Week 55 from Mexico

12 Sept. 2010

Hola!  ¿Cómo esta?  ¿Qué hay de nuevo?

We hope things are going well for you.  We started out the week on Monday with going to dinner at Elder Julio C. & Elda Alicia Gonzalez's home.  It was a very enjoyable evening and the food was delicious.  He is a member of the Fourth Quorum of the Seventy and lives in our ward. He was the stake president just before President Taylor, our current Stake President, which was at the time of the building of the Monterrey Temple and the stake center next to it so he was the overseer of the building of the stake center. He would visit the site often to see that things were going well.  As we were visiting and eating dinner Sis. Gonzalez said that she could sympathize with me and we had something in common because when they would visit Utah and everyone would be speaking English she felt a little lost and not understanding anything being said.  I smiled and said that, yes, I don't usually understand much. She speaks about as much English as I do Spanish.

I have to tell you about my experience at wanting to get a permanent and hair cut for my hair because I've had a hard time getting my hair to look half way decent with this humidity and my sweating from the heat as I have worked in the laundry room.  At the end of the day I feel like I'm wearing a mop on my head: wet and stringy.  Anyway, about 2 months ago I was asking Sis. Ramirez, one of the temple workers, if she knew someone that could give me a hair cut and permanent.  She suggested, Eliose Ramirez, that used to be a temple worker and the next time I saw her at the temple as she came as a patron I asked her, in my limited Spanish and with hand signals, if she could do my hair.  We exchanged phone numbers and then I spent several weeks trying to get an appointment with her.  During that time we took our trip to Mexico City but tried again after we got back to get with her to do it. She said that part of the problem was that the shop she works at got flooded when we had the Hurricane Alex floods and everything in it was destroyed so they had to slowly get back to working order.  Well, on Monday, while we were visiting with the Gonzalez'  it was mentioned that their daughter, Julissa, worked in a beautician shop. I mentioned that I was wanting to get a hair cut and permanent and who I had been trying to get with to have it done. Sis. Gonzalez said that Eliose was her  new sister-in-law, having recently marrying her brother.  A short time later, when Julissa got home we talked to her about having my hair done and she said that I could come in the next day.  I guess she only understood the hair cutting part.  On Tuesday morning Lynn took me to the shop and as I was sitting there and the girl was cutting my hair I kept saying I wanted a permanent, I wanted it curly.  As it kept getting shorter and shorter I knew my message wasn't getting across.  As she was styling my hair I said that wanted a permanent and she said, “Oh, we don't do perms here. Permanents are not a very popular thing in Mexico so we don't have much business for it and besides it's really hard to get really good perms here.” She said that Julissa had said that I had wanted my hair cut.  So, I ended up with very short hair and no perm.  But, as we went to pay they said that it was already paid for. Sis. Gonzalez had paid for it.  It's actually not too bad and accomplished what I wanted. It's just a bit shorter than I was planning. It's easier to take care of and doesn't look so wet and stringy after a few hours.

It's nice to be able to go home earlier during the week, now that we don't have the 8:30pm sessions. The 5:30pm sessions are general full but the 7pm sessions are not. I thought maybe they would fill up more with not having the 8:30pm sessions but it hasn't made much of a difference.  This Saturday started out very quiet and not very busy in the morning, but picked up in the afternoon. We didn't have nearly as many buses come.  We left about 4:30pm, had dinner and then went to the adult session of conference.  As I was sitting in the congregation, still not understanding much of what was said, I remembered that our first Sunday here in Monterrey a year ago it was also stake conference.  At that time I had hoped that my this time I would understand enough Spanish to be able to understand the speakers but it hasn't been the case.  I'm still struggling with the language.  But, I felt a little better after Sister Hall mentioned during our discussions at the Gonzalez's home on Monday that she didn't really start understanding enough Spanish to carry on a conversation until they served at the MTC in Guatemala. This was after having served three years in El Salvador with her husband as mission president.  So I guess I'm not too bad, it's just taking a long time. Maybe I'll have it down if we serve several Spanish speaking missions.  Yesterday, when I was in the laundry room with Sister Hall, she said to the helpers that I could show them what to do even though I didn't speak Spanish. I do very well with my hands in showing what to do.  That's how I get by I guess.

Today, at stake conference, our choir numbers turned out very nicely.  As I was sitting there I was thinking about the Jimenez family, who we had met at the Spencer's going away party. Sis. Neil had said that Sis. Jimenez had had her baby a couple of weeks ago.  I was hoping that they might be at stake conference so I could see her new baby.  As I was looking around I realized that they were sitting on the second row right in front of me, with what looked like one of their mother's sitting between them, each of them holding one of the children.  After the meeting I saw them in the hall and got to see the new baby.  The woman with them was his mother, who came here from her home in Washington state to help out.  I got a picture of them which I will attach to this email.  We had John and Brin over for dinner after conference and afterward John and Lynn played a couple of games of chess before we took them home.

Well, I guess that's it for this week. Hope you have a great week.

Amamos a ustedes,
Elder & Hermana Nelson (aka Lynn & JaAnna, Dad & Mom, Grandpa & Grandma)