Celaya, Mexico-Companions with Elder Molina

5/29/17



Hey guys, just emailing you to let you know that I made it here alright, and that my P days will be on Monday, so I will email you again then. love you guys!

Hello.
Elder Cherpeski arrived in Queretaro today and we are so thrilled to have him in our mission. We have been waiting for him to come for a long time. He is a fine young man and we are excited to see what wonderful things he will experience as he faithfully serves.
Elder Cherpeski will be serving in the city of Celaya with Elder Molina. Elder Molina is from Tempe, Az but is fluent in Spanish and will be a great help as he continues to learn Spanish and also as he adjusts to mission life.
Again, we are so thankful to have your wonderful son here with us in Queretaro.

Sister Williamson

 

6/5/17
Super crazy week.  I left the MTC last Monday and headed out to Queretaro.  After interviews we got our assignments. I was assigned to the Celaya, Alamos area with Elder Molina as my trainer. He's a super good missionary, and we've been working extremely hard.  He's from Arizona, and we get along super great!  It's been tough work here though because everyone is so Catholic, but the people are very kind.  Everything about Mexico is wild. Especially the bus rides haha.  I've seen some stuff here that I wouldn't have ever thought of in the US. There's so much poverty, it's pretty insane. I really didn't understand a whole lot of Spanish this week, but hopefully over the next couple months I can understand more. Well, I don't have much time, so I'll talk to you more next week! Love you guys! 

 

 

 

6/12/17

 Hey guys! I've been super excited to email you this week! The first two weeks here have been pretty crazy. I don't even know where to start haha.  The first day was super long, and it just felt extremely strange.  We left at about 4 in the morning from the MTC and spent the whole day going from different buses until we showed up in Queretaro. President Williamson, his wife, and the APs picked us up. President Williamson is super awesome, and reminds me of the Bishop I had at BYUI.  Then we went back to the mission home, had lunch, interviews, and then we got assigned to our different areas and we all shipped out at different times.  Elder Mucey and I were the only Americans assigned to Celaya, so we traveled up there together.  Talk about a weird feeling. I felt like I had finally started my mission for real.  When we got there I met my trainer, Elder Molina.  He's from Arizona, and we get along super well.  I definitely have more in common with him than my first companion, and we have been having a blast.

The first few days in the field were some of the hardest days of my life.  It was super hot and sunny, and my feet hurt soooo bad haha.  Plus there wasn't a whole lot of people we could teach here, so we spent the first few days just contacting a bunch.  Thankfully now we have some steady investigators with two that will probably be getting baptized July 1st.  It's crazy that I got assigned to Celaya, especially since I think it was my great, great grandfather was born here and everything.  But Celaya is actually a pretty tough place for missionary work.  When I got here, there was only one investigator on date in the entire zone.  Everyone here plays the game that they'll give you their address and a return appointment, but when you show up, they're not there or they come out, say they're Catholic, and that they don't want anything to do with you. Occasionally, they'll come out with their bible and try to make us feel bad, but usually it just makes them look dumb. But not everything here is bad, and a lot of people are kind. Hopefully we'll get some baptisms here soon.  We walk around 10 miles a day, and that has taken some getting used to.

The food here is good, but there's a lot of it. We have one big comida usually around 3, and we have a light breakfast and dinner as well.  The comida I've had so far has been a lot of meat, beans,soup , cactus, and some tostadas.  They give you so much food, sometimes it's pretty tough to finish it all off. We eat with members pretty much everyday. I don't understand why they give us soup when it's like 100 degrees though...  But yeah, I've been enjoying the food.  Something you never see here though is plain water.  It's always flavored with something, whether it's limon or fresa.  I actually have only had one soda so far though, so there's not as much as I thought it would be.

Spanish has been frustrating. I can understand quite a bit, but speaking it is a lot harder.  There's just so many tenses, and you have to conjugate everything, but hopefully after my training and everything I'll be able to understand a lot more, and speak more as well.  I can probably understand like half of everything, but that other half can really change the meaning.  People here speak so dang fast as well haha.  I can tell pretty much every distinct word apart now though, so as soon as I learn more words, everything will start to make more sense. I hear it usually takes about 6 months before you can really speak well.  Anyways, send me whatever questions you have, and I'll answer them next week! Love you guys, and I pray for you everyday!

6/19/2017
I don't have much time once again, we only get an hour, but I want to challenge you to do something for me. I want to know what blessings you all have experienced so far as part of me being on my mission :) anyways, I love you all, and pray for you daily (in spanish) Talk to you more next week!