goes.

and the story of the week:

chiflando niñas: so here people wistle or make a chh-chh noise to get your attention. and most of the time its used to cat call or say "what up baby?" so we were walking passed this school this week and all the little kids were going to school. so i was walking along and i heared someone making the chh-chh noise. so i turned to se who it was just out of curiosity ove course. i dont see anyone but a bunch of 5 and 6 year old kids. and then one of them waves at me says "hola" all sexy like. i was so confused and didnt know what to do. i thought did that just happen? so i said "hola" back and kept walking. i guess they teach the kids young to try to catch a gringo and get him to take you o the states. hahaha. but seriously.

well thats about it for this week. we got blanked again in the church. but we found a really cool family. we will se if tehy will progress or just do nothing like our other investigators.

thanks for the love and support.

elder skaggs

ps preston congrats on the mish call!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hechele muchas ganas (work hard)

New kitchen and 125 cars

hey fools,
whats up? this week was better. we actually had people at church. we only had two but thats better than 0. they are a coupple that we have to marry before they can get baptized. they are cool and have a crazy kid named logan. he likes us allot. so this week our numbers were really low. but i put my comp to work on sat and we got lessons set up for all day tuesday and wednesday. it was hard this week because we were at the temple 2 days of the week. but this week should be a little more relaxed and we can have allot of success if we work hard.

so wed we whent to the temple again. it was really good. i actually got to follow 3 groups as they did the tour. i felt the spirit really strong there in the temple. i got a surprize when i showed up to the temple. my comp from the MTC Elder Glenn was there. he is way chill and we decided to go on divisions with each other. and guess what we did? we whent to the same stop light that i was at on monday to invite people to come to the temple when they stopped. we contacted 125 cars each. it was really fun. we were running to try to get more cars than the other. it was really cool. i jumped on some more busses. it was a really cool day at the temple.

so today we went to play futbol rapido again. it was fun. i totally juked this mexi. my DL. it was way funny. then we came home and changed houses. the member that we live with, her daughter is coming home from the mission soon so they want to do construction on the room so we had to move. our new house is pretty chill. we have a citchen. so thats cool.

not much else to report. love you guys and keep up the good work.
amor y dedos,
elder skaggs

Temple Open House and combies

October 21, 2008

well this week was pretty average as far as it has been going here. we once again had allot of people set up to come to chuch and none of hem came. so that is a bummer. well i really tried to prevent that this week but i guess im not good enough. hhahaha. so i tought the sabboth day to this family of 6 that we commited to come. the guy works on sundays and i told him that he should test God to see if He would bless him for not going to work and going to chuch. he was really excited after my lesson and said that he was going to do it. well we passed by their house on sunday morning and they had left to go to work, all of them. so that was lame. now for the good news. yesterday (monday) we got the opportunity to help with the open house of the mexico city temple. it was the first day of the open house so there wasnt an amazing amount of people there. but it was a great experiance. we helped the people get from the exit of the temple to the place where theey can write comments and say if they want to learn more. so, we had allot of missionaries there helping so i had some time to go invite people to come. there is a stopligt in front of the temple and i stood out in front with another gringo that dosnt know spanish. when the light tuned red and the cars stopped i would go and talk to the people in there cars and invite them to come to see the temple. it was really cool. i also jumped on two combies (busses) and told all of the people on the buss that they should come to visit the temple. it was really good i gained allot of confidence in talking to stangers so hopefully i can keep it up. today i also talked to all of the people on the combie. its fun i feel like one of the gus that sells chicle o algo asi. hahha well this week was ok for the work. we need to work harder if we want to seee the results. im going to really focuss on contacting and the open house this week. i hopee we can get some people to come to church this week. weel see what happens. its all up to the Lord this is His work. all we have to do is find the people that He has prepared to recive His gospel. well thats about all folks, thanks for the emails and keep in touch
elder skaggs

Two gems!

que onda?

