Treasures

Hola!  It wasn't until now I realized that I only have 25 minutes!  Aaaaaah!  Oh well.  I don't know where the time goes!

Still haven't gotten my card that I'm supposed to use to buy things like food, but they keep putting money on it so when I do finally get it I'll be rich.

This week was great!  Ima start off by talking a little bit more about Chilean culture and Spanish then I'll finally get to talking to you about the people I'm teaching, hooray!!

Entonces I've gotten into a really bad habit in speaking in Spanglish.  Because the only people I talk in English to also speak Spanish I cut a lot corners by using words in Spanish to shorten things or I just use Spanish words because I like them.  Like entonces.  That is the best word on the face of the planet.  So I am trying to supress myself when I write, but some things will slip through the cracks.  And I'll still write entonces because I really like that word.

Chilean Spanish!  So they have a lot of words that they use frequently that aren't in normal Spanish.  One of them is 'mish' to mean wow.  Another is 'bacán' to mean 'cool' or 'sweet'.  They also love to use the words 'no más' meaning 'no more'.  They put those words on the end of nearly every sentence.  Example:

     'Hooola!  Que están haciendopo?!´

     'Dando jugo no más, y ustedpo?´

That's me asking what someone is doing and them replying that they're giving juice, no more.  But above everything, the strangest thing the Chileans do to their spanish is put the syllable 'po' at the end of nearly every single clause.  'Como estapo?'  'Bienpo, ustedpo?' 'mas o menospo'.  Alright that's a little bit of an exageration but they do that a lot.  The thing I hear most is 'sipo' rather that just 'sí' and 'nopo' rather than just 'no'.  It's odd, but it's starting to grow on me.  It's kind funny actually.

Investigators!  Finally right?!  Now that I only have 15 minutes to write.  Woooops.

First we have a man named Cristian, he's about 50 and he works a ton.  He wants us to come and teach him more and he's really interested and committed, the only problem is he works and sleeps constantly so it's extremely difficult to visit him.  He has a baptismal date but it's fallen twice already because he can't attend church because of work, and we can't visit him often enough.  We've only taught him once since I got here.

Next we have Hermana y Hermano Caserez.  Hermano Caserez is a less active who just started attending church again because his mother, Hermana Caserez, is an investigator who is going to be baptized on the 18th of this month.  She's an awesome investigator who has been keeping all of her commitments and going to church, so we should be able to baptize her which I'm excited for.  We taught her lesson two this week which was really cool.  That's easily my favorite lesson to teach, something about testifying of God's plan and the Atonement in Spanish just makes my whole day.  The only problem is she can't read, she's older so the education here wasn't very good when she was younger.  So we need to get her the Book of Mormon on tape or something because so far Hermano Caserez has just been reading to her.

We have a couple named Marcos y Andrea who act like they are totally willing to keep commitments in the lessons but then they never actually do it, we're kind of wondering what to do with them because we can tell that they're not very dedicated.  They had a baptismal date too but it fell through this Sunday when they didn't attend Sacrament meeting.  We're going to try to get the members more involved with them and try to get them to read the Book of Mormon, hoping that they'll feel the Spirit and become more dedicated.

Next we have la Mama de Marcelo.  I don't know her real name because she really likes to be called la Mama de Marcelo.  Her sons name is, of course, Marcelo, and he's a less active.  She was once a catholic but now just belongs to a Christian group, no specific religion.  This is by far our most interesting investigator right now, probably because we can actually visit her multiple times a week because she works in her house making clothes.  She's had a really rough life and has really rough depression, one of my first amazing experiences here in the field was when she, out of nowhere, suddenly opened herself completely to us and told us everything about her life.  I didn't understand a word at the time but the Spirit was very strong and my companion was able to tell me what she said later.  The people here are very humble, a lot of them can feel our Spirit and feel our call of authority and they just open to us.  It's amazing when that happens because it's a wonderful manifestation of how people can sense that we're representatives of Jesus Christ and that we can help them.  She was the first person that I invited to be baptized with a date, but she denied.  We're pretty confident that we'll be able to baptize her though, we're going to have a member family that we love to death try to fellowship her this week and we'll be teaching her a few times this week and keeping offering baptism.  I think once she truly understands the Restoration and starts really reading the Book of Mormon she'll be willing to be baptized.

