Mom of a Missionary... E-mails from Mexico

I have to say I am so glad to be a Mom of a missionary in this age of e-mail.  I can't think of how hard it must have been to wait for mail to arrive from your missionary in the days before e-mail.  It really would have felt like a snail was bringing the mail.  I do pretty well each week with my son gone, until about a day or two before our e-mail day.  Then the days can not go by fast enough.  Is he safe?  Is he being treated kindly?  What adventures has he been on.... Here is our second e-mail from the mission field...
I've alread been robbed?! (Not Clickbait)
 

Hola, amigos! It's Elder Bowlby, here with a quick update.

Thank you all for your e-mails! I´m going to try and alternate between one big group e-mail one week, and then smaller, more personal e-mails with each of you the next! Hopefully that means I will be able to answer all of your questions, as I only have an hour here each friday to read and send e-mails.
(Clouds rolling off of my favorite mountain early in the morning. Tree didn´t exactly help out with the shot.)

But, in brief, the highlights of this week.
I´ve had a lot of classes to go to! A lot of learning spanish, a lot of learning how to better teach and serve the people, a lot of learning about (and by) the Holy Ghost. My companion Elder Curran and I are working out the issues in our companionship, but we learn a lot about each other each day.

(The CCM even has a cat that likes to lurk around. ¡Escalofriante!)

One day, we returned from our studies, and one of my roommates checked their wallet to find that they were missing 1500 pesos (Like, 50 bucks US). We all checked our wallets and, surprise! Somebody had picked the locks to our closet and secretly stolen our cash. I lost my only 100 dollar bill, which I was saving for emergencies (and sweets (and buying myself a christmas souvenir)). I still have some cash left, but a loss is a loss. I'm now keeping better track of all my valuables so I don't lose anything of huge value. Thank goodness nobody is in the mood to steal sketchbooks!

On the flip side, I made a new character because of this experience! I call him "Golpego". Check him out!
That´s all for the mass e-mail. Hopefully I´ll have enough time to mail you all individually, but if you don´t get one, please don´t think I have forgotten you! An hour isn´t a ton of time, sadly :(
I love you all! God Bless!

~Elder Bowlby

here is our personal letter...Hello, Hello!

Hello everybody at home! I´m glad to hear that you´re all keeping busy and that you´re all perservering with faith! I´ve been very busy as well, and I've had a lot of challenges recently!

If you haven´t gotten my snail mail yet (I sent it last week because I didn't have enough time to send it at all) then I won´t spoil it for you. Just do me a favor and don´t actually send me anything like I ask for in the letter. I don´t need that kind of temptation, as I´m already way too tempted to draw in class o_o

There´s no such thing as dandelions here at CCM. Every morning the lawn is carefully cut and cared for by a lot of workers. I kinda miss the vibrant yellow.

Every morning, I get up at 6:30 AM, shower, and then head off to an hour of personal study time from about 7:15 to 8:15. Breakfast is at 8:15, and then the following hours until Lunch at 1:15 are a mess of language study, practice investigators, Technology Assisted Language Learning, Gym, and planning time. It´s likewise in the hours from lunch to dinner at 6:30. After dinner, there´s an hour or so of just study time, and then at 9:00 we retire to our casa (where I spend most of my time drawing and doodling before bed.

There is in fact a store here on campus where you can buy things. Found out that I left my umbrella behind and that my exercise shorts were far too small, so I saved up some pesos (we get 100 per week we stay here) to get them. Truth be told, I´m also buying cookies and chocolate milk to comfort myself. The routine is not easy on me, that´s for sure.

We only leave the MTC on P-day to attend the temple. Today is actually our day to go! I´ll be going shortly after I finish e-mailing people.

Please feel free to open my door. Poor Amber must be beyond confused as to why I haven´t left it in forever.
And yes, I have had to do my own laundry! It´s pretty easy, and all you have to do here is buy those little soap pods at the tienda, and ta-da! Clean clothes.

I´m very glad that things have been going well for Dad. I´ve been keeping him in my prayers, and I´ll be sure to start praying for all of you as well! I have faith in you all, so have faith in the Lord and anything is possible!

Love you so much!

-Elder Bowlby

P.S: Thought you might get a laugh out of this, Dad. There are a lot of knockoff characters as mascots and on advertising here in México, so here´s a picture of Calcifer advising for his own demise on a fire extinguisher.

Also, showed this drawing to a Latino at dinner and he said that "It´s like Mexican Thomas!"




So what do you do when your child e-mails home that they have been robbed??  Do you freak out?  Do you try to get them to come home?  I actually felt peace with it.  You can be robbed anywhere really.  I had told my son when he was leaving to take only little bits of money with him and to hide his valuables.  Unfortuantely he did not listen to me and he lost some money.  But he learned a lesson, even when you feel you are in a safe place, things can happen.
I did e-mail back to him and said to be grateful that the person did not attack them to take their money, be thankful that you are all safe.  And I also told him that perhaps he should pray for the person who took the money.  Perhaps their life is hard, perhaps they had no other way to feed their family.  I also told him to pray that this persons life might change so they don't have to steal.  It is interesting how we are all growing and learning through this mission.  Each relying on The Lord to keep us safe.  And each sharing our perspectives and praying for each other.
Until the next e-mail.
G.G.