• HOLA‏

8/24/11

Well Hello!

How is everyone going back at home? I think school started this week so I'm sure its been a super busy week for you all. So today has been a crazy day and I am actually sitting in a library next to some guy who is looking up treatment for some super gross rash or something on Wikipedia. We went down to the city today and its pretty cool! Its weird seeing all that stuff on movies all the time and then actually being there! Alot of people from our mission played football in front of the Washington Monument today for Pday. Elder Croft and I took some pictures in front of the Capitol building as well that I don't have time to send today so sorry! Next week por seguro! (for sure) So I have some bad news.....So my backpack has gone missing! After we stayed the night at the mission home we put all of our overnight bags in the back of the van and then we went to the stake center and somehow during that process my bag was misplaced. Its a bummer because it had my deodorant, toothpaste, some clothes, garments, English scriptures, English preach my gospel, my journal and my camera in it. And then my back pack is gone so I have to carry everything around in my arms. The AP's are trying really hard to find but have had no success. So cross your fingers they find it! President Matsumori might buy me some new stuff I guess but I feel bad making him do that. So you might not be getting as many pictures as you hoped for because I am camera-less! Sorry! Alright so about my week now: Well I am in the Olney part of Maryland which is the most northern area in our mission. There is a good mix of Spanish and white people and black people. Unfortunately a lot of my lessons have been in English so its difficult to practice Spanish when everyone speaks English. My companion and I live with 2 other English Elders. Elder Stallings (from Idaho) and Elder Vanaa (from Tahiti) they are pretty cool. We live in a pretty nice apartment but its kind of a dump because some of the Elders are messy. Oh and we have Roaches, sweet eh? But overall pretty nice. Lots of pictures of Jesus that's for sure and we jam out to church music all the time! ha So my first missionary appointment was with La familia Salvador. They are from El Salvador and only speak Spanish. They are an awesome family and what we call Golden Investigators. There is the Mom and Dad and then they have 2 little girls. They were married in May and then soon after baptized and now they are working towards the temple and they love the gospel! She has her baptismal certificate framed and hanging on a wall, that's how awesome she is. The food wasn't too bad they call it Papoosa's which is just life a stuffed tortilla with whatever you want on top of it. That's about all the weird Spanish food I have had unfortunately! Maybe next week will change. But here is my miracle story of the week which Elder Croft and I are very proud. So we got a referral from the Missionaries down in Mexico to go visit this guy named Francisco on Thursday at 4. So we went and visited him and it turns out that its this 18 year old kid that met the missionaries down in the Mexico and talked to them like once. When we get there he says to us "so the missionaries gave me this book and I read it and I got an answer that its true" "I really want to go to your church but I cant find it, I really want to go to the temple too" Well Francisco is getting baptized on this Sunday how crazy is that? And he wants to serve a mission and has already began to save up money. This kid is awesome! That is my miracle story of the week. I hope you enjoyed it! About the Earthquake it was pretty intense! I was just standing in our apartment and then all of sudden the whole building started to move, probably not very safe since it wasn't that bad here but yeah I heard it did some damage to the temple so hopefully they get that fixed up soon. But it was my first legit earthquake and some one said we have a hurricane coming our way. Bring it on! ha I don't know why stuff like that gets me excited. Reminds me of back when Dad and I were in San Francisco during that big earthquake in Japan. Now about that Spanish....I don't know what to say. ha Its going alright I understand the lessons and what everyone is saying and I put in input and help teach the lessons. The hard part is when they are talking directly to you. Man do they talk fast! And some of them have super thick accents and they use words I have never heard before but I think I'm going to be alright, hopefully I get some more Spanish lessons in. Ive been to some Spanish family nights and those are crazy. Way fun but crazy. Man the city is awesome but its just difficult with everything because of money, I swear we have zero money as missionaries ha. But its all good no worries. I don't really have anything spiritual for you at the moment because I left my notebook home but I've been learning a lot about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it actually is a Covenant. Testament as in the Old testament and new testament means covenant in Greek. So it just makes it so much more important for us to continue to read it. Our ward up here (our Spanish ward, they only speak Spanish, that was interesting for sure) is challenging all the ward members including the missionaries to finish the book of Mormon by the end of the year. So I'm going to finish the book of Mormon in Spanish. Wish me Luck. I hope you guys are all doing great and continuing to choose the right you guys will have to write me and email me telling me about everything. Its definitely different here how you don't get letters in stuff in the mail. Its been more than a week since I got mail! Dang ha Oh well I love you guys! And I pray for you everyday! Choose the Right, Stay safe, stay positive and Smile! Ill talk to you in a week! Hasta Luego! Les amo!