I arrived in Las Vegas on Monday, August 23, and was met by President and Sister Black (in the photo). After some training, I left for Yerington, Nevada. It took 8 hours to get up here from Las Vegas. We drove in a fleet of cars. I think one giant van with a trailer attached and 5 cars. About 25 missionaries came north. I was in a Corolla with two other guys, so not bad. Look up Yerington, NV and you'll probably find it. Google earth it. It’s a cool place, but it’ll take getting used to.
Spanish Americans are split between the North and the South as expected. More in Vegas but not way more. All of us new spanAms came north. There are only 3 small towns that have spanAms in the whole mission and my first area is one, which is fine. Its nice here. Like 70 today. My comp is Elder Bush. He’s been out for 9 months. He is from Maine, which is always fun. He’s a good guy and knows what he’s doing. He’s a solid teacher and knows the area really well. His Spanish is also way solid. Some of the Spanish-speaking people I was talking to spoke super highly of his Spanish but then again any white person that can speak get praise from natives, but seriously he’s good. His comp before me was from Mexico and they spoke all the time. It’s hard for us because everything here is in English.
I am working in the Yerington, NV ward. It is an English ward, but our assignment is to create a Spanish branch. We are teaching Al, who is a pretty interesting guy. He is American Indian that speaks both English and Spanish, but likes being taught in English while reading the scriptures in Spanish. We have la familia Soto who are supposed to be a great family. Their daughter came to mutual on Wednesday so I met her. We have a few others from Mexico we are trying to teach but it’s really busy right now with school starting up again today. Next week will be easier now that people are actually home.
We know there are well over 1000 Mexicans (they are really from Mexico) here. Our English class is really the best bet to get to talk with them. We have been finding new places to put posters for it, so I hope people see it. They are brought in from where they work to shop at very odd times, so we’re trying to figure that out too. We've got one sign on the very front door of one of the stores they frequent most now, so hopefully that will help. Most of our work right now is visiting with people who don’t come to church much (which there are tons of), working with recent converts, visiting with members, and giving service.
I have the bike and have used it. The secretary thought Jason (who brought the bike to the mission office) looked younger than all of us so he couldn’t have been my brother-in-law. I laughed at that. He should have said hey. My area is really big so we have to use bikes to preserve our miles some.
Send mail to the mission office. Everything goes to the mission home first and gets forwarded.