this week we had transfers. on tuesday i recived elder solis. he is pretty cool. he doesnt talk much but he isnt likie a mute person. he ways like 100 pounds more than me and we both eat allot. he is from ciudad juarez, chihuhua. which is pretty close to the boarder of texas. he is really nice. ive had to really step up this week in the lessons. i do most of the talking now which is really good and should help me to pregress really fast at spanish and gain more confidence.

this week was a little hard as far as the work goes. we had alot of lessons set up. but almost all of them fell through. the people that were supposed to come to church all couldnt. we were supposed to marry this coupple this friday so that se could get baptized on sunday but they had problems with their papers so we coudnt go. this week will be better for sure. but the good thing is that my comp is cool and he is not dead. we are working hard and it will pay off soon.

but we did have some success this week. we had a baptism. a gut names jose luis. he was a refrence from a member lady in our ward. a member baptized him. they have been good friends since he started coming to church. he is really cool. he is alot like armando who just got baptized. he is the only convert of his family. but he really wants his family to be able to join the church too. that is a good sighn that the people are really converted when they love and know that the gosple is true they will want for the people that they love to know that too.

yesterday when we walked through the tiangie (street market) i found two gems. i found a sweet rudolph tie that will be absolutly perfect fro christmas time. and i also found a retro angels jersy that a guy was selling for 80 pesos or 8 dollers. i didnt have that much cash at the time so im going to but it next sat. ill send some pics and hopefully i can find it again.

today we realaxed all day. it was really nice to sleep in and recharge my batreries. this week we need to work really hard and get allot of people to come to church and find allot of new investigators. i know that if we keep working hard and dont give up the Lord will bless us with the success that we deserve. thanks for the emails and keep in touch. les amo muchisimo.

elder skaggs

Armando and bike pegs

so this week was kind of diffrent. so on tuesday one of the assistants to the president of the mission came to our district meating. and gave us a big pep talk on how we can have allot of success if we are willing to pay the price. he is a really good example. so he made us make goals for how many baptisms we want to have on the 12th of october(in 3 weeks) we put our goal at 12. pretty high. so we needed to bring allot of people to church to be able to make our goal. but the work was extra hard this week. allot of rejection and allot of lessons fell through. we only had 1 new person at church but she is cool. and we have 3 other people set up for the 12th. well se how it goes.

on a liughter note. armando got baptized on saturday. he was sooooo excited and he will be an awesome member and leader in the church. he got confirmed on sunday and is really excited to keep progressing in the church. on sunday night we had a sweet family home evening at his house with some members. it was really fun and he was so excited to have the members come over. he showed all of the kids his "zoo" that he has in his backyard. he has a bunch of chickens and 2 dogs and 2 bunnys and a iguana. he is an awesome convert and person.

another random note from mexico city. bike pegs. evryone has them. it doesnt matter what kind of bike it is mountian, cruiser, or little pink girly bike with streeemers and a horn. evryone has them. not to grind a reail or anything but for transportation. people dont really have cars here so is you can fit another 2 or 4 people on your bike thats really helpfull. so all the time is see people riding their bikes down the streeet with their friend(s) on the back.

thanks for your love and support

elder skaggs

Mexicans vs. gringos

hey,
this week was good. we are still working really hard but not seeeing the results. 2 of our three baptismal dates fell to october so we will only finish this month with two which is absolutly nothing here in iztapalapa. our zone leader said that it is one of the most escojido (chosen) places in the world for missionary work. i dont know what we are doing wrong but we are just not seeing the success we would like to.

so the noche mexicana was sweet. there was alot of food but the member ladys were kind of shisty (?) we kind of had to beg for the food to be free (which was expected). so that kind of sucked. so the kids brought out the foam cans and elder loser sprayed it right in my ear. i tried to catch him but i was too full to run so i gave up. so we ate tacos durados (rolled tacos), tomales, gelitina (jello) and tacos. it was good overall.

so the temple is going to get rededicated on the 16th of november. we are going to help out with the open house the 20th and 22nd of oct but we have no clue what we are going to do yet. but it should be cool.

