[A reply to his father’s email]
actually they do celebrate "5 de mayo" here in Puebla!! it isn't a made up holiday it's just that they don't celebrate it outside of Puebla because it is a celebration of a battle that took place here in Puebla (the Pueblanos won obviously).
I think you should upgrade you bike only if you get to keep the bike (I'm thinking I might look into getting one when I get home and if we happen to have one lying around the garage I think that will make my decision rather easy ;D) otherwise save the money for the next emergency because it is an unnecessary usage of money.
as for the Skype thing I just checked to see if there was any problems (literally I read your message and checked) there are no problems with logging on or anything it doesn't even say I have sent any messages in the last 30 days.
Elder Blanding
Hey all!! 14 months tomorrow!! wow does time fly.
So today is a holiday and so we were given the day off... not really. we were given the whole day for P-day but it is because we had interviews with our mission president and seeing as that would take some time out of our P-day they said we don't have to work today.
we are now sharing the ward with sisters. we have the bigger of the 2 areas but that doesn't really matter (more potential investigators is all). we have been working really hard to try to find new investigators because we almost didn't work over here before because we had enough work in the other half.
I had a really cool experience this week. so we were going to do divisions with some brothers in the ward but one didn't show up so we just went with one who showed up who happened to have a car. we went to visit some people and at about 8:55 or there abouts we were on our way home and drove by the house of some investigators we have been teaching. as we passed the house I looked at the door and felt we should go visit them. It was probably one of the most obvious promptings I have ever had in my life. I quickly told the brother to pull over and let us out. He seamed a little confused seeing as it was almost 9 and everyone knows that we need to be home by 9 but he let us off. we said good night and told him he could go home because he only agreed to go with us 'till 9. we went up to the door and knocked. they let us in and it had turned out that they had just had a fight (they are going through marital problems) and weren't going to go to church anymore (they had at least partially been there the last two weeks) because they felt hypocritical about it or something. To make a long story short our visit helped them to decide to continue investigating and continue coming to church (they ended up not coming this week anyways but it was because of an emergency and not for a lack of wanting to). It was awesome to feel like an instrument in God's hands.
I also am now just in the last few weeks noticing holes in my socks (in the side, where the ankle bone is) so I now have 5 pairs of socks with holes in them. if you could talk to the CTR clothing guy to send me some more that would be great. oh and also Mosquito season is back and last year I ran out of the anti-itch sticks that I brought. I could use some more.
Elder Jason Blanding.