Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 12:53 PM
Subject: RE: Your missionary has been assigned
To: "melissapom48@gmail.com" <melissapom48@gmail.com>

Dear Sister Davis

We are grateful to have your son, Elder Ryan James Davis, serving with us in the Texas Dallas Mission.  He arrived safely and I have enjoyed interviewing him.  He has been assigned to serve in Grand Prairie, Texas, and his companion is Elder Patrick Alfred Feeney of Sun City, Arizona their address is 555 W Dickey Rd., Apt. L, Grand Prairie, Texas.  We have given him a strong trainer to help him get off to a good start.  He seems happy and anxious to do the work of the Lord.  We will meet with Him regularly in Zone Conferences and personal interviews.

Our mission covers the northeast part of the State of Texas.  It takes in a little portion of Oklahoma and goes east to the Louisiana border.  Nearly three fourths of our missionaries are in the “Metroplex” of Dallas serving a population of almost four million people.  The life of a missionary is not always easy, but it will be a growing experience for him, one that will set him on a firm foundation and help him gain habits that will serve him well for life.

Sister Taylor and I are committed to do all that we can to assure a happy and successful mission for your son.  We are confident that you share that same commitment.  It is important to write letters weekly that are positive and uplifting, with support, encouragement and praise for the work he is doing in serving the Lord.  All missionaries face some challenges.  We will inform you of significant concerns or illness as we determine such information would be helpful to you and him.  Missionaries are asked not to call parents or friends as it distracts their attention from their work.  We also request that parents and friends not call missionaries.

We extend our love to you and thank you for sending your son into the mission field.  Please feel free to write or call us if you wish. Sister Taylor manages a Facebook page and uploads many pictures for all to enjoy.  Please visit “The Texas, Dallas Mission-President and Sister Taylor” Facebook page.  We unite our prayers with yours for the well-being, success, and happiness of your son as he serves the Lord in this great work.

Sincerely,

Brian K. Taylor, President

Texas Dallas Mission

From: Texas Dallas Mission
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2015 4:29 PM
To: melissapom48@gmail.com
Subject: Your missionary has arrived!!

Dear Missionary Family,

We just want to let you know that your missionary has arrived in Dallas and is part of a wonderful group of 24 new missionaries today!

Attached you will see the pictures taken at the Dallas Temple as they came in from the airport.  The group had lunch on the way, and are spending the afternoon and evening in orientation and training.  They will have dinner at the Mission Home with President and Sister Taylor and their family.  Then they will stay the night with a nearby companionship, and in the morning will be introduced to their trainer.  After a little more training together, they will leave for their area and begin their work.  We will follow up with a letter letting you know where they are serving and who their trainer is.

You will receive another email after transfers are complete with the actual location of your missionary.  Monday is their preparation day, so you should receive an email from them next week telling you about their first week in the Mission.  I’m sure you’re looking forward to that!

Thank you for sending us your missionary!  This will be a great experience for them.

Sincerely,

Brian K. Taylor, President

Texas Dallas Mission

Date: Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 11:41 AM
Subject: week 6

well its my last week here in the ccm 

oh hi by the way

so how is elder Davis doing? well he is doing pretty good. his Spanish is pretty good and he can teach lessons like a boss. 

jajajaja well i picked up my flight information today from reccepcion i found out that my companion is not going on the same plane as well any of us. everyone is flying delta and he is flying air mexico. its going to be interesting to see if he makes it to texas. our mission president just challenged us to read the book of Mormon in 40 days. im a little scared because of this because i am a slow reader.

well what happened this week?

well on Tuesday night we saw a devotional again it was really good. it was by elder Bernard and he spoke about the character of Christ i love this talk a lot. i have done a lot of studying like usual. iv helped the Hermanas and sometimes others to understand Spanish. people are stating to be tired of the same old thing wake up, study, eat, go to bed, repeat. i'm doing really well though. i love being able to explain things. i've felt the gift of tongs very strong. i have started to feel an incredible love for the people i teach even though they are not real yet. i teach two guys and two girls. their names are Luis Valdez, Jose Luis, Sabrina, and Ali.

