October 22nd, 2018 Letter #50

Tuxpan is really cool, and it's a lot flatter that my past 2 areas. I feel like people have been pretty open when we've talked to them this week. It rained really hard on us in these last couple days, but today has been calm again. Elder Jimenez has been doing great so far. He came up with a lot of good ideas (He told me this is his 6th time in a whitewash). He has goals, plans, and seems to know what he's doing so I'm not terribly worried so far. 

I can tell you that I think this district is going to require a different approach than my old district, but I'll keep you updated on the why as we go. There's 8 missionaries in the district. Elder Sarat and Elder Yuit are in Cerro Azul. Hermana Sanchez and Hermana Becerra are in the Tenechaco ward. Elder Lobo and Elder Pearl are the zone leaders and are in Tuxpan 1. Elder Jimenez and I are in Tuxpan 2. 

We had 2 people get to church this Sunday from our area and one of them has already been to church a few times before (recently) so we talked to her after church and she said that she'd been wanting to talk to the missionaries for a while, but didn't feel comfortable saying anything. So she's an excellent candidate. Uriel also went to church for the first time. He's good friends with our Deacon's Quorum President (who is an absolute future General Authority) so he could also be a great baptismal candidate. I've heard great things about the ward, but due to very heavy rain on Saturday night the streets semi-flooded and the amount of people in church was about half of the average (67 people in church with an average of 116ish). So there's a lot of members left to meet. 

The best part of the week has been that we've found good people to teach. There's been several challenging things in the week, but they're all temporal things that should pass within a week or so (things with the new house mostly, but they're getting fixed). I haven't been in Tuxpan long enough to give you a decisive answer about the fish. Elder Jimenez gave me a charger that works for the battery in my camera so we're good. My white tie is lost somewhere I think, but don't stress it because I'm pretty sure it's unnecessary and it's just one more thing to worry about when we baptize. 

We just straight up got soaked this weekend. My boots are fried and I lost my umbrella, but a member wants to give me some boots he used on the mission that are still in good shape and I can easily buy another umbrella so don't worry, I'm on top of it. The most important thing are the covers for my scriptures.

Love you,

Elder Finlinson

Connor and his companion, Elder Jimenez decided to get some exercise because they were already soaked anyway! Look at the rain in the streetlight.