today we plaed futbol at the church. it was way fun we played for 4 hours. it was crazy tireing. we played the mexicans vs. the gringos. we played for tacos. and gess what we won. we played two out of three and we one the first two games. and the tacos were even more delicious because they were free.

thanks for your support and the sports updates keep it up. love ya

amor y dedos
elder skaggs

September 15, 2008

what up
this week was way chill. so all of mexico has been gearing up for their independance day(today). it has been a little crazy lately. A drunk guy (borracho) tried to steal my gaffet (plaque) and told me that i didnt belive in God because i wouldnt give it to him. he also said that all americans think that they are better that evryone else. that one really pissed me off. but it was alright. so there has been an extreamly large amount of borrachos lately and ive seen 3 people peeing in the street in the last 2 days. i guess thats how mexicans do when they have a holiday.

so this area is pretty diffrent than contreras. it is way hotter here. this week has been sooooo hot. i got burnt on my nose on friday. it sucks cuz we have been workiung reallly hard and are in the street all day. so ive been sweating like no other. but even with all the sweating im still starting to gain weight again. i think its because im not climbing 1000 stairs a day anymore. but at least im getting a nice farmers tan!

so this week we knocked the door of this viajita (old lady). she was absolutly crazy. she was talking to us and saying puros chismes (nothing but rumors and talikng bad a bout people). she had no teeth and a lazy blue eye o and a mustash. it was quite the conversation with this lady. we wasted like half an hour for nothing. triste viajita

so the end of the week was much better. on wed we had a weading. we married a member guy to our investigator. they are so cool. then sat the investigator (Yuri) got baptized. it was a really cool baptismal service. then on sunday i got the opportunity to confirm her a member of the church. it was way cool. also we had another investigfator at church. his name is Armando. he is like 45 years old and is way excited and ready for baptism. he is so escogido (chosen). he reads evry tarea (homework) that we give him. and he started to read the Book of Mormon all on his own. he has a really strong desire to help his family accept the gospel too. he says that he needs to be a really good example so that they can join the church too. he is awesome.

so tonight we are going to go to the noche mexicana at the church. the whole steak will be there. it is supposed to be way cool. there is going to be soo much good food there. im so excited. also ill get to chill with elder loser. he was in my district in the MTC and is in our zone so he will be there.

thats about it for this week ill make sure to take lots of pics at the party and send them home next week. love ya lots

amor y dedos
elder skaggs

Tiangies

September 8, 2008

hey,

things are good here in Mirasoles. We are working really hard but its not really paying off now. we had like 15 people committed to come to church this week and none came. satanas is working really hard against our investigators. but we have found a lot of new people the last two weeks, and we will keep working. things will work out and we will start to se the results of our labors this next week. this week we found a family of 10 or more. its actually two sisters who live in the same house. they are all really cool and want to progress. it is way cool to teach allot of people.

so it still rains almost evry day here. i dont know when its going to stop. they say in about october but who knows its crazy here. today we went to carls jr for lunch with our district. it was fun and really tasty. after that some elders wanted to go to zocalo and me and the District Leader, elder ewell, didnt so we whent on splits. We just hung out at their house. it was cool to just chill with an american for once.

Every sat and sun in the street in front of our house there are "tiangies". its kind of like the swap mart. but way longer and allot more people. they shut down the street for the whole two days. the street is way long its like doubble Lake Murry blvd. and really straight. they have these little tent things for the sun and they shut down the whole street. it is way cool lots of tacos and cheap clothes. lots of temptations. hahaha.

i dont know about you guys but these last few weeks have gone by so fast. it is crazy. the weeks just keep getting faster and faster. i feel like i just left the mtc and soon it will be christmas. next week is the independance day for mexico. and our steak is having a noche mexicana in the capilla. it will be crazy. there is going to be so much good food and allot of people there. That should be really fun. i will make sure to take lots of pictures and send them in two weeks.

