first week...

This first week was really rough, but good. asoooo I hopped on the plane and slept the whole way here. as soon as i got here i could feel the humidity.. it wasnt too bad and it almost felt like Chicago. it was great. I went to the mission presidents house he is from chile, he is very nice. we ate and it was good. i also met the missionaries from the mtc at the airport. so we talked about the mission at the presidents house and it was pretty neat. then we went to the church and checked out our bikes, it was super rad i love my bike, and then we went over some rules and stuff like that. Later we went to the AP's house and found a bed to sleep on. i quickly found a top bunk and threw my heavy bag on top. I jumped up, said a prayer and opened up my journal.. i quickly wrote something and started reading my scriptures and then went to sleep.
the next morning all of the missionaries were talking about the best area in the mission.. not because there is lots of baptisms or you get to speak spanish.. but because it was just a very calm place, almost like bountiful or centerville. they wouldn't stop talking about it...its name is Portland
then we went back to the presidents house for breakfast, it was nice. then we all sat on the couch and were going to be told what area we were going too. everyone was getting named off and then it was my turn, and i guessed it would be the one all of the missionaries were talking about. Portland texas, in an english speaking ward. and i guessed right. I was called to Portland in Corpus Chrisiti
i was like sick rad!! english!! hahahah
then we went to the church where we had transfers.. and where i met my trainer. his name is elder anderson from north ogden utah. hes very quirky but nice and hes been here for about 4 months already so he knows everyone here hahah which is great. we went outside and loaded up the van, yeahh we also drive around in a van. how cool hahah also portland is about 3 hours away from the offices.
so we set out to portland. it was a great car ride full of sleep we finally got to portland and dumped my stuff and went straight to work to meet people. we have a baptism for november 15, of gilbert and stephanie, they are getting married on saturday and with permission from our bishop they are the getting baptized on sunday!! how sick!! hahah they are great people and they have a 2 year old name bradly he is very loud hahah
they are both way into the church, at first gilbert wasnt sure about getting married because his family keeps saying not to.. but when we went to go visit them again.. he was all of a sudden super excited to get married. what a miracle!! we've been visiting everyday and they are just doing great!!
by the way i am not really using my spanish at all when i am talking to people.. no one speaks spanish here.
we have been visiting a recent convert a lot named alfredo, he is 9 with very bad a.d.d. he is hilarious he lives with 3 other boys, julian, jess and issac. issac and jess are twins, and they live with their moms in this small apartment. one day we were visiting and talking to holly, the mother of jess, julian and issac.. she took us outside.. to tell us something about her twins, apparently one night when they had friends over, alfredo saw that one of the friends had a pipe.. by the way these boys are like 16, holly got up and searched the friends back pack and found a few paraphernalia and a bag of drugs... she was very upset and told everyone to leave.. she then took her boys and made them take a drug test.. jess came out clean and said he never did it.. and issac came out dirty..
after she said that... i could see the pain in her eyes..it made me very sad, because i could feel her pain..she started to cry and i really could feel her pain..she reminded me of my own mother.. just trying to do what is right for her sons... it was very sad and hurt a lot..but also made me super grateful to have a mom that i had. a very strong women and just very appreciated she never gave up on me. since then holly has brought her sons to church and we have visited with them more and just helped give them the guidance we can. its crazy to see how this happen. holly is a very strong mom just like mine, and so far things have slowly improving for them. they were going to get evicted for some bogus reason and the day after she paid her tithing, she got a call from the owner of the apartments that she lives in and he said that he is going to move them to a basement apartment and not evict them and actually move the manager that wanted to evict them to a complex in new jersey.. not all blessings and miracles are super huge like this. but this honestly helped me know that our heavenly father is real and he does bless us for doing the things he asked..
i have so much to write about but like no time.. this sucks..
well through out this week i've really been struggling with anxiety and i just feel like i want to explode.. but i love being here..  the president and I talked and he gave me some scriptures to read.. all i ask from you guys is to pray.. there are many miracles that are going on right now and i just need to keep pushing on.. i'm blessing peoples lives.. so its worth it..
we were walking down this street looking for a house and saw a young kid playing football by himself, i ran right over and started throwing the ball and we just started talking. well we kept talking and he says to us, that he's been wanting to get baptized in a church and he knows the bible from front to back.. his name is nathan. he's great, we gave him a book of mormon and are going to visit him soon, last night we wen to go visit holly and no one answered but i saw a man in the courtyard of the apartments sitting alone.. so i told my companion i wanted to talk to him, we walked over and i started talking to him, yeah super rad cause he only speaks spanish. so we started talking to him about the church and asked him if he wanted to get baptized in a month, he said yes!! how rad... so thats whats going on right now...  just taking it a week at a time... have a rad day...

thats all.. you can write me letters to my apartment at
no packages though..

Elder Gonzalez
1404 Moor Avenue apt 708
Portland TX, 78374

we can see the ocean from our place how rad!!

mami... check out my slacks i brought.. hahhaha my companero and i