hello family and friends,
wow has it been a week here. where to begin. idk... well lets start at the beginning, thats probably a good place to start. ill start on monday. 1 week ago. well monday morning my fellow companions had to be at the travel office to catch their bus at 5am. so i said goodby and went back to sleep til 6:30. i woke up and cleaned finished packing and sat around til 10 when my bus was to leave for the airport. i was the only missionary traveling to tampico. i got on the bus and soon arrived at the airport and had about an hour or so til my plane left so i was able to call my mom and tell her how much i love her. that was nice to hear from her. it was definately weird being by myself for the day, i was used to it before but just wierd. I didnt mind actually it was nice to have a small break from everyone and just breath for a moment until i was to jump head first in the the water (the mission). well we were soon in the air and i got a lot of questions as to if i was coming or going on a mission. and where. and there was one member who talked to me for the whole trip which was nice, something to do. haha. well i got to the houston airport and booked it to my next flight i had only a short amount of time. i arrived on the plane that was going from houston to tampico. a lot smaller plane than the last one i was just on. a little bumpy but we soon arrived at the tampico airport about the size of the falcon field or even smaller i believe. small airport. i got off the plane and it felt like i had jumped into a hot wet furnace. its amazing how hot and humid it is here. its been one week and i havent stopped sweating. no joke. 24/7 constantly sweating. its that hot and humid. i would take the month of july in phoenix over tampico any day. my little brother sam wrote me and had mentioned my room was hot and trying to keep it cool. well at least he has ac. i dont have any. i wish i had a ac wall cooler thing whatever you call it. you are rich if you have one of those. the mission home had a few that was super nice to have ac. i miss ac... :( anyway well i got off the plane and soon met my mission president. he and his wife are great. i love them both. i met my new trainer. elder gonzales. he is from mexico and is learning english. hes been out for 8 months. he is a work horse. loves to work and teach with the scriptures. i am so grateful to have such a wonderful trainer. i love him hes just awesome. so we stayed the night at the mission home at a delicious dinner and did slept. woke up and at a great breakfast. my comp kept taking pictures and saying how nice this place was. just seemed like a normal home to me. nothing to fancy at all. small cozy home. nope i was wrong. come to find out it was nice. very nice. running pressurized water, ac, carpet, delicious meals, nice couch, and so much more is such a luxury here. looking back i miss that place. i wont forget it. hopefully one day i can see it again. probably when i leave the mission. haha. oh i cant wait for the day. anyways in the evening we were dropped off at the apartment. i thought uh, its ok. but the looks on the faces of the mission president was amazing. he said wow best apartment i think we have in all the mission. wow am i in for a surprise if this is the best i thought. come to find out it is super nice compared to what i have seen. if it was a hotel the mission home would be a 5 star hotel, our apartment about a 3 because no ac. if it had a wall cooler or something it would be a 4, and then the rest well i think they are 2 or 3 stars. the investigators homes... i would say a 1. its amaxing to me, truly an eye opener to see how little people have. i am truly blessed to have lived in the united states with so much. i took it for granted. so much. you are rich if you have 1 car. most housed are tin roof or cement. usually cement floors. those who have more money have put in tile. no one has ac that i have found. usually just a fan or two. all the doors and windows are always open. so all we have to do is say bueños dias and the people come out of the house and we contact. no knocking doors. simpling a loud voice and people come. its definately interesting.
my first night doing missionary work was tuesday. we did some contacting and everyone comes around to see the american who is blonde with blue eyes. quite rare around here. i can attract crowds let me tell you. i attracted about 20 or investigators who kept asking me a thousand questions and all at once. it was frustrating because i didnt understand most of them. my comp loved it because he was able to do contacting. i came up to a woman sitting on the curb with her 2 children and she had asked who i was and what i was doing and such. and in my very broken spanish i tried replying. and i started to do a little contacting. very horribly of course. and he husband comes up and i try to talk to him in spanish and soon he says in perfect english, i speak english. i felt like the same guy on the best 2 years, what did he just say? he speaks english? wow first contact and he speaks english great. so i did my contacting in english and he relaid the message to his wife. perfect. i shared to first vision in spanish though. and my comp soon came over from talking to another couple. and he finished it up and got the name and address and we will be stopping by this week. great i thought, this is easy. not so easy. people are just so nice they will listen to you but usually the 2nd time they will lie to you and say they are busy or wont keep their commitments. sometimes i wish they would just tell the truth and say no im not interested, no i wont keep the commitments. stuff like that. make it easier i would assume. but who knows, planting seeds i guess. so we soon arrived home and i completed my 2nd day in the field. man i was hot and tired. cant go to sleep. time to plan. planning is over and now i want to sleep. i laid there is bed for most of the night just staring at the ceiling sweating to death. i had a fan on me but it didnt help. oh well. finally got some sleep and soon it was time to head out. well my time is up but i will write next week. my baptism that we had with a young man fell through but we have a family baptism very soon. all is well and i am absolutely loving it now. i love you all take care.


love,
elder cox