SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

I think Chicago is the best mission on Earth ;) 

Mom, I am always so grateful to people that feed us and we try to be helpful!

Hahahaha.  I have a few funny stories about the language. The other day a 5 year old was talking to me in Spanish and I could not understand him! I felt so embarrassed and my companion thought it was so funny, but all I could do was laugh at it!  Another story was that some man was trying to sit by me in church and he asked if I was mad he was sitting by me but I thought he said could I sit here! I was just like si si si and my companion was like no he is not mad!  Luckily he fixed that one up! I just have to laugh at how bad I am right now at the language but it will get better! It is hard though because everyone speaks English here but the people we teach and contact so I am not fully engulfed in the language.

This week was pretty tough though, we didn't have as much success as I would have liked.  But my companion and I are working hard and we know that things will get better if we keep having faith and working hard.  I am adjusting to this lifestyle now and I am getting much more comfortable here.  It is so funny though; so many people talk to us on the streets when we are stopped at red lights or just walking.  Barely any want to hear the gospel but they will all give us their opinion. Lots of people swear at us and just say weird random stuff and then others will be like I really respect you but your church was not for me, I love the missionaries.  We get the whole spectrum of people here.  There have been many small little miracles that I see everyday!  I love and miss you guys and lean on your faith in times of trouble. The Book of Mormon and prayer have given me so much comfort while I have been here. I love you all!

These are two pictures, one with my companion with our welcome home sign on our door.  We live above a family so it’s like their attic.  We have an entrance to their house that they can go through too, we just don’t have to go through their place.  

The second picture is our family line:  my trainer Elder Gomez or my dad, and his trainer Elder Torsak or my grandpa.

FIRST P-DAY IN CHICAGO

Garrett's letter doesn't tell us where his location is, but through our ways (tracking debit card) we believe he is in the Logan Square area, a bit northwest of Chicago.  My nephew served in that area about 13 years ago and emailed one of the members to look for him.  She said she met Elder Eichers that day at Church!!  Small world!!  She said they were in the best Ward in the mission and the members would take care of him. 

Hola!! 

I sent you guys a letter and I sent it on Saturday so it should get there soon! But things are so much better here than in the MTC! It is definitely much harder and a lot more work but I like it a lot more than the MTC!

My flight was smooth though. I got checked in real quickly, I got all my bags and everything was great! The flight was absolutely empty though, it was a huge plane and there were only like 50 people on it! We all got in our own rows and people were lying down just because there was so much space! We got off the plane and our mission president was right there waiting for us with his wife and some of the other missionaries.  I was like perfect they will just take us back to the mission home and we will just have a super easy day, but I was wrong. The mission president was like okay everyone put your stuff down you are going with the president's assistants to go out and contact on the train. I was like are you serious? (Not literally just in my mind). But they gave us a sack lunch and we went out and went straight to work and that was so scary but I am glad because we could do it more in English. It is weird though coming back from where everything was in Spanish to everything back in English!  After that, they walked us through the City, and the City is absolutely amazing.  We went back to the mission home. For dinner we had deep dish pizza, pasta, and salad.  But the group of missionaries that came in with us was 10 elders and 4 sisters. That is only from Mexico though and then from Provo there were 2 elders and 20 sisters. Kristi’s friend ended up getting here, just really late that night.   All of the elders slept in the members' houses and the sisters slept in the mission home. We ended up sleeping at a member’s house on Monday. They were so nice and took great care of us! We were so grateful for them! I stayed in there with my MTC companion and Elder Arcenio Garcia, so things worked great! They cooked us breakfast and then we were off to the church to get our assignments.

But my companion is Elder Gomez! He was born in Vera Cruz, Mexico and lived there for 13 years and then moved to Orem Utah.  He is so kind and he is so funny, I absolutely love him! He has only been here for 6 weeks but he is fluent so he knows how to do everything.  He hasn't finished his training yet so we work on mine together and hopefully we stay together for the next transfer so we can learn that next one together! I love him though and we are getting along great!

Our area is working out great though! It is hard because it is so small because it just got cut.  But we are working hard on everything! We live out of our area so we have to bike to our area everyday!  Our apartment is small and quaint, it is really basic but it gets the job done. We live over a bishop from another ward. But I will send you more pictures of it next week! All of the streets here look the same to me though so a lot of the times I feel lost. I am getting more comfortable with everything and where it is now but if I didn't have my companion I would get so lost. The area is really safe for us missionaries though! It definitely isn't Utah but I feel safe all the time! I don't think I would have my family live in this area but it works for now!

