National Wash Your Car Week

Buenas tardes, todos! Because last week was extremely super rainy, and because a lot of the streets in this part of Nuevo Laredo are made of dirt, all the cars got super muddy, so National Wash Your Car Week was declared. We helped a lot of people wash their cars.

We also got in on the fun and washed our bikes (Sorry, I don't have pictures of that). The beautiful sunset after a long day of washing cars:

We also had divisions with the district leaders this week. They basically knocked on our door at 8 in the morning during personal study and said, "Hey, let's do divisions!" So I got to go with the district leader, Elder Ochoa in our colonia (I had to decide where we went and remember where everybody lives and what to teach them!) while his companion, Elder Bradley, went with Elder Bonilla to a far part of our area. This is us just before leaving for the day:

Today, the district decided to visit the border crossing. Hey, we're in a border town, what else can we do? We went to one of the bridges that stands on the Rio Bravo and . . . well, didn't get much further. We would be leaving the mission (which is a huge no-no), and we didn't have our passports or anything, which we would need once we arrived on the American side, so we didn't get much further than this little bilingual plaque in the middle, marking the official border.

Needless to say, we used the opportunity well to take lots of pictures.

 Yes, we have bad collar tan lines. That's what happens when you spend all day in the sun in missionary clothes.

We enjoyed going to the authentic Mexican restaurant as a district. I'm going to be one of those annoying people on Facebook who posts pictures of their food:

I'm sorry. We can get back to business now.

Texas:

A cool building we found in the center: (Look how tan he is!~Camille)

 Contact of the Week:

I have two this week. The first is funny and the other is more serious, but still really cool. So Sunday, the four elders from our ward (us and Elders Aguilar and Perez) were walking from church to a lunch appointment. This was a different lunch appointment from the family that usually feeds us, so we had to take a different route. Our other route led us past a Dodge/Chysler/Jeep/Ram/Fiat/However Many Other Cars They Sell Now dealership. The guy at the front saw a group of two Americans (Elder Perez is actually Mexican but he looks American), walking in suits (because we just got out of church, and we have to wear our suits to church), and so we appear super rich. Because we are at a car dealership, he says, "Hey, do you want to buy a car?" We told him no, we didn't actually have any money, but we have a message about Jesus Christ if he wants to hear it, but he turned us down. I think he was a little mad we weren't actually there to buy a car.

The other was also super cool. We were biking by a highway, and we came across a broken-down Chevy pickup. We stopped to help, and we let the woman we found use our phone to call for help because the battery in her phone was dead. We tried to see what the problem was, but it was something far more complected than what we could have done, so we started talking to her about the Restoration (Hey, we're missionaries. What else do we do?). Turns out, she is a single mother of 2 boys, and she said she really wants more religious education in the lives of her sons. She really liked what we shared and said that this is what can help her family. We made some follow-up appointments, and she actually read and paid attention to the pamphlet we gave her, which is a lot more than what most people do. She is really anxious to learn more, and got really excited when she found out that there were activities during the week for her and her boys. She really wants to progress, and it all wouldn't have happened if we hadn't stopped to help. I'm grateful that she was driving a Chevy, because if she was driving a Ford, it wouldn't have broken down and we wouldn't have met her. :) (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Forgive me, Chevy people).

Seriously, though, this week was awesome! Keep praying hard!

You guys are awesome!

Lots of love from Almost Texas,

Elder Jakob Schramm