Quick break from the Investigators!  There's this family in the ward named Familia Alegría and they are so FLIPPING sweet.  I wish every LDS family was like this.  Most Chilenos here don't trust the Elders, especially the gringo Elders, which I have to admit is really difficult to work with.  But this family is easily the exception, they just had a son get home from serving in Mexico and he has already helped us a ton by being with us in lessons with la mama de Marcelo and Cristian.  His parents are awesome too, they love the Elders and just the missionary work in general.  They are the prime example of a perfect member missionary family, they are trying to bring friends to us and to church and they are always extremely willing to fellowship our investigators and be with us in lessons.  Upon figuring out that the Bishop doesn't really trust the Elders I was a little discouraged because of how important the members are in missionary work.  Anybody who has served a mission will know that if you don't have the members helping you, then you can't really do much.  But this family has been a ray of sunshine here, they're fantastic.  Sorry, I digress.

Next we have Elena, who is in by far the most tricky situation.  She knows the church is true, for all certainty.  But a problem for a lot of Chilenos here is that they're not married to their spouses.  Practically none of them are.  They'll have huge, great families but still not be married.  She has a spouse and an adorable son but she's not married to her husband (sounds weird but that's kind of how they consider it.)  The problem is her husband is Catholic, very Catholic.  He wants her to get baptized in the Catholic church and get married in the Catholic church but she doesn't want to because she knows the Church of Jesus Christ is true.  But, of course, she can't be baptized until she is married.  So she's in an unfixable situation unless we can get her husband to soften his heart... which is... unlikely.

Believe it or not I actually have more investigators than that, and we also have a boat load of less actives and recent converts.  Yeah, we're really busy, but I love it!  Much better to be busy than to have nothing to do, for sure.  I'll hopefully be able to tell you more stories about what actually happens during the next week next week!  I spent too long replying to emails and dealing with pictures this week, I promise a good letter next week!  Suffice it to say this week was even better than the last, and the work is really looking up.  My companion and I have started making a lot of changes in the way we're doing things which I think will really make a difference in helping our investigators progress.

Can't leave you without a Spiritual thought!  Remember that scripture that says something to the effect of ''He who findeth himself the same shall lose it, but he that loseth himself for My sake the same shall find it.'' I've thought a lot about this scripture the past few weeks, and it is certainly very true.  It's a little hard at first to completely forget yourself and your concerns for the benefit of other people and for the will of the Lord, but once you jump in lose yourself in the work, you find satisfaction and happiness that is beyond comparison.  I want you to know that I love being here, and I love being a missionary.  I wouldn't trade these experiences and this opportunity for anything in the world.  I know that God lives and that He loves all of His children, and that through Him and His grace we can, despite our imperfections and weaknesses, miraculously find rest and peace.  There is relief, rest, happiness, peace, hope, and joy if only we give our wills, our agency, the only thing that is actually ours to give, to the Lord.  Until next week, love you all!

Love,

Elder Fox

More Exposition!

SO I had a recording to send you guys, but I can't seem to get the recorder to work.  Nuts!  I told you the lazer pointer story in it and everything!!  I guess I have to tell you about it in this letter instead.  Also if all goes well I'll be able to send you guys a video!  New!  I hope it works, I'm excited to try it out.  Most missions don't allow the missionaries to take videos but we can, and we can even send em home if we can figure out how to fit them in emails.  My roomate claims that we can, so I will try!

Entonces I got a lot of comments about how I didn't talk about my companion at all.  Yeeeeeah I forgot.  Sorry all.  So here I'll tell you about it!  His name is Elder Hadlock, he's from St. George so he's very gringo but his biological Father is Indian so he looks very Indian.  He's really cool and has been teaching me a ton.  He's an amazing teacher and I have a ton to learn from him.  Elder Anuarve and Elder Schley are the two other elders in our apartment.  Elder Anuarve is from Argentina but understands and speaks English perfectly, and Elder Schley was born in Kazahkstan and was adopted into Utah when he was 9.  He says he spoke Russion (of course) but forgot a lot of the Russian in the CCM.  His English still isn't flawless and nor is his Spanish, so he doesn't exactly have a native language anymore which is unique.  All three of them are amazing Elders and have been a big help to me, mostly just by being a ton of fun to live with.  We have SO much fun it's great.