The first half of Wednesday was probably the worst day of my life, but later in the day it was great.  We woke up and studied and worked out and then we went to buy a bike but the store was closed so we called a zone leader so I am using his bike until Saturday.  We walked our bike back to our apartment.  We walked like 12 miles before 4 o'clock.  I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep.  We were going to maybe eat at a member's house so we started riding there and it was pouring rain.  I was soaking wet because it was raining harder than I have every really seen it rain before.  My bike chain keeps falling off so I was so frustrated   So after fixing the chain we rode back home.  I honestly just wanted to sit in there and go to bed early.  Then my companion says we should try and go back out and I am thinking that is the worst idea but I just do it because I know he knows more than me.  We said a prayer and then headed back out to work.  After that prayer everything gets much better.  The bike chain doesn't fall off anymore and we teach a lesson and get 3 new potential investigators so the day ended up being pretty funny.  I came home absolutely drenched that night. 

We are still working to get used to things but things are going much better now than the first few days! I loved the packages though and everything! It was so nice of you to send it to me! Today is my first pday though. We have done most of our laundry.We have a washing machine and dryer in our apartment in the basement that belongs to the family that lives below us so we get to use that!  We also got groceries and everything! I found some things that I really want you to send me though like those Crystal Lite packets and just other snacks! 

I love you so much and I miss you all! They said for you guys to send all mail and stuff to the mission home though where the address is:  

800 Waukegan Rd Ste 203

Glenview  IL 60025

Can you send that out on my facebook or something so people write me??

I love you and miss you guys!

CHICAGO!

"Hey this is Elder Eichers! I am doing fine and I just got my companion! If you are going to send me anything send it to the mission office which is the 800 Waukegan address! I love you and my p day is Monday!"

President Woodbury, me, my first companion, Sister Woodbury

LEAVING THE MEXICO CITY MTC

This is my last day at the Mexico City MTC.  I am sending a lot of pictures.  These are my two teachers.   The one teacher is Hermana Callejas, our day teacher.  The other one is Hermano Vargas.  He is our night teacher. I love them so much!

Hermana Callejas - day teacher.

Hermano Vargas

 Notice in the pic above I have my treats from you guys that Elder Scott
 brought down, including yummy blowpops.

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Below is Elder Gibb.  He went to East!  I met him at Uncle Rich's house, the doctor who Sam Ellis worked for.  He has been here for one week now, but I have talked to him a ton.  He is going to Cincinnati.  He knew Lizzie Egan.  He is way nice and a great friend.

Elder Gibb from East High

Elder Scott Brayden, Kristy Croft's friend, with me.

Other photos with missionaries you might know:

Me with Cooper, Sam Ellis' cousin

We had a Mexican night last night.  We had a party because Mexico's Independence Day is today.  So there were traditional dances, you would have loved it!  This is probably the most cultural thing I have ever done!  It was so fun and crazy and it was my favorite day since I have been here!  All of the natives were so loud and everyone was singing loud and cheering!

A photo with the Mexico MTC sign.

 My District:

I have been packing and I am trying to do everything to not go over 50 pounds.  We have been running around all day and everyone is having troubles with their flight stuff.  [Mexico is getting ready to have a hurricane hit the east coast, and storms on the Pacific Coast.]  I am so grateful for how easy you made things for me before I got here!!  We have a devotional in 20 minutes.  I love and miss you a ton!  I will call Dad from the airport really early in the morning if I can so please wake up if you hear Dad's phone ringing!   I hope I can email you tomorrow but if not, see you next pday!  Tomorrow I'm off to the  Illinois Chicago mission!

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

I miss you guys like crazy!  A few weeks ago when I teased about how I probably wouldn´t email you something big home because I though it would be funny, I promise that will never happen! I look forward to emailing you so much and emails from you and the family are my favorite part of the week! 

This week was pretty good and went by much faster!  I was sick on Friday and Saturday but it was only a cold so I just felt terrible, but it wasn´t too bad. I got to sleep in for an extra hour both of those days and I am pretty sure all it did was make me more tired! A lot of things went on this week that were really stressful but I made it through!  I can feel myself beginning to change a little bit.  I now enjoy personal study and it is one of my favorite parts of the day while during my first few weeks I hated that time because I thought it was boring. I am grateful for that change so now I start off the day right. 

My Spanish is coming along great but it still need lots of work! I have started speaking much better and my friends and I always go up and talk to the natives because we can now! We also had this program last night where we taught some other missionaries in their second week, and they taught us. They were in shock how good my companion and mines Spanish was and they acted like we were speaking a million miles an hour. This made me feel great and showed that my work was paying off! 

