Week 63

Puppies
Monday, March 28, 2011 8:26 AM
Hey family.

I really gotta find a new way to start out these emails. It`s kind of like my journal entries and my letters to the mission president...I never know how to start them.

So life is really good here in Durazno. Um...not so much by way of touristy area. It is a pretty little city though. Lots of trees. I live with the zone leaders and they`re pretty cool, especially the one from Chile so we get along really well. The house is really nice too, we even have an air conditioning unit. Wow. I`ll get some pictures of the house eventually to send them to you. Um, let`s see...my comp also is really cool. We get along really well, partly because we like a lot of the same things. We have semi-similar personalities. He is from North Carolina. He is the senior comp and he finishes in October. I included a picture of us. The other 3 pictures I took last Monday. One is of me and Elder Dinkel with our awesome ward mission leader. Another (with us standing) is the awesome elders quorum president and his family. They are absolutely amazing. The picture with us on the couch, is the Sunday School President and his family. They`re all super and really strong members.

Ok, so more about this new area. My comp is working hard at being obedient and whatnot. The area on the other hand is dead. We have very few investigators and none of them are terribly solid. We had nobody in church yesterday. Quite a difference from my last area. It`s unfortunate, but I`m not terribly worried, because I know the Lord will help us if we merit it. The ward seems nice, the bishop is awesome. I had to give a short talk yesterday and introduce myself. I winged it, basically. It was only 10 minutes on prophets since conference is coming up. Speaking of conference, I`m super excited. We`re going to have a blast. I love it.

So, funny story. There have been multiple of people who think I`m from Spain. Evidently I have some kind of accent that leads people to believe that I`m not American, but they can`t place the accent terribly well or something because they tend to think I`m Spanish. Oh well. I`m not complaining. As long as I don`t sound like a gringo. That has been my goal since forever. The Lord has blessed me.

Oh, sorry. I guess I forgot to tell you like 3 weeks ago that I received the package. And this week I got letters 60 and 61. I`m kind of hoping that mail will be more regular now since I live with the zone leaders and all the mail for the zone gets sent to them. Fingers crossed. Um, yes I play piano. I played all the time in my last area and I think I`ll be playing all the time here because they don`t have anybody. Both wards were super excited when I arrived in the area and they found out that I played the piano. The last ward didn`t want me to leave because they wouldn`t have anybody to play the piano. :)

In this new area, we have lunch almost every day. I think there might be one or two days a month when we don`t. So that`s really nice. And yes we walk. Thank goodness. I hate bikes. In the city of Durazno here, there are 8 missionaries...two houses of 4. My last comp lives in the other house and his area borders mine to the north. So that`s cool. We`ll get to see each other tomorrow at district meeting.

Um, what else do I have to communicate to you guys. Not much, I think. Life is going well. I wish we could get this area rolling a little bit more, but it`ll come. At least my comp wants to work, and we work well together. We also teach remarkably well together, so that`s a plus as well. Oh, so I`m now in the 10th change of my mission in the field. Hooray for double digits! And I have single digit number of months left. Don`t anybody sneeze or I`ll be home. :D

I`m really excited to be here and to try to help get the work rolling again. I`m praying that those people all get baptized in my last area. I think I`ll like it here, but I have this tiny feeling that I`m not going to be here very long. I dunno, and we`ll obviously see what happens in the future, but it`s just this little tiny feeling I get. Oots.

Well, have fun. Enjoy conference and whatnot. It`s such a blessing to have a prophet on the earth. I think we underestimate the blessing that it is. Can you imagine what life must have been like before the restoration? Dark times. Thanks for the emails. Enjoy moving into the month of April.......already. Cheers!

Love Always,

DJ