A little more about Chile!  I don't know if I've already mentioned the bread here but it's reeeeeeeally good.  Like rediculously good.  And extremely cheap.  I bought two loaves the other day for 666 pesos (about $1.)  They also love completos here.  Like love them.  Whenever anyone feeds you completos it's an insult to their culture if you don't eat at least two of them.  Also, the food here is way better than the CCM, I figured it would be but I'm still a little relieved.  The meat is also better than it is in the U.S, it's fantastic.  They also love herbal tea and this fake coffee stuff (I forgot it's name) and drinking these things is such a big part of their culture that President lets us drink it with people who give it to us because none of it's caffeinated.  The tea is alright, but the coffee is pretty nasty.  I don't know how something that smells so good can taste so, so bad.  In addition to all their Chilean food they have everything normal that we also have in the United States, I bought a Snickers the other day and I'm probably gunna stock up on Ice Cream this pday.

The dogs!  The dogs.  I see more stray dogs every day than I see stray people.  And every person that I see is stray because... well... they're people.  The dog situation is horrible here, especially in Conti.  Often the dogs are too apathetic to bother us but ocasional one charges us.  The miracles that I see here most often are that the dogs that attack us usually come within a few feet of us and then turn around and run away as if they forgot we were even there.  So that's always pretty cool, I silently say a prayer of thanks whenever that happens.

Language!  With the practice that I've had these two weeks I've become at very least proficient in Spanish, I can say everything I want to with correct grammar and pronunciation at a pretty good pace.  The only problem is that I can't understand anything that anybody says at all.  We had lunch with a member this week who had a son who went to Mexico on his mission and had just come home and he spoke sooooo slowly.  I could understand every single word that he said it was soooo nice.  I couldn't help thinking ''if only I got called to Mexico'' but I repented because I really love Chile.  Mexico is the slowest Spanish in the world and Chile is the fastest, so there's quite a significant difference.  I know I'll get used to it eventually though.  I'm getting a ton of my compliments about my Spanish out here though, which is really encouraging.  Most members tell me that I speak extremely well for having just gotten there, and a lot of them tell my companion while my attention is directed elsewhere that my Spanish is really good and then he tells me afterward about what they said.  At some houses I tell people guess how long I've been studying Spanish and then I tell them that I've been studying it for 8 weeks and they go like ''Miiiiiish enserio?!''  and I'm like ''Si, es la verdad!''  One of the members even told me that I didn't sound like a gringo, that I sounded like a Chileno.  So that's all really encouraging, I just need to work a lot on being able to understand them.

Oh by the way 'mish' is Chileno for 'wow'.  Pretty sure that's just a Chilean thing.  Also here they say 'painting monkeys' and 'giving juice' to mean 'messing around' which I find is really funny.

Stories!  SO background is needed, Elder Anuarve and Elder Schley have these lazer pointers that they play with every night, they're so powerful that you can see the whole beam of the lazer even if there's no smoke or steam or anything.  But of course it's brighter when there's more smoke or steam.  So the lazer pointer story is like this:  it all started while I was eating my cereal in a daze on my second day in the field.  I was kind of out of it, because it was my second day in the field.  Somebody had put oil in a pan and it was on the stove, and it gradually started to smoke.  The pan continued smoking, as I continued eating my cereal in silence, until the entire apartment was filled with smoke and the smoke was coming quickly.  This is when I began to dazedly think ''you know what... maybe this isn't supposed to be happening'' which is when I went to Elder Schley and Elder Anuarve and told them that oil was burning on the stove.  Elder Anuarve then ran out of the room yelling ''WAIT WAIT WAIT DON'T OPEN ANY OF THE DOORS OR WINDOWS THIS IS IMPORTANT'' then he turns the lights off and gets his lazer pointer out and pretends that it's a light saber.  I was laughing for a very long time.  Elder Schley and Elder Anuarve made a little Star Wars video before they let us open the doors and windos to let the smoke out.  It was hilarious.

