Elder Taylor Moulton: Week 8: Drunk Hobos, Fechas, Mama Africa, and Muesli

Hola family!!!

This week has been crazy, with tons of lessons, 2 new baptismal dates,
and a few news to make it all better. One of our investigators is
Jenna, a Venezuelan woman who's definitely a spirited evangelical. But
the cool thing is that she was the very first contact we had in the
area, so it was awesome to give her a baptismal date for the 24th(be
ready for pics of that, first baptism). We also have 2 others with
almost fechas (dates) so we are pumped for that.

The only hard thing with her is that her pastor is ripping her with
anti-Mormon texts so we have to correct all of that every lesson. We
can only really contact here through street contacts (sketchy
depending on the time of day, but still cool since we've met some
super nice people on the streets here). We can't knock doors too often
though since there's a front door with timbres (doorbells) at every
building, so unless they know you you can't get into the building (we
still knocked doors at one appointment, and we almost got eaten by
this bear of a dog when the door opened haha). The elevators here are
also super sketchy and small, so I'll send a video of one next week.

Ok so mama Africa for the subject line, is this super awesome member
here in this building, who saved our lives when we brought Janina to
church yesterday since we had no idea how she'd do alone in relief
society (they flip the church schedule for some reason here). She
dresses in these super colorful African dresses too so she's easy to
spot. She instantly befriended Janina though and helped her out to
explain the church more since she used to be evangelical like Janina.

The food here is crazy but delicious! The best snack food here though
is called muesli, a chocolate cereal with bits of chocolate bars in
it(they also have one with dried nuts and fruit). Let's just say that
if I get fat here, it'll be because of that... It's that good. Another
cool thing they do here, which you should try, is putting peanut
butter on a ham and cheese panini, it's weirdly delicious haha.

Another crazy story this week happened on Thursday. We were walking
around this park waiting for an investigator to come, when this hobo
jumped out of nowhere and asked us for money, which happens like 3
times a day so no big deal. But this guy kept walking and talking in
Spanish to us, then loudly talking to us as he followed us across the
park. My Spanish isn't that good, so I heard only blabbering as Elder
McArthur heard every swear word in Spain. He eventually left, but we
kept looking around during the lesson since he was still wandering
around drunkenly. Just a normal day in Patraix haha(the district we
work in).

Overall, it's been busy, hot, and fun out in the field. The buildings
here are super beautiful too so it's sometime hard to concentrate
contacting, but the work is awesome. Elder McArthur’s pretty awesome
too, and we've had a funny time learning the area(and getting lost) as
we find new people. We've become pretty good friends too so that's made
spending the whole day together a lot easier.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Taylor Moulton