we had a lesson with Ali yesterday where she told us that she and an old boy friend had dealt drugs (remember these are characters played by other missionaries this story is not real). i had no clue what to say!! i was truly confounded. then i remembered that with the spirit we will never be confounded by the things they say and so i said a little prayer. it was a little awkwardly quiet because my companion didn't know what to say either. then the spirit took over. you know how usually you have a plan in your head of what you are going to say and how you are going to say it? well i usually do and in spanish it is really important because you have to translate it before you say it. i found myself saying stuff that was definitely not coming from me. i didn't need to translate because i was not the one talking. i know that the spirit was there. i talked to Hermana Brantly afterwards and she said that i had said the exact things she needed. it was amazing and i cant wait to feel this way with real investigators.

just so you all know, i am still doing math. i've taught elder Rios how to solve the rubics cube in addition i gave him some math problems. one i told him was: what two prime numbers add up to 1000. to help him i programmed a program into my calculator that would check if a number is prime or not. it was fun.

i am literally in the coolest district. they pass down things from district to district. they are so cool. i am not allowed to say much about it but it is so awesome.

this last Sunday was amazing i took so many notes in my pad that i ran out of room and had to get a different one. that has been más o menos my week. 

oh i also got a haircut i look pretty darn good if i do say so myself;) the people were so nice. 

well i hope you are all doing really well i love you all and will tell you all about Texas in my next email. wow this went fast. 

love Elder Davis 

PS.... this next week elder Christopherson is coming to speak to us. im so excited to be in the same room as a general authority. i wonder what he will peak about. its going to be so awesome. 

lets see the food is pretty wierd but i am starting to get used to it. i dont really know what else to write. it is literally the same every day. 

i love my district so much they are so cool im going to miss them a lot. we have started to pass around transfer journals and its so sad! i really like speaking spanish to them and learning with them. we need to be a lot better about "soló español". we have goals to speak only spanish for this entire week but i am really bad at it. in a lesson i can get my point across and do it with the spirit but when it comes to just talking in spanish for normal conversations cant do it. our teacher asks why we dont speak spanish all the time and our answer is because we have learned how to talk about gospel things so if someone wants to talk about the restoration the we could go all day but when it comes to what we like to do ive got like 3 sentances (ooh something weird : the word in spanish for sentence is oración and so is the word for prayer.)

why do i love spanish: it's letters make one maybe two sounds ever. in english if you have the letter a well it could make the sound it does in "latter" or the sound it makes in "late" or or the sound in "law" but in spanish no matter what it makes the sound like in "law"

why do i love english : english words mean one thing. for instance the word "potato" refers to the vegetable. nothing else. and the word "time" only means the measurement between events. in spanish the word for "potato" is "papá". this word also can mean the "pope" or your "dad". the word "time" is "tiempo" but it can also mean "weather".  also spanish uses two diferent word for almost everything. the verb "to know" is either "conocer" or "saber" conocer is used when you are talking about a person or an idea. saber is used when you are talking about facts. the verb "to be" is either "estar" or "ser". estar is used when its about an emotion or a temporary thing. ser is used when talking about characteristics or things that dont change. oh and then past tense. spanish has two different past tenses and i still dont really know when to use them. there are so many more examples. 

i am so excited to get mail when i get back to the states. i am really excited to meet the mission president and my new companion. i really hope he wants to work because i sure as heck want to get working!! 

