June 15, 2010

Oops sorry i forgot.... if you want to send me letters my address is:
Elder Patrick Arko
C/O Edgar Flores Prieto
1650 Sioux Dr. Ch 44-781
El Paso, TX 79925

I'll send you pics next week when i have a cord. i left my camera cord in Villa Ahumada. (Pronounced like OW-MA-DAH)


ok, so i'm in MEXICO!!! its still pretty surreal. My Mission Pres is pretty cool and my Companion's name is Elder Robles. He is from Oaxaca Mexico. I'm in the smallest area in the Chihuahua mission and its a town called Villa Ahumada. The Branch here has about 20 members. Our house is small, made of concrete and doesn't have even lukewarm water. its ice cold, which is wierd figuring that we're in the middle of the desert. My best friends are my filtered water bottle and swamp coolers, which are hosed down every thirty minutes or so. we have cockroaches, spiders, snakes, lizards, and TONS of ants. I don't like the food, i have the runs way bad, and oh, yeah, ITS HOT!!! like, way hot. I don't see how people could even live in a place like this. every time i go into a house the people give me a paper towel. i feel like dad down here. :) i've lost soo much water from sweating alone. my urine looks like gatorade.... the orange flavor.... but back to the people: i love them. Thats whats gonna keep me going. I have pretty much no desire to be here other than the fact that these people need the gospel. I wasn't made to live here, and i guess thats why i'm only here for 2 years instead of my life ;) me and my comp are in Juarez, the one on the boarder, and its a pretty big and crazy city. we had district meetings here today. ok so get this tho, i don't have my visa, its in CHihuahua with the President. he needed it for, like, paperwork or something. so to get here, me and elder robles left in the middle of the night so that we didn't have to go through immigration. it was pretty sketchy and all the elders have been calling me a wetback. ;) since i don't have my visa on me, i could go to prison and be deported.... just to let you know the seriousness of this situation. anyway, so that night, the bus stops in the middle of nowhere at this military checkpoint. yeah, i pooped a little bit in my pants when a militant got on the bus. he was going through people's bags looking for drugs and i thought it was for visa's. Elder Robles was asleep so i woke him up and i pointed to the military guy and he told me he was looking for guns and drugs. still, i was freaking out.... i don't wanna go to prison in Mexico or anywhere else.... but especially here :) ok, so back to Villa Ahumada. Our mission leader is a dairy farmer and he makes cheese. he has about 80 cows and we went and helped him with some service. i felt at home with animals around, and the smells of poo and everything!! i actually miss "The Farm" quite a lot. i miss home a lot but i know i need to be here, even tho i can't understand the language and the people can't understand me. Love ya.

Elder Arko