The Potato Came to Mexico

Okay, I sent this last week, but it didn't get to people apparently.  So I'm sending it again.

This week was interesting. El Papa (the Pope, or literally in english, the potato) came to Mexico City.  It's really something that a lot of people were asking, "and what do you think about the Pope coming here?"  I never really gave my true answer, but depending on the person I said, "It's cool," or I said, "Well, it's just like a celebrity coming to the city to me.  But really his visit was scripted and hypocritical.  One of the things he said this time was, "el mas intimo deseo es saludar la morenita" meaning his greatest desire was to see the Virgin Guadalupe. One of the times he has spoken in the Vatican, he has talked about how the Virgin of Guadalupe is fake, and who is not a person we should worship, but only God. I personally think that Pope Francis is a really good person, but how he can get paid to say these things, I don't know.

This week Martin accepted a baptismal date! We are seeing the fruits of the promise we received that if we brought people to the Visitors Center, they will get baptized.  We were talking to him about how he can receive an answer to his prayer if the Book of Mormon is true. Then he asked, "Could it be like if I feel those feelings (referring to the fruits of the Spirit found in Galatians) while I'm reading the Book of Mormon?"   "Yes. Yes, it could." "Okay, what do I need to do now that I know it's true?" *cue baptismal invitation* He will get baptized March 20th if all goes well. I've always wanted a response like that and finally I got it.

Now for the weird story of the week. So it's very common to see drunk and/or high people in the street, and commonly act weird and talk to us. The other day we saw a drunk guy that we didn't recognize. When he sees us he stops in his path and salutes us. My companion says, "We aren't generals, why is he saluting us?" I jokingly respond, "He recognizes our authority."  We keep walking. Later in the day, we see him again, and this time he bows. OK, weird. Even later in the day he was with a group of drunk people, one of which we have talked with before, and she says," Gûero, come here" (Gûero is the name I heard said a lot, it means white person.)  So we go and talk to them, and they ask for a prayer. So I pray, asking for blessings and strength. It is sad talking with drunk people because they want to leave these things, but they don't know how. One of them started crying and I gave him a hug. Then we kept walking to where we were going. Then going back to the apartment, we saw him again. This time he came up to us and said, " Señor, solo debo traer los que tiene la estrella de David." Then he hit me on the forehead as if he were stamping me, and walked away. That kind of freaked me out, because he only did it to me. How would he know that I'm from the House of Israel? I'm white! 

Yeah so that was my week. How was your Valentine's Day? I didn't really notice all the couples in the street with flowers and kissing. Really it was more like, why do all these people have flowers? Oh, it's Valentine's Day. Or as they say here, day of love and friendship. How sad is that? Day of love. And what about the people who don't have a Valentine? OK, we´ll name it day of love and friendship.