April 26, 2022

 Hellllllllo everybody! 

Pretty exciting stuff this week! We had a baptism! Hermana Clara Gallegos got baptized on Sunday morning, nice and early. 9:00am, to be precise. And since the font takes about four hours or so to fill up... we had to wake up at 4:30 to go fill it. Yep. That was fun. I'm not sleep deprived. You're sleep deprived. Anyway. :P The baptism went really well, Hermano Martin (Clara's boyfriend) baptized her, and then after the baptism, proposed. Definitely a new experience. I think that's the first proposal I've ever been at, which is surprising, since I did spend a whole semester up at BYU. ;) Speaking of, Congratulations to all my newly married and engaged friends! (Making me feel old, but whatever)

Other things: We had a Blitz here in my area on Friday, which went remarkably well. Turns out, street contacting is just kind of overpowered. I think between the six of us in our district, we banged out about a hundred fifty or so conversations in an hour and a half. And we got a bunch of numbers to call. So that should go towards increasing our teaching pool nicely. We're going to have another one in my old Area, Aguilas, on Wednesday. Should be fun. Plus, right after that, the plan is to start Companion Exchanges, and I'll also be going to Aguilas. Nostalgia seems to be on the menu this week.

And to wrap things up, a tale of Mexican things. There's a little store about half a block from the chapel, which makes it very convenient when we're hungry. And the store has always been blue. Until yesterday. When they painted it red. Why did they paint it red? Because they contracted with Coca Cola. And apparently, one of the requirements to contract with Coca Cola is that you have to paint your store red. So now it's red, I guess. :P Just thought that was kinda funny. Anyway. See you all next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

Photos:
- They're both from the baptism *shrug*

April 19, 2022

 Hi everybody! Me again! (Though... who else would it be?)

So, as mentioned last week, I am in a new Area, in an old Zone. Makes for quite the throwback when you meet people you've met before. For example: The stake president was in the ward I served in six months ago, and he was in our temple session today. Small world, huh? Or small city, I suppose. But that was cool. And he gave us a ride back afterwards, which was nice, because riding the metro is fun, but not when it's like ninety-something degrees outside. The metro becomes a literal oven. (Hmm. Possibly a solution to the fact that we don't have ovens in our houses... then again, probably not. :P )

We got to go to the temple today! Which is always a great time. Makes me laugh a little bit, because I'm realizing that for as long as I've been old enough to go to the temple, I've had a temple within about a twenty minute drive of where I live. Spoiled, I know. But hey, I've also gone to the temple pretty often. So I'd say I'm taking good advantage of the situation. (Go to the temple. You know who you are. :)

Also this week: Semana Santa! (Because here, the party is all week, not just on Easter Sunday ;) Seriously, everybody was either gone on vacation, or had people visiting who were on vacation here. Made for quite the party scene. Too bad we don't get invited to any of that stuff. Oh well. Next Easter, I suppose. But Semana Santa was great for missionary work, because everyone who was actually still here in the area was out *looking* for someone to give them an Easter message. Because apparently religion is only important at Christmas and Easter. :P We did get a lot of phone numbers out of the whole thing though, so we'll see how that goes. 

Speaking of, when I got here, we only had one person in teaching. And she has a baptism date lined up for this coming Sunday. So. Most of our focus has been grinding out street contacts, trying to find people in Areabook, and Facebook, and whatever other resources we could scrounge up. And we've got a lot of people who have potential to talk to this week, so hopefully that turns into something. But yeah! It's business as usual. :)

Hope you all had a great Easter! See you next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

craig.blankenbiller@missionary.org

Photos:

- A visit to the pyramids! Kind of...

- Ramen place that I remembered from six months ago

- And the Ramen served there

- My new companion and I

- Temple trip!

April 12, 2022

 Hello again!

I'm running out of ways to open emails. :P I guess I'm just not as funny as I used to be. Makes sense. I've been on a mission for nearly 14 months now. ;) 

Anyway, bit of a change this week, I got transferred! So I'm in a new area, in an old zone, with a new companion. I was actually just in this Zone, about six months ago or so. It was kind of funny driving out here and recognizing different places. Doesn't happen too often, that. I will let you all know what my new area is like... just as soon as I know myself. :P

Other news... Beats me. The transfers are kind of the biggest news I've got. Leaving my last area wasn't fun, I'd been there for quite a while, long enough to really get attached to the people there. It was nice, to be honest. But definitely a bit sad to have to leave. :/ Still, new beginnings are a staple of missionary life, so I suppose I can't pretend I didn't see this one coming. ;) 

Hope you all are doing well! Sorry for no pictures this week, but we don't have our own phones, so... I had to leave my pictures behind. See you next week!

- Elder Blankenbiller

April 5, 2022

 Hey everybody! 

Gonna be a bit of a quick one this week, I've got a lot to say, and not a lot of time to say it. We took a trip to the city center again (the last time I went was in November, which I'm realizing was a long time ago. :P). Anyway. The trip was pretty fun, definitely the most touristy thing I've done in quite a while. And it was nice to be in a real city again. The rest of our mission is, well... not quite as nice. :P

Other things: As of Wednesday, I'm a legal resident of Mexico (again). I had to go back to the immigration offices to get my green card renewed. And go eat at Costco with the Secretaries of the Mission. Always a fun time. We also had Zone Conference, followed by General Conference. Now that I think about it, I've kind of just been on vacation for a week now. ;) Not actually, of course. But definitely not your average week.

I hope you all had a good time watching Conference! If you didn't watch it... I mean really, what are you doing? Conference is awesome. And you need to go back and watch it. I promise they said something that you, personally, needed to hear. Anyway. Enough out of me. Go have a great week! 

- Elder Blankenbiller 

Photos:

- Sushi!

- The district at the Sushi place 

- Outside the Palace of Beautiful art

- Aztek Death God statue 

- Big Aztek dude on the floor 

- Proof that Moroni knew how to make a concrete box 

- Everything changed when the fire nation attacked

- A wall of skulls

- Some dead guy? I guess they think he's a relic or something

- The Pyramid at the center of the city. Pretty cool stuff