We have two weaddings set up for this wed. it should be really cool. then they can get baptized aftrer. we havve one lady for sat. 13th and the other coupple for 28th it should be really cool the see. not much ese to write about. things are going well and im having lots of fun and working hard. love ya lots and thanks for the support.

amor y dedos

elder skaggs

Mirasoles

i


only have like 30 mins so ill do my best and i forgot my notes so it is what it is

so this week was way chill. i moved areas and am with my old comp my "brother" in the mission E. Alverez he is way chjill and we work really well together. the area (Mirasoles) is wat cool and flat so i wont have to deal with all of the hills any more. so its really hot here in my new area but ill get used to it. so the changes in climate and plane of my areas brewed up some knarly chaffing the fist few days but i have gooten over that and am doing good. my comp elder alvcerez is way chill and we are improving the work here. we just need to wait a little bit fo the fuits of our labors to show up. so there are a bunch of pan stores really close to the house, im in haven i love pan dulce it is way good. also there is a place that sells tacos alpastor (the best) for 3 pesos each and they are good.

so our house. we live with a crazy member lady. she has 10 dogs. and has names for all of them. she has allot of birds too but she is pretty nice and lets us use her kitchen and sometimes gives us food.

today we went to the pirimids that are here pretty close. they were way cool. it was eally hot and the pirimids aer really tall. i will sed pics next week i have like zero timee. i cant really remember much else but next week i should have allot more ime and be able to catch you guys up. sorry i dont have time to answer pesonal emails but i love you guys and keep on keepen on.

amor y dedos

elder skaggs

Elder Holland

so this week was better. but our two baptisms got pushed back again. they have to wait to get married first. but with my comp things went allot smother. so this week we had to take the metro which is like that trolley but under ground. and there is a stop called eugenia. most of you should pick up the significance of that one. but we took the metro to aragon where that temple is. we whent to the mtc which is right next to the temple to listen to Elder Holland speak. he spoke to all 4 mexico city missions and the mtc at the same time. it was an awesome experieance. he spoke so directly to us. it was awesome to listen to an Apostle. He spoke allot about making sure our converts stay strong and make it to the temple. i forgot my notes but i might write more about it later. it was such a good and strong spiritual experiance. we are so lucky here in Mexi town.

so im getting transfered tomarrow. im going to be in Mirasoles in the steak istapalapa. i think that im going to be comps with elder alvarez again. he was comps with me when i first got here when we were in the trio. so that sould be really cool. it should be interesting to leave my greeenie area and see what else there is in mexi town.

um i think im like 2 months late but what happened in The Office? how did it end and are jim and pam still together? also survivor who won? any updates on the LLWS? is US going to be in the finals? i miss watching those little kids play. and watching them loose and cry their little hearts out. jk. but seriosly. updates please. and also the chargers.

hey i love you guys and thanks for all of the love and support.
amor y dedos
elder skaggs

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largartijas...

what up,hey this week was ok. our baptism fell through but thats alright cuz we have two for sat set up. they are really cool people they are a coupple and a re going to get married soon. they have christians trying to convince them to not get baptized but they are staying really strong. so we founfd these new family it is 3 sisters who are like 40 years old and they are all pretty cool and receptive. so this week i saw something in the street that gave me a little bit of hope. i saw a Dan Fauts jersy. i got so excited for chargers season to start. i kind of forgot about how suckky the pads are this year. i heared the chargeres are picked to go to the super bowl. thats cool.so my comp has absolutly no manners. he smacks his food and crunches his chips really laoud. when he eats he spreads his elbows out on the table and gets really close to the food and eats really really fast. kind of like a dog. it is really rude.so i learned a new word this week. largartijas. it means lizzard or push ups. pretty cool huh. i think itsa funny cuz lizzards do allot of push ups. so this week should be sweet. tuesday we are going to have a missionary activity in the capilla (chapel). it should be good if the members show up and bring their friends. also on wed we get to listen to jeffrey r holland in the mtc with all of the missionaries in DF (mexico city) it should be an amazing experieance. hope you are all haveing a good week. i love you and write back.amor y dedos elder skaggs

