This week has been really interesting. I absolutely love it here in Broadway which is part of Houston. It is part of the suburbs out here and is the training ground for Spanish missionaries. Pretty much everyone we talk to only speaks Spanish. I love it here. Yesterday I was able to baptize our investigator. He's fifteen years old and named Cezar. He is an awesome young man who plays the exact same positions in high school football as I did. I am starting to get a hang of everything here. Pretty much everyone who was in my district in the CCM is here with us in Broadway or Pasadena. This place really is great and I feel like I am still in Mexico. My companion is from West Valley, Utah. He likes hip hop and is really awesome. I got super lucky.
We've had some crazy stuff happen to us this last week. My companion has had a total of six flat tires because there are so many broken bottles and rusty nails around here. I am going to put in those liners today. The cool thing is that we have a lot of people that have respect for us just because we're "church people". We will be riding down the street and they will yell "I'll pray for you!" It is really cool. A lot of people around here seem like Si Robertson. Another cool thing happened. Saturday we had the biggest rain storm I have ever seen. It wasn't technically a hurricane, but it sure seemed like it. My companion and I were out there and it was really like biking through a lake. It is so flat and rains so much that there is pretty much nowhere else for the water to go after the drains fill up. It was totally awesome. I felt like an adrenaline junky biking through it all.
I will be in training for about 11 weeks. We found out that President shortened the transfer. This means that we will be coming home about a week earlier. Our scheduled date for coming home was August 3, 2015, but now my friend whose birthday is on the 26th of July might be coming home when he is only 19! Crazy huh?
The food here is absolutely amazing. The members feed us all of the time and every person is from a different part of Central and South America so we get a variety. We have had a lot of crazy stuff happen here but we are used to it. This mission is absolutely amazing and I love every moment of it. The greatest part of this place is the people.
I am happy that you got to see Arches National Park. That is one of my favorite places. I absolutely love it there. I’m happy to hear about the great time you had with the Pinkneys.
I saw my first big cockroach today. The apartment that we have is pretty much new so we haven't seen many, but last night we were talking on the way back to our apartment about my companion's fear of them. Then this morning, I had a bad run in with one. I was sitting on the bed putting my socks on when I looked down and saw one the size of a quarter on my leg. I sort of freaked but (which just plain isn't me because bugs don't bother me at all) but was successful in killing it.
I love you all so much,
Elder Ressler
