Update from Elder Green

Hey everyone,
How's it going? The work here is going great. I think I told you about Trinidad, who is working toward a baptismal date. He is doing awesome and progressing rapidly. In fact, we have a meeting with him tonight. Also, we just extended a commitment to be baptized to one of our other investigators. His name is Manuel. He's really a cool guy, and he's from El Salvador (just now realized that the country is named The Savior, go figure). We had a lesson with him, and in it we told him we would like him to be baptised. He agreed, but he said, "First though, I have to be married, right?" Usually this is a BIG problem with investigators, they don't like that idea at all due to their experiences before with marriage. We told him the affirmative, and he said that was alright. So now he's working on divorcing his wife in El Salvador and marrying the woman he's been living with for a long time. That having two families thing is really pretty common in the Hispanic culture when they come alone to America. But it's really cool that he's so willing to take the steps that are necessary, he's an awesome guy who is making good choices.
I haven't received the papers yet, but I will let you know as soon as I do. Also, send my sincerest apologies to Eric, Mike, Lauren, Taylor, and others, especially the family, because in the last few hectic weeks I've been really terrible about writing people. It's been crazy.
So here's the REALLY EXCITING NEWS, well maybe not that cool to the rest of you, but it's sweet to me: As of July 1, 2010, I will no longer be serving in the Illinois, Chicago North Mission. No, that's not a joke. I will be serving in stead in the... Illinois Chicago Mission! The North and South missions are consolidating on July 1, and we will have all the area that both missions currently cover... with only 160 missionaries to do it. But, the south mission contains the "Spanish Block" and the Spanish Stake, so I may be spending a lot of time in the south side. So I may even get to serve in the slums! I'm stoked! I've heard some pretty crazy stories from down there, so we'll see how crazy things get. To answer the question, yes President Doll will still be my mission president, but the mission home will be moving. So might the mission office. But again, all this isn't until July.
This morning we got to go to the temple. It's so beautiful! And Tiny! Oh man I wish I could just describe the inside, it's really cool. I think I've just fallen in love with everything about Illinois. It's so diverse and different than anything I've ever experienced before.
I'm getting really to know the Hispanic culture like I never have, and I've fallen in love with the people. We work with a lot of Mexicans, but we have members from Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, lots of places. The culture is really way awesome. In a lot of ways they remind me of my family. One of the members, Hermano Rodriguez, does a lot of woodwork, and in a lot of ways reminds me of my Grandpa Green. A recent convert, Hermano Motta, has that dry humor and fun but serious attitude that my dad shares. They try to love everyone and just have fun and take life easy. We take serious matters, seriously, but when we it's time to have fun they have fun and are just constantly on the lookout to be nice. Like the other day, Elder Witham and I were having a problem with our tire. One of our investigators saw us in the parking lot, drove over, asked what the problem was, fixed our tire, and then just zipped off like it was nothing. He really taught me about Christ right then. He wasn't expecting praise or thanks, he just saw someone he could take some time to help and did it. When I asked my companion, he said, "That's just the way the Mexicans are."
I hope we can all say that about ourselves. When we're rushing to work or home or wherever it may be, just help someone that we see on the side of the road or at their house or whatever. Sacrifice that perfect punctuality for a better cause. Do what is right, let the consequence follow.
I love all of you, and promise to write more, later.
Much love,
Elder Jordan Green.