Hail

hey
so this week was ok. sunday was cool. we had 3 investigatiors at church. one is going to get baptized this week and the other two are going to get baptized the week after. they are all really cool. so we had a hail storm on monday. it was crazy on our way home from email it started to rain then it rained really hard then it hailed so bad that there was snow really thick. it was really crazy and we got really wet. but it was fun. and not really cold cuz its mexico. so not much else to report things are still tough with my comp and with finding new people to teach but we should find a way to work it out. hope you are all doing ggood and keep in touch

love ya lots
amor y dedos
elder skaggs

Tyler's movin' on up...

hey

so i got my new comp this week. his name is elder morales. he is from chiapas. he is kind of weird and controlling. i guess ill have to learn to love him for who he is cuz i cant change him. so his first day here he asked me if i wanted to try some food from chiapas, i said sure. and he pulled out this jar full of little black things. little black ants. so i ate one. it sucked. i knew i would eat weierd things in mexi town but i never expected ants. he also carrys his wodden jap sword all over his mish. its kind of scary he could bash me in the head with it if he gets mad at me. he said that if he was mad he would punch me. but he says that he dosnt get mad ever. i hope not for my lifes sake. so we moved houses this week and we have a kitchen so that is cool. we also have hot water. this week was the first week that i have taken a hot shower since i got to mexitown.

so i had chicken foot soup again. the soup part wasnt bad. tortillas are the gringos lifesaver. if i have to eat anything nasty or down right terrible. i just slap that succer in a nice fresh tortilla and chow down. i think God made tortillas popular in mexico to save missionaries from the gross food.

no baptisms this week and the work has been allot harder without bentancourt. im going to have to really streach this transfer and work really hard. thanks for the love and support.

amor y dedos

elder skaggs

Tyler the tree hugger

so this week was pretty good but couldhave been better. we had one baptism when we had 3 people with dates. one guy has to quit smoking and drinking coffee. hopefully they can have allot of faith and be ready for next sunday. we will see. we are also working on getting a lady in our ward married so her husband can get baptized. we had service on sat. we went to help reforest and plant 5,500 trees. it was up in the dinamos (waterfalls) and we hiked like 3 miles up this mountian and on the way down it rained the whole time. but it was good. there were a lot of people there. we have been visiting allot of recent converts lately because my comp thinks it is really important but we dont really have any new investigators that are progressing and i think we need to focus on finding more people. but mi dont really know much about the mission and how it works and my comp only has 6 months left i dont even have 5 months in the mish.

so we had one baptism this week. his name is abraham he is really cool. we played soccer with hinm and some other members this morning. it was really fun. i am sending the pics to my mom andshe should put them on my blog soon. we are going to have noche de hogar (family home evening) tonight with some members. it should be chill. hope all is going well in the sd. sounds like it. go pads and keep the faith

paz
elder skaggs

Chicken foot soup, RS drama and the temple...

i did eat chicken foot soup. it was quite possibly the grossest thing i have ever tried. there is no meat whatsoever as you can imagine. i mean how much edible meat is on a foot?

so this week was the first week that we didnt have a baptism. but we have 5 people with fechas for next week. so that should be really cool. so i have been starting to have weird dreams. some dreams are in half spanish and about missionary things. i dont really have normal dreams anymore in some way all of my dreams are weird.
so we got to go to the temple on sat because the mision doctor lives right next to it. elder bentancourt got sick. he is better now. he had stress and was not drinking enough water. so all of the relif society drama is world wide and even worse in mexico. evryone knows about evryones buisness and somhow news travels even faster in mexico without internet or mostly phones.

First baptism

This is Tyler's first baptism, after he had been in the country for a few days. His name is Panchito. His companions are Elder Bentancourt and Elder Alvarez.

Showers in Aculco

So, this is how Tyler takes a "shower". They heat up the water with the coil-like thing and then use those massive amounts of water from the bucket to get clean.