Aaaaah there's never enough time!  I feel really bad that I STILL haven't talked to you much about teaching or about my investigators yet so I'm gunna try to figure out how to make recordings and put them on the computer for next week so I can try to catch up, since I'm sending you the video though I need to explain the background behind it.  So the beaches here are absolutely incredible, easily the most incredible thing I've ever seen.  They're like normal beaches, but there are also rock spires and caves and giant sentinels and cliffs that just extend up from the surface of the black sand and AH it's cool.  So today for p-day we had fun playing in the caves and stuff on the beaches.  We can go to the beaches in the wintertime because nobody else is there usually, and of course we can't get in the water but we can get wet.  So we spent the day making up these games where we had to go run and touch a rock while the surf is receding before another wave comes, or run from cave to cave before the surf comes in and gets you wet.  It's a little hard to explain, but you'll see what I'm talking about in the video.  Also today we were standing on this pier type thing watching the waves come in, and occasionally one wave would be bigger than other waves and would hit the rocks and splash up and look really cool.  So all four of us we're standing right on the edge trying to get a video or a picture of this happening, when a huge wave came and hit the rocks and came down on us like 50 buckets of salt water were dropped on our head.  It was hilarious, and the whole ordeal was caught on video.  So you'll hopefully get to see those two videos today.

SO this week was a ton better than the last week.  Getting to know the investigators and the area better has allowed me to lose myself in the work more and be able to simply forget myself in the effort to help these people.  The people we teach are often in very difficult situations and circumstances, and all of them are living in circumstances far more meager than what we're used to in Utah.  We take a lot of things for granted, for sure.  What Chilenos call rich we call poor and what they call poor we call destitute.  I'm greatful for being able to serve here because it's so easy to lose yourself in the efforts to bring them the only thing that can bring them true happiness.  We teach English every week to two different families (both nonmembers, we just started teaching one of them the gospel too!  That was an exciting story that will have to be told another day) and one of the families that we taught this week was expressing such surprise that we would sacrifice two years of our young lives to go so far away from our houses just to teach about our religious.  I bore testimony to her that this isn't just our religion, that this is the most important thing in the entire world and the only way that families can find true happiness in this life.  And because of that, it's far worth any sacrifice.  I think that was a lesson I had to learn here in the mission, because missions aren't easy and it's simply not worth it if you don't realize the importance of what you're doing.  This is truly the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ people can find rest in a world where there is none.  Through Christ we can rise from anything, and be able to face any challenge.  To a people like the people I teach, who work 12 hours a day 7 days a week and struggle with depression, poverty, sickness, and every other kind of trial, this message of finding peace through Jesus Christ is of utmost importance.  It's my testimony that we can find peace through Jesus Christ, that through His love and His grace and His mercy for us those who are weary and are heavy laden can find rest to their souls.  I hope in the future to be able to send you much more stories about investigators, because I've already had so many incredible experiences.  Until then, nos vemos!

Elder Fox

I meant Constitucion

So I'm not sure what I said in my last letter, but whatever I said I totally meant that I was going to COnstitución.  Definitely not going to Concepciòn, that's it's own mission.

Guess who I'm sitting like 5 feet away from as we speak?!?!  Elder freaking Edwards!!!  We came up to Talca for P-day today because our roomate is Argentinian so he needs to go to Santiago to vote, and the Talca zones played soccer against each other this morning so I've gotten to spend the morning with Elder Edwards!  Pretty cool right?  It's kinda weird seeing someone who I knew back home here.

This week!  Goodness I have no idea how to start, the first week is of course so crazy and I just don't have a lot of time so I'll try to cram as much as I possibly can in this letter.

Entonces before I came here I told you all that I would likely be surprised by how little Spanish I understand and I'll likely have a lot of the same difficulties that I had my first week in the CCM, and I was very right.  In fact, those difficulties were amplified, however, the blessings have been compounded.  SO I want to tell all you all about the tender mercies of the week because they are absolutely countless.  I understand less than 5% of the Spanish out here, which is hard, but I'm very greatful for my speaking ability because I've still been able to teach people and build relationships with the investigators and the ward members.  This is a big life adjustment but I'm in a wonderful place with a lot of wonderful people.  Interestingly enough, I'm actually relearning nearly all of the lessons that I learned in the first weeks of the CCM.  For some reason once wasn't enough, I suppose.

