Elder Kadyn Del Toro: Guts and Glory

July 29, 2013

Santa vaca!! what a week! I am sitting here just laughing to myself wondering what I should talk about in my letter home. First of all Ill explain the subject of my email. On friday we had a lesson and after the lessons the family invited us to have some food with them. I was pumped because I was starving. We sat down and they pulled out "Buche"... ohhhhhh boy.... buche is pig guts. Elder turned to me and told me not to be scared. I was terrified. I immediately started to pray, just praying that I wouldnt throw up or something. So I went for it. I put some buche in a tortilla and threw a ton of salsa in there to cover up the flavor. It was a lose lose situation cause once I started eating it my mouth was on fire but at least it didnt taste terrible. After I was done all they had to drink was sprite and that made it even hotter in my mouth. The hermana looked at me and said, "no le gusta Elder?"... I made the decision right then that I was not going to be the "nuevo misionero" anymore. I said "no hermana, me gusto mucho, su comida es bieno rico!" and loaded up another taco. 2 tacos de buche for me. I ate the guts for the glory of not being a gringo anymore. They might still think Im a gringo but in my mind I am basically a native.

The mission is a little different than I thought. We do not knock on any doors. We get referals from the members in the ward and from other people we are teaching. It has been that way here for about a year now. We walk everywhere. My feet are so sore at the end of the day!! We also take little busses called combis but that starts to add up so we try to only take a combi twice a day. Our area is huge. We cover the centro, which is the city, as well as other parts around the city. So about mail. We get mail about once a month. haha.. So email is definately going to be most effective. but the adress to send mail/packages is :

Av. 18 de Marzo #3088
Col: Las Aguilas
Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico C.P. 4508

That is the mission office and they hold it there and then give it out about once a month. Im not allowed to give you my address.

Alright mom, here it is. Thanks for making me take piano lessons. They have not had someone who can play the piano in a very very long time so they were thankful that I could play during sacrament. The meetings were a little different than I am used to but it was really cool. I am starting to understand more and more. And when they ask me questions I just smile real big and reply the best I can to what I think they asked. We eat with members almost every day. They really only have one meal here. Its a big lunch at around 2 oclock. So I have my frosted flakes in the morning, comida at a members house, and sometimes a snack at night.
I wish I could write much more but I just really dont have much time. Everything is going well though! I love the people so much.

Love,

Elder Del Toro