Tyler's first day in Aculco, Mexico

beet juice

Part of June 9, 2008 letter

so this is what happend this week
one day for lunch we had "salad" it consisted of cut up tomatoes cilantro and chicharon. thats it nothing else. and for a drink we had beet juice. it was discusting but i had to eat it. so the people here are really straight forward. they tell it how it is. if you are fat tyhey call you gordito o gordo. stuff like that. also something interesting is that aloty of people here listen to american music. they have no idea what the song says but they like it anyway. so something kind of weird and kind of confusing happend on sat. some lady proposed to me for her daughter who is 11 years old. i think she was joking but i cant really understand spanish sarcasm yet. it was weird.

yesterday we had two more baptisms. it was awesome. carlos and lupita. carlos is the uncle of ximena who we baptized last week. and lupita is her grandma. i baptized lupita and elder bentancourt baptized carlos. it was a really cool event.

it has rained everyday for the last 5 o 6 days. on wed i got sick so we went to the appartment early. and it started to rain really hard like 30 min later. the water was coming under our door and from the walls and the floor. it is crazy.

1,330 stairs...in one day

This a picture the mission home sent. It was taken the first night he was there. He still hasn't figured out how to send pictures.
Below is part of Tyler's June 2nd letter.


So this is what happend this week:
i started to count things like dogs and stairs. these are the one day stats: number of dogs i saw 106 and number of stairs climbed 1330 and thats not a typo. insane amount of stairs here.

so there is a dirt soccer feild near my appartment and they play soccer there evry sat and sun. there is this game that some people play there all day evryday. they hit this tennisball against this big wall with the inside of their wrist. it is kind of like wall ball but not . there are always people playing it. there is this one guy there that has a hunch back and he is really good.



the people here eat weird stuff. not the mexican different stuff but they put ketchup and sour cream on evrything. like chicken and lettuce and weird stuff like that. im the tallest person almost evrywhere i go. it is kind of weird. erlier this week i got these weird foot pimple things on the arch of my foot. i popped them and water came out so i think they were just little blisters. they are gone now.

so this is weird. my comps are both native and they both dont use deoderant. they get cologne or axe spray and spray it in their pits and think that is going to last the whole day. another thing about the people here. i dont know what it is but no one can sing. they cant carry a tune. it is so hard to sing with them because they are way off on evry song. so evry sat night and sun morning the catholic churches here set off fireworks during their survices. it is really loud.

yesterday (sunday) we baptized another person. her name is Ximena she is 8. her uncle and grandma are getting baptized next week. it was really cool.
i had tripe yesterday it was gross.

Mexico...at last

Tyler left the MTC last Wednesday, May 21, 2008. Exactly one month late. We talked to him during his layover and he sounded excited to be going to Mexico.
He e-mailed when he got there and said that he was tired and was going to go to Zone Conference the next day. He also said that the city was "massive". I wonder what some boy that grew up on a farm thinks of the city!

can he stay any longer?

Yes, Tyler is still in the MTC. He should be going to the consulate this week.
The picture is of him and four other elders (Sleight, Van Wagoner, Smedly and Moller) that have the unfortunate last name at the end of the alphabet.
Here is part of his last e-mail.

hey we wont be leaving until sometime next week(Mon, Tues , Wed or Thurs). they are going to get us extra temple time and new schedules and help us to stay busy. we also might get to go to temple square

Still there...

Tyler called home on Saturday to say that their (all 71 of them) Visa's didn't get signed. Best case, they got signed today and they leave tomorrow, worst case, they are at the MTC for two more weeks then they would get sent out to the States and wait in some other mission.
Maybe Maimi? Spanish speaking? Alex would like it!
I spoke to the travel department today, and they said that rumors are not true, Mexico is still open to missionaries it just takes time to get off of someones desk.

Tyler in the snow.

Tyler in the snow at the MTC. Snow is a new experience for Tyler.