Conti!!!  Conti is easily the coolest place that I have ever been in ever.  That's tender mercy number 1.  You all should go look at google images and go explore with google street view or something because Conti is absolutely amazing.  In the main metropolitan area there are hundreds of tiny little Chilean homes that sprawl all over rows of steep hills.  Everywhere there are shortcuts and nooks and crannies and cool places to explore, it's fantastic.  Beyond the metropolitan area there hills that are fuzzy and green and huge and everywhere, and there are very tall skinny trees all over them.  The trees and the hills here are absolutely beautiful.  The buildings, not so much, but there's something really cool about the way they sprawl all over the hills here.  There also a neighborhood of nicer houses and aparment buildings up high on a hill that's called Villa Verde, which we have most of our success because the people who live there are people who's homes were destroyed in the earthquake and resulting tsunami that happened a few years back.  Then there's the beach.  Oh my word.  It is so gorgeous it's hard to believe it actually exists.  I cannot possibly describe it so I'll send pictures, google images doesn't show you the right parts though so that won't help if you wanna know what it's like.  The only thing sad about being in this sector is that I'm going to be really sad to leave it.

Mission life!  It's different our here for sure, but it's not very difficult and I'm getting used to it quickly.  The schedule here is a little different than most missions first off, we wake up at 7 and go to bed at 11 in the winters and we wake up at 7:30 and go to bed at 11:30 in the summers.  We also have 2 hours for lunch and no time at all for dinner.  This is because Chileans usually eat an obsene amount of food (multiple courses and everything) for lunch and they either don't eat dinner at all or they eat something called once (pronounced OHN-say) at 8 or 9 at night which is usually very small.  So every day a member feeds us lunch (and we need 2 hours because they reeeeally like to talk and lunch here takes a while) and then we don't eat again until we get into our apartment at 9:30.  There's also no heat in the apartments here, which is a little bit of an adventure but it really isn't actually that inconvinient once you get used to it.  Also we do a ton of walking here, I'd be surprised if we walked anything less than 8 miles in any given day.  That Villa Verde place I was talking about takes about an hour to walk to from our apartment, and it usually takes us a half an hour to walk to places in our sector that are closer to our apartment.  So a lot of walking, but I haven't been in that much pain yet which is a blessing for sure.

The people!  The people here are inhumanly friendly and receptive.  You probably haven't heard this from a lot of missionaries emails, but tracting here is actually extremely effective.  Here's an average door conversation:

      (we knock and a lady comes to the door)

      Lady:  Hey guys come in come in!! (opens door wider)

      Us:  Heeeey do you have a spouse in there?

      Lady:  Nope.

      Us:  Aaaah sorry we can't come in unless there's another man in the house, it's

             a rule of ours, do you know who we are?

      Lady: Nope.

      Us:  Do you know about the church or have had missionaries pass by before?

      Lady: Nope.

      Us:  (explains who we are and what we`re doing) can we come back Saturday?

      Lady: Yeah totally come back I'll try to have my husband here!

      Us:  Sweet!

SO yeah they're extremely friendly.  We have a lot of investigators right now, the only thing about missions down here in Chile is that it's reeeeally difficult to get your investigators to progress because nearly all if not all of our teaching appointments fall through every day.  So the people are really receptive, the problem is being able to teach any of them often enough to be able to get them to baptism.  The first two days I was here we didn't teach anyone, even though all our plans (both plan a and b) were full of people to visit.  So shoota, but when we do get to teach it's an awesome experience.

Gah I don't have any time!  My roomates are a ton of fun though!!  I love them all so much.  I also have Elder Anuarve (of Argentina) and Elder schley in my aparment.  They're an absolute blast, it's another big blessing that I have the three Elders with me that I do.  Remind me to tell the lazer pointer story until I tell it, because it's hilarious but I don't have time.

