Week 2

Pues, ola again!
how are we all? Sorry to hear about that accident, thats quite a bummer!
With the money, once a month we hit up an atm machine and withdraw the amount that we are issued. Neat huh? I use it to hitch taxies when we don´t have time, and buy bread and soda, and these yogurt drink things. Im going to talk about food, since im hungry and we`re on the subject. last week, just after emailing my beloved friends and family, i had what the ``locals`` call my `` baptism by fire`` it is apparently like the hottest taco ever, piled in like the hottest salsa ever, and everybody fears it! but almost all the missionaries experience it here in Irapuato. I was like balling, and sniffling, and whatnot, and about half way through, i got these huge, bulging, hiccup things, that reminded me and awlful lot of an episode of the Magic school bus, where Ms Frizzle and her class is stuck inside a volcano, trying to escape out of the top in an explosion of hot liquid magma. Anyways, thats basically what was happening in my stomach/throat/esophagus. The good news is i didn`t throw up like alot of elders, i downed like 2 or 3 horchatas, and the next day suffered the aftermath! Which it sufficeth me to say sucked! But all is well, and now i don´t need to fear any comida picante! i hope!
Other than that, not much happened, i just baptized a 93 year old lady. Shes awesome, and lives with like a family of twelve out by some ranches. We`ve been talking to her greatgrandaughter, the last of her family to be baptized, but she doesn´t want to because she wants to have her first ``communion`` shyeah! whatever that means!
Basically though, im in just a big pickle!
Its odd, but i don´t really feel as if i am here for the same reason as everyone else. I spent 3 months trying to learn how to teach by the spirit, and i get here and am told by my trainer to memorize these horrid ``charrlas`` or memorized statements like they used to do back in the day of mi hermano! And i don´t know, it sure is a challenge to invite the spirit to touch these people individually when you say the same thing to every single one of them. I don´t know, maybe im being a brat or something, but i feel like all the elders here have found a way to baptize a couple people a week, and now are just on a monotonous repeat thing, not growing, not loving, just kind of doing. The worst part is, because i can´t communicate very well, its all too easy, almost necessary, to just memorize. I just worry about falling down this ``winter slide`` as they say and forgeting what really matters, though i think its summer, i don´t know it breaks out in crazy lightning storms all the time...
All in all, i feel like i am learning what kind of missionary i want to be. What kind of disciple of Christ i want to be. I reckon there is only one.
i dont mean to bring negativity, on the contrary its a very positive thing, so don´t take it the wrong way, we are always learning! I love this place, the people are great, my companion is nice, we teach a whole lot of people every week, we played fùtbol los estados unidos vs mexico (of missionaries) today, we lost both times, by one point mind you, and the games reminded me an awful lot of when the kings would play the lakers in the playoffs, with all these outrageous calls, and cheap shots!
but im not going to do this, im sorry i failed you all back home
As far as the breakfast ordeal, it is still a battle, though one night this incredible sister brought us these incredible baked goods, and then like ten minutes later, the nice lady downstairs brought us some more baked goods. they were incredible. they have really great baked goods here, and beverages! though i am eating terribly, terribly unhealthily. and i only say this to warn you of who might be stepping off of the plane in a few years!

finally, i close with a spiritual thought. Something that i read in the MTC, that i still enjoy flipping through these days.
In the book of Moses, we read about the story of Enoch (the full and incredible story!) Enoch is chosen by God to preach to the people of the world who had forgotten their Father in Heaven, who had forgot His love, and had turned away from him ``hating their own blood`` Enoch is taken up into heaven, to stand and view the world as God sees it. He watches the wickedness of the world, with Jehovah at his side, and bears testimony of the Lord weeping for those of the earth. the creations of His hands. And Enoch cannot understand, how the greatest, even God, stretching from eternities to eternities, whos creations are limitless, could weep. Power, weeping. Enoch questions the Lord, and comes to see as He sees, with eyes of love, his bowels strecthing wide as eternity with the love of the Lord. And then he understands.
I guess i am moved by this, i am. God watching Satan laugh binding the earth with chains, weeping.
The point is, as the good book says, this is life eternal, to know the only true God, and Christ, whom he has sent. Oh how we don´t understand he who made us! like laman and lemuel of the Nephite times, we cannot follow Christ if we don´t understand him. Luckily, or perfectly, the end the story, the happening, is happy, as God tells Enoch to take cheer, for the Savior will come to save the world.
And this flows in with what i feel my purpose is, invite people to truly know God, truly know Christ, not because i do, but because i know the way how. It is a truth that only can be found in this gospel. And as we try to understand, what i have found, we find that we are only remebering what we already know. I invite you all to read the story of Enoch! In the book of Moses, Chapters like 6 through 8 or something. and i invite you all to be joyful, in your blessings, in the blessing that we have, the opportunity we have to understand the love of God in every one our lives.
and I invite you, to know the blessing that you are to me. Truly! Verdaderamente.
and alas, for now it is time for us to part!
I apologize if I have not made sense, or if i have accidentally skewed the image of the pure happiness of serving the Lord and serving others in your eyes. It was not my intention at all. This is the best. You all are the best!
I love and pray for you,

Elder Albano
captains log:
Irapuato, Mexico