September 20, 2022

 ¡Viva México!

That's right everybody, this last week we had Mexican Independence Day! And boy, was it a party. Actually, this whole week was kind of a party, to be honest. The fact that everybody was drunk all week didn't exactly make it easy to find new people to teach. :P But hey, we got to eat Pozole, Chiles en Nogada, and all the other traditional foods, so no complaints from me. We also got to see some fun fireworks on Thursday night, even if we weren't actually able to go to the Grito. (Then again, probably for the best we didn't, I've heard it gets kinda crazy here. :P )

But yeah, we spent the evening on the 15th at the Zone Leaders' apartment, in order to go with them to Zone Conference the next day. And that meant that we perhaps maybe stayed up just a little bit late playing Monopoly like three or four times. :P Fun stuff, that. :) On Friday, we went to Zone Conference, which went really well! We had a few workshops about a couple different things, like how to more efficiently use the online organization tools we have in the mission (Which I've been pushing for a while now), and how to not die in an earthquake. (Speaking of earthquakes... but that can wait a few seconds) We wrapped up the conference with the testimonies of people going home next week, and with President giving a powerful testimony about missionary work. 

And the moment you've all been waiting for: What happened with the earthquake? Well I'll tell you. First, some history: In 1985 and 2017, there were two very big earthquakes, both occurring on September 19th. In 2017, the earthquake happened right after the national earthquake drill. And this year... Yesterday, September 19th, 2022, we had an earthquake drill at 12:19pm. And not even an hour later, the alarm sounded, this time, because the ground was moving. Don't worry, everything is fine here, the earthquake happened southwest of here in Michoacan (at a 7.4 magnitude), and we just felt the edge of it. Although we did get a small ash exhalation from one of the nearby volcanoes, so that could be interesting. :P

But yeah, that was an exciting week. We'll see if this next week can keep up. Have a good one!

- Elder Blankenbiller

Photos:
- Earthquake data stuff 
- The airport? 👀
- Some homemade sushi 
- Quesadillas are different in Mexico 
- We went shopping for drug rugs 
Video:
- The metro can be busy sometimes