Date: Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 12:27 PM

hello everyone 

so this week has been intents (like the circus) 

ok entonces i have rally enjoyed Sundays here they are amazing as are Tuesdays we have devotionals on these days and they are always so amazing. last Tuesday we listened to elder Holland talk and he emphisised the necessity of the spirit when we teach. "if ye receive not the spirit ye shall not teach" shall is used in commandment nothing else. i think back to some of the ways people try to explain our religion. i saw a you tube video right before i left and i could see how it was trying to fit but it did not have the spirit and so it couldn't teach and it shouldn't have been teaching.

we played a prank on the hermanas with the help of our zone leaders. we convinced them that they had to take their passports to reception and get them scanned other wise they could not leave. they ran over there and spent 20 minute trying to straiten things out (btw the people at reception speak like no English) they came back and we died. it was so funny. they were really awesome about it and were not very mad they agreed that it was funny. 

to learn Spanish i have started writing down every verb in one of our religious dictionary. its really cool and i think it will be a lot of help.

yesterday we saw these people cleaning the gym and we asked if this was their service project and they said "no we tried to hope the fence". they got in trouble and now this was their punishment.

another day i met someone who was almost as good as Thomas at piano. he has played for 10 years and was pretty good at improve. i miss my trumpet so much and the mariachi bands that play all night don't help one bit.

funniest thing happened on Saturday too. we were trying to prank the hermanas again and we put tape across the door. one about neck level and then one at foot level. then this older guy came and he was so cool. he came to tell us about the temple trip which i will talk about in a minute. he only saw the top one so he asked if it would trip an alarm we told him no it was harmless. he ducked under it and broke the one on the bottom. his face was so great. he laughed and took the tape off his feet. he then told us about all of this stuff and then on his way out he forgot about the tape. we all tried to warn him but he ran into the tape. it hit is neck and broke it was the funniest thing!

yesterday (also funny) elder stalhe was showing how these tide pack things for washing your clothes don't break. he threw it in the air really high and it hit the ground but didn't break. he then tried it again and it got stuck in a palm tree. is face was so sad. it was so funny! now a parrot is going to eat it or its going to rain (water makes them break) and a missionary will be walking by and think they got pooped on by a very good smelling bird.

OK there temple. the temple just finished being built and we got to go to the open house. we jumped on a bus and went to the temple it was cool it is the first time i have been outside these walls for 5 weeks. i have a bunch of pictures to send but unfortunately you cant send more then one picture per email so guess who is spaming mommy's email. we sang hymns in Spanish all the way up. we got there and we went through the visitors center which was really pretty. it was cool to see the symbolism in the temple. in the temple there are a lot of squares and circles. the squares represent earth and the circles heaven. i paid way too much attention to the carpet. in the visitors center the carpet was a bunch of green squares. on the first floor of the temple it was a lighter green carpet with equal squares and circles. on the two upper floors it was the same style of carpet but it was much lighter and the circles poped out more than the squares. it was an amazing experience. when we got back to the ccm out guide person said that his favorite moment was when we were in the celestial room because we all just looked at the chandelier. this was probably my favorite too. chandeliers in older times and yes kind of still now have the job of sustaining the light and reflecting it all about the room. he likend us to that chandelier. we are not the light. it is not about us. we simply sustain the light and reflect it. as missionaries we are here to take the light of Christ to every single person. i love this analogy. 

that has been my week más o menos. i hope all of you are doing well. i miss you all a lot. in the visitors center they showed a video about families and it made me realize how much i miss mine. its been 5 weeks and im feeling like this. its going to be a long to years. (ive started to miss hugging girls to).

well buenos suerte con todas cosas y recuerde, Dios nos ama y él puede ayudar con todos los problemas. por favor ore lea las escrituras y asista la iglesia. yo sé qué jesucristo es el salvador ye también ye sé qué las escrituras es verdadero y yo estoy aquí para proclemar este. estoy aquí parra invitar a las personas a venir a cristo al ayudarlas a que reciben el evangelio resturado mediante la fe en jesucristo y su expiacion, arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepcion del don del espiritu santo, y el preseverar hasta al fin. 

i love the translation  of endure to the end in Spanish (preseverar hasta al fin) it sounds like preserve until the end. it has a more positive sound to it.

i love you all

love Elder Davis

p.s. im still not used to that. i still introduce myself as Ryan its a problem.

