September 21, 2009

Hello Familia,
I hope Mom´s doing better today, and that they release her soon. I guess I´m a week late in finding out, but I hope and pray she´ll be better soon, and have a better time, not always getting sick, it´s not very fair. Is Grandpa doing well with his therapy? Sounds like this week wasn´t the best, with all that´s going on. And then BYU blowing it like usual. Oh well! They probably are just saving it for me when I get back.

This week was a lot of walking, and a lot of being rejected and stood up, but it was still a good week because even when 6 appointments in a row fell through, we found unexpected, promising investigators that we wouldn´t have found had we been in appointments. So it was a good, hard, long week. On Thursday we walked over 8 miles, so we´ve been pretty worn out, but it´s been good. I sent this email by gmail because we are allowed to use gmail, and the picture function works better I believe. So I´ll be using both this address and the ldsmail one I guess.

The weather here can´t make up its mind. It rains and is super cold for 3 days, and then it´s hot the next day like today, and yesterday. This week we are baptizing Matilde. She´s a wonderful lady, in about her 60´s, that Elder Jones had already found before I got here. She kept having problems with overcoming smoking, but now she is ready, and Elder Jones will be baptizing her on Friday.

Spanish is about the same as last week, but I have my moments. I haven´t been able to take a whole lot of pictures of the country or anything, like you guys asked, because we´re not supposed to carry around our cameras so we won´t get robbed, but I probably will get opportunities. The country is not exactly what I expected. I don´t really know what I expected, but at least where I am, there are a lot of worn down cementish shacks, and lots of clutter and garbage because they don´t have the best trash system in these kind of areas. It´s different, but it´s a cool place to be at the same time. The country is pretty green, and there are all different kinds of trees, not a lot different from back home. There are orange trees and lemon trees every once in a while, but I don´t really understand how they survive since it gets so cold. In front of all the houses runs the sanghas, or sewer ditches, so the streets smell pretty good at times, and sometimes you see frogs around in the stuff so that is pretty cool. Disgusting, but cool. And there are dogs everywhere. Every type of dog, probably every mix that exists, can be found here. There are some cool dogs, and there are some really ugly ones, and down here everyone and their dog owns dogs. We haven´t really had any problems with angry dogs though, but I did try that dog whistle once, and it was funny because the dogs would like flap their ears, and then just take off running the other way. So, I got entertainment from that.

There are people from all over that live here. Right now lots of the people we teach are immigrants from Paraguay, and there is a lot of diversity around here as far as inheritance and ethnicity. Like our Bishop is from German descent, so he is really white, but most people where I am have darker skin, but come from all over in South America. So it´s cool to have all the diversity, and hear the diversity there is in the Spanish language, even though I can´t really tell the difference, but sometimes I can.

Talking to people and a language I am not used to all day, every day, is not the most comfortable, or easiest thing I could be doing right now, but I know this is where I am supposed to be, although it may be hard, and it may seem impossible to understand at the moment, I know it will all work out in the Lord´s hands. I love all you guys, and Mom, I hope you start feeling better.
Love, David