Week 7 "Real De Palmas" first week in Mexico

I'm so glad to know that my son is having a great start to his mission. I know he will struggle at times with the language, but I'm glad that he is studying hard to learn. The area will be a challenge as well. He will grow to love Mexico over time and feel it's his second home. We just sent him a small care package as a test to see how long it takes and if he gets it. We love our missionary-Mom


Hola,

Well I'm here in my first area in Monterrey. My new companion is Elder Torales. He is a native to Mexico and doesn't know any english. That means I really have to put to use my knowledge of spanish. I'm also going to be working on teaching he english while we are companions. Should be a fun time teaching him some phrases and words. Over all he is a great Elder and its going to be a good time working with my papa. Another thing is that the trainers here are refered to as Papas and the trainees are hijos. Its just really reandom to be considered Elder Torales' hijo. He has said a few times to members this -"Este es mi hijo amado, Escucalo". Which he is refering to the first vision. 

Every branch in our zone is assigned with two sets of elders. The other companionship is Elder Fransen (The other elder from the Allen stake) and Elder Gravley (One of the elders from my zone in the MTC). Every day we have lunch at a members house with the other companionship. That means that I have a chance to speak english once a day. The food hasn't been much of a shock yet. I think the food is great. I just have to get used to the portions that they give to eat. They don't seem to mess around when it comes to lunch here. Another thing I have found I like here are there burgers. I have had burgers at members houses twice already and I think they are the best thing ever. I've never thought that putting avocado on burgers would taste good. 

Real de Palmas is not what I imagained when I found out that I would be serving in Monterrey. The buildings are so close to gether and each sector has so many people. If it wasn´t for Elder Torales I would defiantly get lost here. The people here are great though. I may not be very good with my spanish but I can understand them pretty well. Most of the time Elder Torales does the talking. I save most of my talking for the lessons and the times that I am asked questions. I hope that I will eventually be able to get a hold of the language. We have quite a few investagators right now. We are working with the daughters of a recent convert to be prepared for baptism the first Sunday in October. We also have another investigator who we challenged to baptism. He doesn't know what his thoughts on baptism are now but we invited him to pray for an answer and to also find out if what we taught him is true. Our missions has a goal for a baptism a week so we have to get working towards that goal. It may seem like a big goal or something that would be hard to accomplish but in fact it's not all that hard. We just have to put in the effort and achieve all the other goals that the mission has in place for us to succed. I've just got to work on gaining more confidance with my speaking of spanish and then I think I will be a better teacher.

The daily study cycle has been great. I've been reading a chapter in spanish each day and also a chapter of Jesus the Christ. Having this time to study in my day is great and really helps me strengthen my knowledge of the gospel and my testimony. My reading in spanish my not be perfect or all that fast but I know that in the long run it will really help when I am teaching lessons. I think having the hour a day to study is a great blessing and is a great way to start the day.

siempre y para siempre,

Elder boren