Entonces I wanna tell you about all the tender mercies of the week but out of lack of time I can probably only fit it one or two.  So here goes!  It's a mission rule that we can be out until 10:00 if we're teaching a lesson that we consider really important, and last night that was the case.  All four of us (we took the other companionship along so that we could teach her without a spouse being there because he always works) were teaching here about the Book of Mormon and were trying to set a baptismal date with her.  It was an amazing lesson, I followed what was going on alright and I was able to teach and share and bear my testimony multiple times and I got to extend to her the invitation to be baptized.  Sadly there are a lot of complications which I will probably talk about more in future letters so she couldn't commit yet, but it was alright.  When the lesson was finished it was about 9:30 and it takes about an hour to walk from her apartment (in villa verde) to our apartment, and that's at a fast walk.  So shoota.  We decided to wait for a coletivo (taxi) by the top of the hill but after 5 minutes it became aparent that one probably wouldn't pass by.  So we all said a prayer that a coletivo would pass by so that we could get to our apartment by 10:00 and be on time.  From the CCM I gained a testimony of God's willingness to enact miracles for his children if they have faith, so I was confident that a coletivo would come and we'd be on time.  My roomates were getting a little nervous however.  That's when a car came around the corner, stopped right next to us and asked us if we were going down the hill.  It turns out that they were members and they lived in the exact same apartment building as us and they were already heading back to the apartment.  They gave us a ride and we got to our apartment at 9:58.  That was pretty amazing, I thought.  God really does help His children, and I'm sad that I don't get to share more experiences of this week right now because He has given me so many tender mercies this week.  Everything from the view of the beach, to the ability to teach our investigators and less actives well, to tender mercies like the car coming just in time.  Whatever we give to God, He will give us blessings ten fold of what we could ever give Him.  Always.  He loves each of us so much.  With that, I must bid adiu.  The details I haven`t been able to include this week are in my journal so maybe I'll be able to write some next week,

Love,

Elder Fox

Bienvenidos a Rancagua!! (dated 8/11/15)

Hello all!  I have ten minutes to write you guys until my p-day next week, which will be on Monday.  And it'll continue to be on Monday forever more!  Woot!  You won't have to worry about not knowing when I'm going to be writing anymore!  I'm sure you're excited about that

Last week was a lot of fun, lots more practice and Spanish study.  Friday we actually went on splits with missionaries in the Santiago Sur mission and spent the day proselyting, which was awesome.  We taught one less active member in a house that couldn't have been more than 10 or 15 square feet and I got to pick the lesson topic and tell her about it, share a scripture, and bear my testimony at the end and pray.  It was fantastic.

I also gave a 5 minute talk in sacrament meeting Sunday all in Spanish, so next time you're nervous about giving a talk just remember that it's not in Spanish.

Saying goodbye to everybody was hard, being at such a small CCM allows for realy close relationships to form with just about everyone there, so there were lots of hugs and tears.  I love my district a lot, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to get to know all of them, they are all amazing people and missionaries.

I'm in Talca right now!  But I've been assigned to the Constitucion area, I'm just sleeping in Talca tonight because we have a district meeting here in the morning anyway.  I'm so excited I'm probably going to explode, Constitucion is one of two areas in the mission that's on the coast, and it is stunningly gorgeous.  The ward is supposed to be great too, and the area is seeing a lot of success.  The people are really humble.  So I'm extremely excited to be gong there tomorrow morning after district meeting.  My trainer's name is Elder Hadlock, and I can already tell that he is awesome.  We're gunna have a great time these next three months, I'm really excited to be able to serve in this area for my first two transfers.  Hasta la proxima semana!

Elder Fox

Miracles

Hello all!!

This letter is going to be shorter because I finally decided to be less lame and take the time to send you guys some pictures, so sorry the letter is short!

So this is my last P-day at the CCM.  Yes, it feels really weird writing that, and yes it feels like I got here yesterday.  I'll be driving to Rancauga very early in the morning, and depending on when my P-day will be in the field you might not hear from me again for another two weeks.  So don't panic if that's the case, I do hope it's not because that would be a lot to write about first week in the field.