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 14:40:25 -0500
Subject: week 3


hola todas las personas este carte va a escribir en español. jajajajaja
solo bromeo no puede habla sobre todas las cosas de este semana en solo
español. well Spanish is going well i dislike this keyboard though every
time i email its in Spanish settings but when i am learning Spanish on the
program called TALL it is in english settings its super annoying.
ok so (jaja) im am going to try to give you a run down of my whole week :
I studied.
well that's about it hope you guys are well


jajaja solo bromeo
last Tuesday we had a devotional that was a live broadcast from the provo
mtc elder nelson (is it nealson... no its nilson... no... no se i dont know
how to spell in English anymore) spoke about being a missionary. he called
us "epistles of the lord" it was a really good devotional.
Wednesday : miercoles
today we studied. oh and last Monday it rained it rains a lot here and i
love it. everyone thinks im wierd for not using an umbrella and going
around dancing in the rain. i splashed around in my socks and shorts. it
was amazing. anyway Wednesday we had new missionaries come in its really
cool we have another elder Davis in our zone. he is from ogden utah
(ogdein...ogdan...ogten... i have no clue hope you understand) and its just
kind of cool. this last Sunday the branch president announced that "elder
Davis is going to say the prayer" my face turned white and i was terrified
and really confused for about 4 seconds. the branch president noticed and
said "no the other elder Davis" its going to be an interesting few Sundays.
i have also realized how much i miss hugs. hugging a girl just sounds so
nice right now. we are also teaching people in Spanish and i can feel the
gift of touges (thoungs... tungs... idk... el don de lenguas) so strong in
the lessons and i come out not entirly sure what i said.
Thursday : jovenes
in one of our lessons we learned to chase down prayer. when people say no
don't just let it go. bare testimony and promise blessings and don't take
no for an answer. each week we have to prepare a talk in Spanish and this
week it was about the apostasy. talk about a hard topic. "yea i can
personally relate to this topic because i lived through it and ya know what
it sucked" jajaja everyone was a little worried but elder Hafen and hermana
Jensen were the most worried because they don't feel good about their
Spanish and they didn't bare there testimony last week so they were pretty
sure they were going to be speaking. they announce who is speaking and you
don't know if you are until that happens. anyway they were really nervous
and so i was talking to elder Hafen about things he could use to figure out
what to say. i told him a bunch of stuff and would be able to help him
anytime but Herman Jensen i wasn't so sure about so i wrote a note with a
bunch of sources and page numbers and other stuff to help her. i gave it to
her and she really liked it. she wanted me to read it when she was done and
she wrote a truly amazing talk in Spanish. yes it was mostly from preach my
gospel but it was good. i met an elder who is going to Eugene Oregon. its
so awesome his name is elder Lopp so watch out eugene. (i now have two
people that call me Eugene elder Stalhe and now elder lopp).
viernes
Friday was a good day i went from 1 nefi 3 to 1 nefi 11:28 in Spanish.
elder Maxwell is rocking el libro de mormon he was in chapter 17 and i
really wanted to catch up to him so read like all day. president Hinckly
once promised that if you read the book in your mission language then you
will be able to understand your language. i think when i get back i am
going to read it in as many languages i can. highlight of this day was that
elder Hafen got pood on by a parrot it was hilarious because this is the
second person that got hit in out district. elder Baldwin got it right on
his head one day it was great.
sabado
Nicholas told me that within the first week i would pass all the Spanish i
learned in high school and i am still being dragged through stuff i already
understand. we have learned how to say things like "i can ride a bike" and
"i am going to talk about the restoration". its interesting and a good
review.
domingo
Sundays are so amazing we call the spiritual p-days. i will have you know
that none of us spoke in sacrament meeting this week it was all the
district above us. in priesthood we talked about our call as a missionary.
it was so powerful. a poem was share that i will never forget that goes
like this:

