Extra Gatorade, Let Me Know if You Need Any

I sent an email last week, but for some reason it didn't go through so that was frustrating. So heres a brief recap. We had the opportunity to watch general conference at the CCM, and I loved it, and I'm so curious what is going to be so unforgettable about the next one. Sunday into Monday felt like the longest day of my life. That night I stayed up all night with my district until 2 AM when we left on a bus to the airport. Our flight was at 5:30 AM so I did quite a bit of sleeping. We get to the mission home and we are fed real food so that was nice. We have our interviews with the Mission President, then we go to the Assistants house and sleep haha then we go to the church to meet our companions and find out our areas. My companion is Elder Fernandez, from Bolivia and he doesn't speak any English, so that has been fun. And our area is Parral, a small city in southern Chihuahua, but we didn't leave until the next day because it was too far away. Then we go to a sample contacting activity in downtown Chihuahua. After we go back to the assistants house and fall asleep with like 20 other missionaries in that house. The next morning we get ready and then head to our individual areas by bus. And It was probably a good 2 hour drive but I honestly dont know because I was asleep, just like every time haha. When we get there, we have to go live with other missionaries, because our house wasn't ready yet. We spent the rest of that day contacting and trying to figure out our house situation. The next day we get our house figured out, but it was quite the process. We walk to our house, and wait for the Landlord to get there with the key. When he gets there, we go inside and he starts talking and walks over to the sink and turns it on. Green Gatorade starts gushing out it looked so good, no that was our water. I guess making sure the water is the right color, isn't a part of the preparation process here in Mexico.

Dark Green Water from the Faucet...Welcome to Parral

We haven't received a letter from Drew the past two weeks.  He arrived in Parral and is getting accustomed to the new culture, food, and language.  He is only able to write and talk to us while he's at an internet cafe.  So far he has struggled to get the connection to work, so our chats with him have been static-laced.  Sometimes we can see him but can't hear him.  Other times we can't see him or hear him but he can instant message us while we talk to him.
In the time that he has at the internet cafe, he hasn't quite mastered tackling technology issues and juggling getting a letter written. We are also still figuring out how to get access to his pictures.  This week he sent us over 20 but when we tried to open them it said we need to request access.  Ah, the joys of technology.  So I thought I'd give an update on what we've been able to glean from our conversations.
Drew is on the southern tip of his mission.  He is in Parral, on the southern border of Chihuahua.  It is a city with 130,000 people.  He says the weather is HOT and the food has been good.  The main meal of the day is at 2:00.  He eats with church members each day for that meal.  The food is good, lots of meat, beans, rice, and tortillas.  But not as much meat as Drew is used to.:)
He makes his own breakfast and dinner with lots of egg a, yogurt, oatmeal and chicken.
His companion doesn't speak any English.  He is from Bolivia and has been serving for 11 months.  Drew reports that his Spanish is coming quickly.  He does a lot of listening right now, but is understanding more and more.
He is living in a fairly large home with just his companion.  It hasn't been lived in for four or five years.  When they turned on the faucet, imagine Drew's surprise when dark green water came out! He had no idea what to do and he couldn't communicate with his companion very well.  Drew says it was a challenge and time consuming to figure out how to get this corrected. Turns out they use a cistern system, a large tank on the roof where the water is stored.  After that many years of the water just sitting, it was pretty nasty.   They had to turn on all the faucets and let them run overnight to empty the storage tank.  Someone came out to clean the cistern and then they had to pay 100 pesos to get connected to "street water".  And after all that, they still can't drink the water.  But at least they don't have to shower in sludge.  They gave him a filtration water bottle for drinking water.
The house doesn't have any work out equipment.  It doesn't even have door frames, which he would need even if he is able to find a pull up bar.
He is teaching lots of less actives and hearing Spanish rap music in the streets.
He has gone bowling with his district of six elders.  A few of them speak English which is a nice respite.  He sees sports courts around town, like cement basketball courts that also have net-free soccer goals.  He does see a few soccer fields.

Arrival in Chihuahua

Hey Mom and Dad I made it to Chihuahua and my first area is Parral, we leave for there tomorrow and its about a 3 hour drive. We did our first contacting activity earlier tonight. Can't wait to call next Monday!

Thank you for sending Elder Talbot to join us in Chihuahua!

We are grateful to serve with him.

He is pictured with his new companion, Elder Fernandez

Presidente y Hermana Ingalls 

Last Week in the Mexico MTC

This week I starting eating a bunch of bananas and toast with honey because I went to the enfermeria and they put me on the brat diet with pills and this other liquid medicine. That day we got some very bad news from our teacher Hermana Vasquez. Her new fiance passed away and so she had a sub for her for a few days. So I had like 11 bananas and 20 pieces of bread. Then I tried to toast a roll and it caught on fire, but luckily I had my chef amigo right there to help me. Anyways, we got our flight times for Chihuahua. Our flight is at 6 AM and we have to wake up at 2 AM because they want us there so early. We helped the new missionaries coming to the CCM get settled and they appreciated that. We learned all the tenses for the grammar so now we can start using all of it. On Wednesday my companion and I were notified that we needed to go to migration of Friday, our Pday and so that's what I did the first 7 hours of the day today. I finally got a haircut from one of the guys in my district who got his haircut parts from his parents. Thursday, was the last day to be with our teachers and it was very memorable experience, because it was our last time teaching them, being taught by them, and seeing them again for 2 years. I started packing all my bags and I got them weighed, I'm soooo ready to get out of here. Our service project this week started off with an arm wrestling tournament to see who was going to be in charge of the fun part of the service project, throwing the sheets to all the Elders to then fold them. I was in the final and I lost to this biiiig body so I wasn't feeling too bad about it haha. Then we did TRC and we taught this guy who spoke super fast and he handed me a book of Mormon and said teach me a message so that was interesting. I taught him about faith in Ether 12 and it turned out really well. Then that night we saw our teachers one last time together and took pictures and said goodbye.  Its been a great week, hope everyone is doing well.  Chihuahua here we come!

Elder Talbot