Retro Week Results - working their tails off in the heat!

This guy must be really really hot, poor thing!

Last week Derek's Mission President (who himself served in Mexico many years ago) challenged his missionaries to a “retro” week – meaning serving like they did back in his day. This meant no e-mail, no cell phone, no visiting members – just good ol’ fashioned full-blown non-stop tracting. So we didn’t get an e-mail last week (that was rough). Here’s some of what Elder Reid had to say about this experience…

Well, today i am tired! Haha This week was really one of the best weeks here in the mission! it was called semana retro and in english its like old type week - like how they worked in the past. We would leave at 9 a.m. and we worked til 10 at night – everyday! No e-mail, we had to hand write our letters haha so i have one for you guys! Watch for it. We had like 12 hours of work and one hour to eat. President Johnston (back in his day) worked an average of 82 hours a week and taught 52 lessons, so that was our goal to try to meet or beat. so me and my comp, we are here in el carrizo with tons of little areas with just us -- and we have others in our district in mochis and so we wanted to beat all there numbers so we just had this planted in our heads “we were going to work like dogs” and tuesday we had 15 lessons which is a lot, and alot for one day! we just worked like a machine all week and the end we had all together taught 69 lessons and had 41 new investigators. the other missionaries in our district had like 50 lessons and 21 new investigators -- we worked our tails off! i am like beat and running off coke haha but ya it was really one great week and i learned a lot – like how easy it is to just fall into the normal routine of things and how we just become satisfied with the normal. but there is always room to be better and do better and I really learned to rely on the Lord more. We have to rely on a lot of rides and well, we had faith and we got rides -- way easier and sooner this week and we had the strength to go and go and the Lord gives us strength and helps us when we do all we can and put all our effort in something.....it was really a good experience!

so for your questions, no i don’t get to go to the temple at all, the nearest temple to us is like 7 hours away but there is like so many years for that after haha (We also asked if he dreams in Spanish yet) Well, here is the problem.....i dont dream - well i can’t dream. i dont know what it is but i dont dream and don’t know if i ever will hahahaha (duh, he really always has slept this sound – should have remembered that one!) But Happy 25 years mom and dad that is really just wow haha crazy! (Yep, our 25th this week – woo-hoo!) So I’ve been out almost 8 months now, seems like it was just 7 but now 8 -- how time flies and it is going good! i would not trade it for the world!... i am going in the heat, it is like 110 now here and in mochis it was 122 – ya, way hot! like cook an egg in the street in one minute hot - but drinking lots of water haha. i am glad to get to email you and hear all is good and i am going strong and loving it. love you guys take care this week LOvE ELdeR ReID