Monday, April 10, 2017

Week 7 - Mexican Funerals, Weddings, Food, and Exorcisms - April 10, 2017

Viva Las Vegas mis amigos!

So Wednesday after a mess of train rides and an airplane trip, I plus the rest of my travel group walked off the airplane to see the wonderful sight of slot machines everywhere. We had made it! Eventually we met out mission president and ate lunch and hung out at the mission home for the day until we went to meet our companions! I was insanely nervous because what if my new companion and I just didn't get along? But good news! We do get along! His name is Elder Hodge and he is from Virginia. We both like ODESZA and not biking so we get along wonderfully!

Basically the week started with saying goodbye to our district one by one until it was our time to leave on Wednesday. It was super sad, but also really exciting because it meant we were leaving soon!

Then Wednesday after the trip and meeting our new companions, I got into our car and went straight to a dinner appointment where we had real Mexican food. Also the head of the house was drunk and cried telling us about Jesus and how great the commandments are. It was amazing! Then we went home and I unpacked. Our apartment is on the east side of Vegas on a mountain and I can see all of Vegas and the strip. It looks lit at night (pun very so much intended).

Thursday we had some new missionary training and taught some of our first lessons and had even more Mexican food! We had dinner at the Ward Mission Leader's house. His name is Hermano Villalobo I think? Names are hard to remember...Anyways! We had more lessons and continued missionarying after with a new convert named Chris. He has full sleeves and tons of other Tattoos, it's so great!

Friday we attended a funeral for some guy who was in our ward. Then we had more lessons and had our weekly planning!

Saturday started with some people randomly bible bashing with us after they drug us into their home. Then I got to drink some flower juice stuff and it was sooooo good. I chugged two glasses and the Peruvian family who gave it to us thought it was absolutely hilarious. They now love me a lot. Then we attended an awkward Mexican Wedding and went on splits afterwards.

Sunday started with a super long church meeting that I almost fell asleep in and then actual church and afterwards a recent convert told us her grandmother was a witch and did black magic and it affected her kids and her house was all weird. So naturally it ended up with us walking 3 miles with a teenager from the ward (Memo is his name) to her house. Once there I got to perform an exorcism! We are still wondering if maybe we will have a door to the underworld open up in our fridge or something now....So that was quite the experience!

Entonces, it's pretty awesome being here in Las Vegas! I've had tonsss of awkward and uncomfortable experiences with random people and it couldn't be any better! I love it so much here. Basically it's like walking around the trailer parks of a Grand Theft Auto game teaching people about Jesus and the gospel. It is definitely sad seeing all the poverty and the things that some of these kids are exposed to at such a young age, that's a bit of a downer, but we have something to tell them that can let them know that there is hope!

Also all our lessons are in Spanish and I understand a good 5% of what is said. It's wonderful, but the people and other Elders say my Spanish is actually pretty great for being here only 5 days!

It's such an insane experience being here in Vegas, but I wouldn't want to be doing anything else right now!

Until next week!
Elder Lawson

P.s. Here are some pictures of us at the wedding, walking to go do an exorcism and my companion and I!



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