I slept and drempt that life was joy
I awoke and saw that life was duty
I acted, and behold
Duty is joy

this was so powerful. know that i am here to do a work. "[my] calling is
already magnificent, [I] must magnify my work". i know and want to do all i
can. another thing that was said is that "duty is never worthily preformed
until it is preformed by one who would gladly do more if only he could"
this is the point that i want to get to. i want to work so hard that the
only thing that stops me are my physical capabilities. we also had an
incredible devotional (broadcast) by elder Holland. he speaks with such a
powerful spirit it made everyone want to work harder and do more. the part
that got me was when he started talking about Paul and his like for Christ.
this story holds a really special place in my heart because of you amber. i
love you so much and your testimony about Christ and his life. i never
really thought a lot about Christs life but amber and i would talk about it
a lot. i really miss being able to talk to you, amber i love you so much.
when he started talking about this i just completely lost it. that is the
hardest i have cried this entire time. i love you and miss you. i hope that
i can be as converted as pual was. i truly love my savior and i am out here
to feed his sheep. my testimony is so strong here. elder Holland stressed
the point that this was not a set span of time kind of thing. once you
started on this path you cannot just go back to your old ways and go
fishing. Christ called Paul for the rest of his life. and so to has he
called me. this was one of the first things i expressed to my district that
i have already promised my life to him and this is not just 2 years. there
is an importance in true conversion. i believe i have already said this but
i am going to say it again. "if a testimony is simply what you know to be
true then conversion is constantly staying true to what you know. right now
i speak to all the returned missionaries. your mission has not ended. it
will never end. Christ has called you to the work for all your life. dont
just go back to fishing. "be ye fishers of men" ill tell you that once you
start there is no end. you may not have the tag but you are still
missionaries. the rest of your life you will serve then you will die and
begin serving again in the spirit world then judgement will come and the
entire thing will start over whether you are angels serving other worlds or
whether you a making those worlds yourself nevertheless there is no end.
serve for behold duty is joy.
i love you all and hope you are ally doing well
love your missionary
elder Davis
(gosh that weird)

Date: Tue, Aug 4, 2015 at 12:06 PM
Subject: week 2

hi everyone whats been happening? here it has been pretty interesting. so funny story first (you gatta hook the reader). this last Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and i had written up some stuff in Spanish. one of my lines was hay una guerra entre de jesucristo y satan. the word guerra means war but the word  guera (pretend there are two dots above the "u" this keyboard is killing me) and that means "blonde girl" it was so terrible but the branch president corrected me.

OK so (i thought you would like that) my scheduled goes a little like this. i wake up at 6:30 every morning jump in the shower and then get to our classroom at 7 to start studying. i have been reading through preach my gospel but last Sunday we had a devotional where we were challenged to read the book of Mormon ill talk about that latter. anyway after about an hour of studying we go to breakfast (by the way to food is weird ill get to that to) then we return to the class room to do a little more studying and then we will usually have a teacher come in and teach a Spanish lesson or coach us in teaching lessons or we will have some other form of study. we will be in there up until lunch. we occasionally read the book of Mormon as a group practice teaching in Spanish or some thing like that. we will then go to lunch and then come back to (yep you guessed it ) more studying. we then teach our investigator (just practice. we are not driving away real investigators with our awful Spanish) we taught Ricardo the first week and now we have graduated to teaching two at a time we trade off everyday of teaching Luis and jose. they are played by our teacher and its kind of strange. then we will do some more studying and then go to dinner. after dinner we have just enough time to STUDDYYY some more. never the less my Spanish is coming along well. then when we are all done with studying we do some planning (which kind of seems pointless because on the first day we were given a schedule that tells us what we will do every minute of every day i am here) then we say a prayer (in Spanish and English we need the blessings) and we go to our casas. i write in my journal and end the night with a nice contentious conversation with elder stalhe.

ok the devotional was a broadcast from a talk given by elder Bernard (yes i agree he is pretty awesome) given in 2011 to the Provo mtc on Christmas day. he talked a lot about the character of Christ. he also said that about 70 percent of missionaries eventually go in active or leave the church. he exclaimed how important it was to become converted. he said "if a testimony is what you know to be true then conversion is consistently staying true to what you know" i love that quote so much.

