Hey everyone! Another week gone by in Oaxaca! And this week was a little crazy but a lot of neat things happened and I am definitely getting more adjusted to it all.
Bikes and a Miracle I wanted to start this with a (hopefully) final update on the bikes and what has happened with them over the past few weeks, as well as a cool miracle along with them recently. So, when we first got our bikes, they were totally broken and we had a member help us fix them up to work. However, some parts (which we didn’t know at the time) were worn down and eventually broke completely after two weeks. This meant that real help was needed. Last week we put them into the shop to get them fixed and paid for the replacement of a few parts. And now, they work great! No more scraping, no more wobbling, just switching gears and doing awesome. And this was just in the nick of time too! Because on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of last week we had to go on a 1-2 hour adventure each day to get food at different member’s homes. While it was tough work finding the right direction and riding on bumpy dirt roads, it was a miracle that we had gotten our bikes fixed literally the day before we truly needed them.
Vaccines! The vaccine situation down here in Oaxaca is nothing like the United States and finally, this week, a bunch of the missionaries (mexican and American) got vaccinated! But what a crazy experience. Part 1: On Saturday morning, my companion and I went to the church to do some stuff on the computer, and we ran into another set of elders at the church too. We all did personal study for about 30 minutes and then we all got a text from the zone leaders saying there are vaccines available at some military base in Oaxaca City. So we quickly packed up and hit up a taxi for a ride to the city. When we got there (around 11:00), the line to get the vaccine was probably 6+ hours long. It spanned multiple city blocks and pretty much just kept getting longer by the minute. But my companion and a bunch of other missionaries who were there needed the vaccine, so we started to stand in line. We stood there for about 2 hours, and then we got word that they ran out of vaccines, but that there would be more in another city called Mitla (Meet-la) tomorrow at 9:00 AM. Pretty much everyone was determined to get the vaccine, so we planned on going to Mitla (2 hours away) on Sunday morning. Part 2: Sunday morning comes, we wake up early and were fortunate enough to get a ride from a member in our area (the people down here are just awesome). So he took us the full 2 hours to Mitla and arrived at 8:50, which is much later than we wanted. And it was a mistake. The line, before they even started giving vaccines, was at least 6 hours, and it led to the Secretary of Health building in Mitla. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And finally, after 6 hours of standing in the sun, we finally got to the front and my companion got his vaccine. Afterwards, a member took all the missionaries there (around 20 of us) to his house in Oaxaca City and gave us pizza for food. It was super nice and a real treat after such a long day.
The Work With such a crazy week in other departments, this section might seem a little lackluster, but it was still a pretty good week. I have started to help teaching more but because all lessons and contacts are still over the phone, I can only give my part of the lesson, not respond to questions or try to have a conversation. I cannot understand a thing that people say over the phone. I know it will come eventually, but right now it is even hard to pick out words or phrases I know. But we have a few interested people who really want to have the light of the Gospel in their lives, and a few more that just need a final push towards baptism, so it is going well.
Pictures (I finally got the photos to work) 1. Our work/eating area 2. A pic of our apartment 3. A pretty sunset and the view from our apartment 4. A river we had to cross during one of our biking adventures
-Elder Ord
Area: Valle de Etla Zone: Monte Alban Companion/Trainer: Elder Sifuentes COVID: Orange, no in-person contacting or teaching