The food here is getting much better!  The last few days I have actually liked the food and that was a shocker to me! They serve taquitos here every once in a while and they are amazing! I don´t know if they are just good because I haven´t had American food lately or if they are actually good.  But who cares, I don´t have to eat here anymore after a few more days! 

I have leaned on the Lord for so much strength here and I know am figuring out how to get the most out of my prayers! It is a blessing to be in an environment where the spirit is always available, I just need to try and listen to it!  We went to the temple this morning and it was long but it was so great too! I understood a ton of what the video was saying and I felt confident in my words! It is weird how much the temple here is just like home though. Sometimes I expect to look over and see you and the rest of the family right next to me but you are not!  I always feel your love and I pray for you guys all of the time! Although I will miss my friends from here a lot, I cannot wait to get to Chicago!

Elder Eichers

Our room on day 1.
Surprisingly it is still basically as clean, just a little bit dirtier.

Here is our bathroom, it is just for the 4 in our room so it is perfect size.

Living Room

Kitchen

Elder Watchman, Hermana Harris, Hermana Culotta, Elder Tilby, and me.

Me and my companion, Elder Larkin, at the temple.

Selfie with Elder Tilby and Moroni.

HUGE MOTH that was in one of our classrooms.  We hit it and it chased Elder Watchman.  He tried to throw a hymn book at it but it missed and he was so scared!  I was laughing on the ground because it was so funny!
(Elder Tilby is in the picture)

The District

The Real District (Crazy and Funny)

Front gates of Mexico City MTC

SEPTEMBER 5, 2013

This week was so much better and I enjoyed it much more than the last few! I saw Elder Nate Scott the first day that he got here and we ran up to each other and gave each other the biggest hug! It was such a cute moment.  It was like it was from a movie ;) I loved receiving those letters though and the candy, it made me feel much more comforted! 

This week I had some cool experiences, we learned how to consecrate oil in our priesthood meeting and then I actually got to do the oil in a blessing! We gave one of the girls in our district a blessing because she is allergic to strawberries and some how she got juice from strawberries on her. I don´t think it was actually that big of a deal just more of a comfort thing. It was simple but it worked, we got our first blessing done. I did the oil and Elder Tilby gave the blessing!

I have been dead tired all week, but I always have enough energy for pday! But I am glad to hear about the scholarship, I am starting to lean towards the U again, so Dad you have to cheer for them in the game.  Laundry though is easier than I thought, it just takes a long time to do and it is boring. We woke up early today and did our laundry so it is done so I am free until like 5:45.

Doing Laundry this morning.

We are starting to make the most of every day. Yesterday it rained the most since I have been here, it poured for like 4 hours and the streets were flooding! It was so cool to watch, it happens everyday but yesterday was the longest it had gone for!   Our casa is clean and comfortable.  It is cold though at night so I have started wearing sweats to sleep in!  

Raining yesterday.  This is when it wasn't even bad but was flooding.

After we walked from our class to our casa, my pants were so wet I had to wash them today.

The food though is a little better but I am still sick of it. I have eaten so much fruit though and all the fruit is fresh so I love it. It is such a blessing to have fresh fruit because it keeps me healthy and it is actually something that I enjoy eating!  Fruit and cereal is the only thing that is really normal here.  They got Nutella and peanut butter here a few days ago and so I have eaten a lot of that.  A sandwich with those and bananas is amazing here, it's like I am eating from Market Street or something. We don't have a toaster...but Annie, please do me a favor and try half Cocoa Pebbles and half Frosted Flakes and tell me if it's good or not.  I absolutely love it and it is probably my favorite thing here even though it sounds a little creepy.  I want to know if it is actually good, or if I just love it because I'm in withdrawals from American food.I have been making tons of new friends and I also have been talking to a kid who went to East who I met at Uncle Riches house.  I am trying to be the companion that I would want to have. I love Elder Tilby and Watchman!  I spend more time with them than anyone really, they are great friends to me and remind me of home! They always keep me laughing! But this week was great! 

I am starting to love the Mexican people, all of the workers we just love to talk to because they are so nice and kind. We have two teachers, Hna Callejas y Hermano Vargas.  Herman Vargas is the nicest man on the planet and he is so funny! I look forward to class with him because he brings such a strong feeling of happiness into the room. I will send pictures of our teachers and stuff when I have them! I love you and have a good time at training today! Mom, stand over Annie when you do your curls because I know she loves that! But I am so proud of you reading the Book of Mormon more! It will comfort you like it has comforted me.  I love and miss you.

Cool view.  The pose is awkward but its kind of funny.

My first Fast Sunday.  Wearing my tie matching my Dad.