OK the food . the have things that range from you classic Costco pizza (which we have every Tuesday) to that weird thing that looks like... well i don't know if that's appropriate to say. never the less it looks really weird and makes you think "this is the end everybody 'we who are about to die solute you' i'll see you in the bathroom" "elder turn on the fan!" oh wait we don't have one. most everything has tasted alright and i have not had any boul problems.

"pray like Enos, work like Nefi, love like Christ"

our district leader elder hafen is such a cool guy. in his going away talk he quoted the song from Hercules 'i can go the distance' if you get a chance read the words of that its a great song. we sing a lot of songs. we have started working on a missionary version of 'lets get down to business' 

it goes a little like this "lets get down to business to-o preach... the word"

well work on it and ill tell you about it

also people leave every week and this time people from our district were leaving. in sacrament meeting they sang a beautiful song. it was "savior stay this night with me" i think that what it is called. honestly everything is in Spanish. it was so beautiful. i just could not help from crying. before i came out here i was watching the other side of heavan and when that song came on heather said that that was her favorite hymn. i thought of her and could not keep myself together it was just so powerful!

well i love you all and i'm sorry this one is not as long as the last we aren't supposed to be on quite as long. i miss you guys and hope you are doing well.

Date: Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 12:42 PM

Dear everyone

Hey well I'm here. at El Centro de Capacitacion Cisional Mexico or the ccm (ce ce eme). its very beautiful and its been amazing. 

so where to begin. i hoped on a plane at LAX with a dream in my heart again. wait that's not how it started. i was leaven on a jet plane don't know when i'll be back again. wait that's not it either. i'm am sorry about my bad grammar i always would us Microsoft word so i didn't have to capitalize (sorry David and Thomas) anyway i went to the airport at 4 in the morning in the Eugene airport. i went through security without crying it was close though i looked back and almost lost it right there. the plane was tiny and the chairs were really uncomfortable. we went all the way to Utah and i get of the plane and see what gate i am in. turns out i have to go all the way around this horse shoe thing to gate C2. i turn the corner and see a ton of suits. i walked up (casually of course) and said "so, we all missionaries here?". they were and then i had to go to the bathroom. i tried the bathroom on the plane and it was so cramped imagine the smallest closet you have and then curve all of the edges and drop the ceiling down about a foot. then put every possible thing you might need in the bathroom in it. 

so Utah well it was just like any other airport (you know... planes). i found a guy named elder hafen who was also going to Dallas Texas we talked a little, stood there a little awkward and then got on the plane.so that was my first time ever in Utah yeeeaaahhheeaa!

this plane was much bigger. i got the window seat it was cool. i sat next to an elder and an hermana was on the other side of him. we never went to sleep. we played a bunch of games that consisted of ghost, i spy, and word games like that. the elder [who's first name was also Ryan (saw it on his customs forms)] was going to Honduras and the hermana was going to some small place in mexico.

we finally got to mexico and us three stayed together as best we could. oh and yes David she was cute. actually all of the hermanas in my district are pretty cute. anyway that comes latter. we went through customs and all this airport boring stuff and the some 70 to 80 missionaries were pulled over to this area where we lined up our bags and sat down in these bleacher things. we waited a good long time and then were stuffed in this big party bus. we then had about a 45 minute drive to the ccm. drivers here are crazy!!!!!!!!. they just kind of move around where ever they want. the lanes are so small i could open the window and touch the buss next to us without my elbow leaving the bus it was terrifyingly awesome (no mommy i didn't actually do that) you know how Eugene has there homeless on the side of the street begging well here its a little similar but instead of just sitting there on the side holding a sign here they hold huge boxes of what i believe are peppers and the walk around in the middle of the road selling peppers. it was crazy there is barley any room between the cars but people still manage to be in there. 

we finally got to the ccm without too much honking and breaking (but trust me there was plenty). we were herded into the Thomas S Monson building to send a quick email confirming we are alive and telling the mailing address. btw i can receive mail but not packages unless they are ordered online and sent here. so bring on the letters!!

