Texas is great! I love it here though it is a lot different from the MTC. I am already missing Mexico. I sort of feel like this place is just another part of Mexico. Most of the people here are actually Hispanic though a lot of them speak English. They are really nice and the food is great. My area called Broadway 2 Central is pretty much the training ground for Spanish missionaries.
My trainer's name is Elder Ek and he is a great guy from Salt Lake City and has been in THE mission for about 10 months.
We have had a lot of rain in Houston lately which made it really interesting biking. Our area is kind of far away so we are on our bikes for most of the day. I have lost a bit of weight from it. The bike is awesome though it has gotten a little muddy with all of the rain but that is just how it goes. It is taking some getting used to. I am taking President Uchtdorf's advice when he said, "It is not how many times we fall down that determines our destiny, it is how many times we get back up".
It has been a little interesting these last couple of days because we got whitewashed into a brand new area that has been taken from a couple of different areas. We didn't have an area book for the first couple of days so we did a lot of tracting. Then we got in touch with some sister missionaries who worked a lot in our area before and we have a couple of baptismal dates coming up. One of them is named Cezar and he is getting baptized on Friday and.......... He has asked me to baptize him! I am super nervous but so excited. He is a great kid who is about 16 years old and plays the exact same positions in football that I did (right guard and nose guard). He really has been prepared for this.
Houston is very humid but I am getting used to it. Actually, it is starting to get a little cold in the mornings but probably not as cold as it is in Utah.
Our apartment is brand new so when we came in everything was in boxes. It has been a truly interesting experience. By the way, we have had a lot of weird and unfortunate things happen. One of these things is that I lost my helmet and lock on the first day when we were driving on the freeway with a member and it flew out of the back. It was a bit of a rough first week but it is getting better.
I absolutely loved General Conference! My favorite talk was President Uchtdorfs Priesthood session talk. You should look it up.
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/you-can-do-it-now
We had four of our investigators show up though we can't really take credit. The sister missionaries did a lot of the work. We have been working really hard though and are trying our best. We have a great area to work with and I think we will have a lot of success. It is just taking a long time to figure everything out here.
Spanish is a little interesting here and I am worried that I am losing a lot of what I have. There are a lot of Mexicans here but they only want to speak English with you. I have to ask them if I can practice. Now I know how Jacob feels. I feel Heavenly Father guiding me a lot. He is definitely watching out for us and I can feel his presence here with us.
We haven't had too many bugs here though my companion says that we are in the Ghetto and cockroaches are many. Two years will go by super fast.
Love,
Elder Ressler
