March 10, 2010

Dear family,
Yeah, I meant to say that Mesquite and Bunkerville were in Nevada, not Arizona. I guess I was still thinking of Bullhead City. Actually, right now we cover a little bit of Littlefield, too, which I believe is in Arizona just barely. So instead of being near the California-Nevada-Arizona area like I was in Bullhead, I'm near the Utah-Nevada-Arizona area. It can sometimes get a little confusing.
Mesquite is really small and so it's still out in the middle of a desert. Life is definitely a lot slower here than in Las Vegas or even Bullhead. There's still a couple of casinos here (the Casa Blanca and Eureka) that give a lot of people jobs, whether it be cooking, cleaning, or whatever. There's casinos pretty much everywhere out here wherever you go and so there's a couple places for jobs.
Max is still doing okay, he just doesn't know when he'll be ready for baptism even though he's been taught everything. We also have an old guy named Isidro set for baptism on the 26th, but he can never make it to church, so we'll see how that goes. So on Sundays with the four wards to go to, there's church at 9, 10, 11, and 2. So I stay for the 9:00 church with a member and Elder Alatorre goes to the 10:00 church with another member, and then I stay for the 11:00 church (the 9:00 and 11:00 are in the same building), and then we both go to the 2:00 together. The 2:00 is Spanish and the rest are English. We only had one investigator come to church this past Sunday out of the four wards we had. I've met 3 of the ward mission leaders so far and I've gone to two of the coordination meetings.
There's definitely a few Spanish people here in Mesquite, probably more than in Bullhead. When you talk to people, there's probably a 50-50 chance that they speak Spanish, so I guess that's good.
Elder Alatorre was a convert to the Church when he was 11, and his 3 sisters got baptized also, but his parents weren't baptized. Before he was baptized, he was a devout Catholic (like most Spanish missionaries on a mission), and so he is good to have around because he knows how to answer pretty much every question that people throw at him. And also he was companions with Elder Zuñiga, who used to be a very devout Jehovah's Witness, and so the two of them knew how to answer questions and defend themselves when needed to.
So everything seems to be going fine here. We don't have too much going on with our investigators except that they have to come to church. I'll let you know if I need anything.

I love you!

Elder Meiners