Elder Davis

31/082015 12-A

Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828

Colonia Zona Escolar, Gustavo A. Madero

07230 Mexico, Distrito Federal

Mexico

that is the mailing address

after all of this checking stuff we were sent to our houses where we met our new companions. mine is Elder Palmer he is a cool guy, also going to Dallas Texas. and we share a room with Elder Maxwell and Elder Stalhe. they are all really cool Elder Palmer is from Arizona and is "as red neck as you can get" his words not mine. Elder Stalhe has nick named me Elder Eugene. he is from Utah and it turns out there is a lot of different stuff that Eugene does that Utah doesn't. we have had some pretty fun debates about apple products (my whole room is against me), batman vs superman, and some other stuff that i cant remember. they ask what kind of car people drove before the mission and a told them "a bicycle" they laughed at me. 

we went to meet our district the next day. my district consistes of 11 people the triad of hermanas and 8 Elders. we are all going to Dallas Texas except for Elder Stalhe. he is going to Honduras. we make jokes a lot because apparently in Honduras your native companions might steal from you, it has one of the largest death rates in the world, he cant get batteries there, packages will take forever and he has to have this huge bottle of bug repellent that could very well kill him if he doesn't wash his clothes after he douses them with it. we are pretty sure he is going to die. anyway my district consists of Elder Hafen (who is our District Leader) Elder Rios (who dispite his name in not fluent in Spanish) they are companions then Elder Bolwin (who is a smart and maybe a little nerdy) who is pared with Elder Allen (who totally seems like he was a skater dude before the mission) then Elder Maxwell (who has bright red hair and got a lot of strange looks from the Latinos here) who is pared with Elder Stahle (pronounced like stay-leey) then Elder Palmer (who is pretty much the second coolest guy in our district) who is pared with Elder Davis (who is just pretty darn great i have come to know a lot about him) and then our trio consists of Hermana jenson, Hermana Cloward (who had really powerful comments when we were learning to teach an investigator), and Hemana Brantly they are all pretty darn cool. 

there is a sickness going around here people are just dropping like flies but not a single person in our district is sick. they say our generation brought it but we are still here. 

Spanish is all coming back pretty well. we taught our first investigator in Spanish on Friday. it was crazy fast. i am doing well but the food is so weird the have absolutely no salt and little to none other seasonings. every time i pick up a plate of food a little voice inside me says "this is the end Elder Davis, this is the end" one time though i grabbed some honeydew melon but it turned out to be all the edge piece and so it didn't taste very good. they tell us not to waste food so i decided i would share the load so it dint look like i didn't eat any of my fruit i was going to put some of it on everyone else's plates to share the load. i started putting some on Elder Rios' plate while he was talking to someone on the other side of him. he didn't notice that i was putting it on there but he did notice it was there so he started eating is. Elder Hafen just busted up laughing and so i continued adding some to Elder Rios' plate it took him a while before he noticed and just kept eating it finally he caught me and his reaction was just hilarious everyone was laughing at this point and Elder Rios just started to get up to put his dishes away it was amazing!!

Date: Wed, Jul 22, 2015 at 3:32 PM

Elder Davis

31/082015 12-A

Carretera Tenayuca-Chalmita #828

Colonia Zona Escolar, Gustavo A. Madero

07230 Mexico, Distrito Federal

Mexico

The estimated departure date for your missionary is [Departure Date]. The use of the

above address on all correspondence will greatly faciliate delivery to your missionary

at the MTC. Please don't send packages.

This is all the mailing information and i will be writing a more full letter next week on my p-day.