The rumors about the big hills were true..

Warning: This email could be veryyyy scattered and full of lots of randomness...

However, Here I am, in good ol Campeche, absolutely lovin it! I even love the HUGE hills that we walk up and down all day every day, and showering out of a five gallon bucket in the morning. My life is the best. I´m not even kidding.

My companion and I both got sick this week. The weather here is a little more extreme than Merida in that it´ll get really cold at night, and then really hot during the day. I wake up literally shivering in the night, and because of the humidity, adding more blankets does absolutely nothing. The changes in weather make everyone sick, so the good thing is that we aren´t the only ones. With a little bit of orange juice and a whole lots of prayers, we´re feeling better :) Thursday I felt absolutely awful, but immediately thought of the testimony of one of the assistents to President who shared his testimony a couple weeks ago before going home, "Enjoy EVERY moment of your missions, the good days, the bad days, when baptisms fall through..everything," he told us. So, I decided to enjoy being sick. It was the first time I´ve tried, and it was fun! I just kept trucking on with a smile, and my wonderful companion did so as well. She is so wonderful, and she´s going to BYU next year so we are working big time on her English. She makes me pray in English, but I have kind of forgotten how and my prayers sound a little funny and I speak much slower. But it´s all good.

One thing that I LOVE about being next to the ocean is that everyone here eats seafood!! This week we ate with Hermana Carolina and she made us fishhhhhh. It was delicious.. She didn´t even give us utensils, we just used our hands and tortillas, threw a bunch of chile habanero on it, and called it good. It was probably the best fish I have ever had. It was the first time I had to take the head off of a fish before eating it, and then leave it sitting on my plate, but...there´s always a first for everything, right? :)

Our area is great. We are teaching a lot of teenagers here, a big change from teaching the old folks in Garcia Gineres. I love teaching them because they always have so many great questions. Usually they´re hard questions that make me think, or make me go home and study and then come back and answer them..

We´re really excited to work with the active members and less actives here, because they need help. We´ve visited a lot of them and realized that the their testimonies aren´t super strong and so we want to teach them the missionary lessons as well, so that they grow in their strength and understanding of the gospel, just like investigators! Sometimes, I think we focus so much on the investigators that we forget about the members too, that they also need our help! We have been visiting a less active named Erendida who is so happy to be back at church. On Wednesday, after our lesson, she made us some apple tea to help our sore throats and then told us, "Hermanas, don´t worry so much about finding new members, because there are old members like me who have fallen away and need help, and I´m so grateful you have come into my lives and are helping me come back to church. Don´t ever forget about the old members too." We left that lesson and had a lot to talk about on the walk home. It opened my eyes a lot and made me think about what the will of the Lord is for us in this area. Yes of course, he wants us to find, teach, and baptize, as usual, but also to really focus on strengthening and serving the less active and active members. Oh the things one learns in the mission, I could go on all day, but I won´t! 

That´s all for today. P-day next week is Tuesday, because we´re going to Merida on Monday to spend Christmas with the whole mission! Woohoo!! I love you all :)

Con amor,

Hermana Melody Maki