August 23, 2011 letter

Dear Family,

There was a small storm a week from last Saturday, but I don´t think it was Harvey.  Its the same Elder Gubler.  I´m taller than him.  He goes home in Feb.  They changed secretaries in the office.  The old secretary said I had a package, but when someone went to pick up everything, they didn´t find one for me.  I´ll call the new secretary tomorrow and see what he says.  The DVD player isn´t allowed outside of the house.  I didn´t like avocados and guacamole, I think that was Rachel. 

I don´t know if you saw my letter from yesterday, but I got transfered.  I got moved last Tuesday.  We entered into our house on Tuesday at 9:55 after having 2 FHEs.  I was ready to get in and sleep, because we didn´t sleep very much the night before because the Escarcega elders stayed with us.  As soon as we stepped in the door, the ZLs called.  They asked Elder Portillo to put it on speaker.  They told me I was going to Kanasin, and that I had to be in Merida (almost 4 hours away) at 8:00 the following morning.  It was kind of some bad timing because my white shirts were at the cleaners, and they were already closed.  We left the house and walked to the house of the owner to see if she could open up the shop for us.  She told us to talk to the people that lived next door.  We walked to the shop, knocked on the house next door, but nobody was there.  We then got back to the house, and I got a Book of Mormon and gave it to a guy that lived arround the corner from us that we never got to teach.  We then went to the bus station and checked what time they left for Merida.  The bus would leave at 3:00 in the morning.  We then had to find a priest in the branch to accompany Elder Portillo until I was gone and he could shut himself up in the house.  We called one, but he didn´t want to go.  We said we´d call him back, and then after that our phone ran out of credit.  We started walking across town to get to his house.  About halfway there we found a taxi and he took us the rest of the way.  We got to his house and started talking with him, and finally convinced him to go with us. We then walked to the church to get our suit coats which we had left there.  From there we walked back to the house.  We got back at 12:30 in the morning and I had 2 hours to pack.  I got everything packed and finished right at 2:30.  I put on my white shirt, and we left for the bus station.  It was a good thing that I didn´t have all of my white shirts, because I didn´t have any room in my suitcases.  The bus arrived at 3:30.  I think the other bus broke down and they had to switch buses, but it was ok because they brought a more luxurious, faster bus.  I tried to sleep, but I only got about 1.5 hours of sleep on the bus. 

I got into Merida at 7:45ish, and at 8:00 a.m. a couple of mission secretaries came and took me directly to a zone conference.  I'm in the same zone as Elder Higginson, my companion from the MTC that I really liked.  After the conference I got to the area of Kanasin 1.  Kanasin is a city right next to Merida, divided by the 180 freeway.  It is a great area.  The house is so much more livable than in Champoton.  The church house is really nice, and I'm pretty sure it will be a great ward.  We had stake conference on Sunday so I don´t know very much about the ward.  There is a store right arround the corner that has all of the basics I need.  I can now buy fresh bananas daily instead of buying a week at a time.  I can also travel to Merida, so I plan to go to Costco.  There are lots of investigators.

My time is up.  I'll let you know more next week.  Love, Elder Gubler