This week was pretty uneventful!  Which is the main reason I decided to take time to finally send you guys some pictures.  But this week was also amazing at the same time, I'll go ahead and launch into some of the stories of this week.

Culture stories!  So here they have this spread type stuff that's called manjar, and they put it on absolutely everything.  They don't have peanut butter or Nutella down here, so they use manjar as a substitute for both of those things.  They put manjar in their ice cream, on their bread, in their pastries, in their brownies, in their cookies, on their faces... everywhere.  They love manjar here, and at first I wasn't extremely impressed but now I absolutely love it.  I don't know why we don't have it in North America it's the best.

Spanish stories!  The Spanish is coming along quickly, but I still know that I'm going to go out in the field and be shocked at how little I understand.  I do talk with Latinos all the time (A bunch of Latinos came this week and 21 of them are going to Rancagua) but they usually slow down for us.  I know I'll learn really quickly out there though so I have faith.

I talked with a Latino the other day who was from Ecuador (Almost all the Latinos that came this week were from Ecuador) and we had a good long conversation in Spanish about Ecuador and I told him a little bit about Dad's mission.  He then asked me if I spoke Spanish, which I thought was an odd question since we were talking in Spanish that whole time, but then he expounded and asked if I was already fluent before I came to the CCM.

Needless to say, I took that as a huge compliment.

I told him I had no Spanish experience at all before the CCM and he said that my Spanish was really good, and I thanked him a ton for the compliment.  That conversation was definitely one of the highlights of my week.

I still cannot roll my r's however, not even a little bit.  If anything is funnier than all of you guys trying to teach my how to roll my r's, it's actual native Latinos trying to teach me how to roll my r's.  They're extremely kind about it though, when I fail they just laugh with me and then sincerely try to help me put my tongue in the right place.  But alas, I still cannot.  Latinos are the kindest people I have ever met in my life, it's a real blessing to have the opportunity to serve among them.

Sunday was so much fun!  For our last two weeks they have us go to all our classes with the Latinos in the Spanish group instead of the North Americans in the English group, and though it took a ton of concentration to follow the lessons and the MTC devotionals that were translated in Spanish the whole day was a lot of fun.  For Priesthood, Presidente Doll had each North American missionary pair up with a Latino companionship for the hour and discuss scripture together, which was a lot of fun.  It definitely gave me a confidence boost in my Spanish.  We also had an FHE activity that night with the Latinos, and it was the funnest thing I've ever done in my life.  Each North American Missionary taught a group of Latinos several phrases in English and then the Latinos would go compete in teams using the English phrases they learned.  Teaching Latinos English is definitely the funnest thing you could ever do.  Ever.  I hope that I get the opportunity to do that in the field sometime.

Real quick, sorry for my grammar and my spelling, the Spanish is actually really messing with it, and it doesn't help that I'm in a hurry.  It'll probably get worse as time goes on, just a warning.

Well it's time to close!  I want you all to know that these past 5 weeks have been indescribably (I know that's not how you spell that) beautiful to me, and though Heritage Tours was primarily responsible for my conversion, no other time in my life has brought me closer to God and has built my faith in Him more than this month.  Everything is like clockwork out here, if you have faith and hope, miracles happen every day.  This month has been a month of miracles.  Some of the things I said in the blessing I gave to Hna. Porter have already started to be realized in miraculous ways.  I want you to know that God will always keep his promises, that what He says through the mouthpiece of His servants are His words.  At first I was shocked that some of the things that I said in that blessing have been realized in such marvelous ways, but then I remember that I was not the one who said those words.  God lives, He is real, and He loves you.  He loves you with love and majesty that none of us can comprehend.  If we have faith, we can perform miracles.  I see miracles every day in this blessed country.  Everything is like clockwork here, when I don't have faith I can't speak Spanish.  At all.  It's a very humbling experience to realize that without the Spirit and without faith I not only can't teach but I can't even communicate.  It's as regular as the Liahona in the book of Nephi, when I don't have faith I simply am nothing.  I know that God blesses those with faith with more ability than they could even possibly hope for.  I love you all, and I love my God, with all my heart.  Hasta el campo, adiós.