September 13, 2023 - 4th Email - Batman, earthquakes, drains

Hola a todos!

So uh this week was pretty crazy and this email is very long, but a lot happened. This was definitely the most fun week I've had so far and it's crazy I only have two more here at the MTC.

First I need to thank my mom for sending me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich kit on Thursday it's been really nice to have backup food when they aren't serving something I like (which is pretty often)

We didn't actually have an earthquake, but last Friday morning (Thursday night) we were all woken up at like 1:15 AM because an earthquake alarm was going off. We didn't know what was going on at first because we couldn't actually hear the alarm but then someone pounded on our door saying "I think it's a carbon monoxide alarm" so we all hopped out of bed and got dressed and just went outside and found everyone from all the houses around us on the green indicator circles where we're supposed to go if there's an earthquake, and it was obviously not a carbon monoxide alarm. There were probably like 25 people on our circle and then like another 25 on the circle a ways next to ours. It was just those two in the immediate vicinity. So we're all standing around super confused because we're all exhausted and didn't feel any earthquake, and eventually it just turned into a joke and we were all laughing about it. We were standing out there for about a half hour.

At one point some guy in a different building ran back into his house and put on a Batman costume, and he started running over to our circle. We were all like "no way it's Batman he's gonna save us" and he gets to us and goes "hey guys it's me Batman I just wanted to make sure everybody's okay" and then he started choking and said "sorry guys the morning breath is getting to me" and finally he left after saying "May the Holy Ghost be with you". And he did the goofy ninja run back. After that we kinda forgot what we were doing out there because we were laughing so hard but then some guy came over on a bike and was like "get back inside and go to sleep" and that was basically the end of that. It took me forever to get back to sleep after which kinda sucked but it was the most eventful night by far since I got here.

So there were a couple theories why there was an earthquake alarm, some people thought it was a false alarm, the teachers thought it was a drill, and a bunch of guys were saying an earthquake happened like twelve hours away and somehow triggered the alarm specifically at the CCM. I'm personally leaning toward the first one. It definitely wasn't a drill, not at 1 in the morning when we're trying to sleep (especially since we wake up at 6:30 already) and also because we had a drill in the middle of class that same day.

That drill was pretty cool, there was no alarm for some reason but the teachers were just like "yo there's a drill going on right now" and we all just walked outside. It was crazy looking with all the missionaries walking over to a place we go if an earthquake gets really bad, like the green circles are for smaller ones but this one specific area is for bad ones. I really think it only happened because it looked cool since there were people recording us walking. We lined up as districts in our own parking space lookin things and we needed our zone leaders to get a head count to make sure everyone in the zone was accounted for, but our zone leaders didn't actually show up until like 20 minutes after the drill started because their teacher forgot, so that was funny. I think the one at night went off on accident because the drill was at about 11 AM and the one at night was at 1 AM so they might've forgotten an extra 1 in the time or something. It would explain why an alarm didn't go off during the day drill.

Our showers got fixed, finally. We went to reception because we were tired of the smell of the mold we found and a couple guys came over and dealt with all the drains. Apparently, the pipes weren't long enough. The water was actually clean (well, for Mexico) and it was because there was a gap between the pipes and the water level that mold was growing inside that gap and we were smelling it. So the guys brought longer pipes that just extended all the way down to the water, and we don't smell the mold anymore.

We also did our first "Helping Others" in Spanish on Friday. We just gave a five minute lesson to some missionaries that were almost done at the MTC roleplaying as investigators for the church. For other people in the district it was really hard, but Elder Nelson and I actually did really well and it ended up being a great lesson.

Okay that's everything that happened on Friday

On Saturday when we got back home from class in the evening our house was stinking like crazy again. It was really weird because we were literally in the house not even four hours before and it smelled fine. Turned out this time the smell was coming from our laundry room, and it smelled way worse than our showers ever did. We had had a broken washing machine since like the first week we were here but finally it was just filled to the brim with water and algae was starting to grow in it. We were just gonna leave the door to that room closed on Sunday, since we can't do laundry on Sunday anyway and we didn't want to make anyone work on Sunday, but some other guys in the other district in our house went over to reception and told them, so we actually helped the guy that came over to pick up the machine and install a new one. So that was cool.

Mexico's independence day is this Friday, and we've definitely been hearing patriotism around. We hear cannons go off during the day all the time, and fireworks too, which makes no sense because you can't even see them. For our service on Monday we actually decked out the reception area in Mexican flags which was pretty epic.

On Monday we started speaking only in Spanish in class. A lot of us are actually getting much better at Spanish. Elder Nelson is doing a great job during our scripture study and stuff. Our teachers made a game out of it: "¿Quien es el Latino?". Basically we pick one person in our district to be the "Latino" for a day, and if that person speaks any English then we lose. We all still have to speak in Spanish though, because the teachers don't know who the Latino is and they need to guess which one of us it was the next time we had class. If they guess wrong, then we win. It's a point system, and if we win they're getting us packs of Mountain Dew.

On Tuesday it was pretty weird because they served us spicy chicken tenders for breakfast. I mean, they tasted great, but it was strange to have that for breakfast. Especially since Tuesday is pizza night so we had two fast foodish meals in one day.

Also this morning we used the new washing machine for the first time and when it finished the cycle it started leaking soapy water absolutely everywhere so we're probably gonna need a new one lol

Little spiritual thought:

Sunday we listened to a great devotional of an old talk Elder Jeffrey R. Holland gave. It's changed my perspective on missionary work a lot, taught us to be adaptable to people's individual situations, because some people need to hear different parts of the gospel first based on their own circumstances. The same lesson might not be as effective for a different person when we're teaching them.

Okay this email is long enough lol see yall next week

Elder Hanson

Some pictures:

Clownfish bus, pretty morning yesterday, me holding one of the reception decorations, a bed fort, Elder Nelson and I at the temple's visitors' center, and all the missionaries walking during the day earthquake drill

I do have a video of the Batman guy but we're supposed to get people's permission to post things of them so I'll just leave that to your interpretation.