The Letter of Not Much

Hola amigos!  How goes it?

SO wanted to clear up confusion that it was definitely not food poising.  I didn't so much as drink the water that was in the fridge as soon as it broke because the fridge juice stuff got everywhere and contaminated everything immediately, so I didn't eat anything from the fridge.  And it's kind of funny that you guys think that we can afford meat ;)  Hahaha jokes.  But really we can't afford meat nor do we have time to cook any meat.  Remember that we don't eat dinner here.  I'm pretty sure that I had a virus, and it's still around a little bit but it's been on it's way out ever since Monday so I've still been able to work igual and I've been having a great time.  Now I'm eating and drinking whatever I want and sleeping completely fine so though I'm still sick I'm doing just fine.

So this week was a little slow.  This entire change has been a little rough, to be honest, just in the wise that we're having a really hard time having any success.  We're losing a lot of investigators and we're having a hard time finding good people or getting people to progress.  There is something very positive in the mission about not having success though, is that you find your weaknesses and flaws much more readily.  It's something that humbles you a lot and allows you to improve a lot as a missionary if you do the right studying and take it with an attitude of faith.  It's hard not having any success, especially when you see other missionaries have a lot of success and you wonder if you're not following the Spirit right.  But I think I learned that when times with little success come you have to recognize that it's not your fault, and that if you continue forward in faith you will do the will of the Lord, and that's all that He asks of us.

So with that said, I don't have much to write about in this letter.  SO I'm going to do something that should have been done a very long time ago and talk about my companion Elder Hadlock because he is fantastic.  Other than my close friends and family back home (basically the people that these letters go to) I've never had a better friend in my life than Elder Hadlock.  We're really good friends and we have a lot of fun together.  We're very different from each other, but the cool thing about the mission is that differences don't really matter out here in the field.  We both have a similar sense of humor and we have a lot of fun just talking for hours.  We've been together for over 10 weeks now but we still haven't run out of things to talk about.  Him being here has really helped me get into the swing of the mission and has really helped me in the hard times, and has just made life fun in the good times.  I'm very greatful for him, and recognize that I probably won't have a companion this close for the rest of my mission, but that's okay because it's been an awesome two changes.

So stories!  First is that our zone leaders got an emergency change out into being district leaders somewhere else which was a huge surprise to all of us.  The whole zone agrees that these leaders where the best zone leaders they've had their whole mission, and it was a big surprise to see them go so quickly in the middle of the change.  They got replaced with new zone leaders that we're having some problems with, but I don't think I'm at liberty to talk about them.  So that was another hard thing this week, but I'm sure that'll all turn out okay in the end.

So they have this holiday here kind of like teacher appreciation day but they call it ''The day of teachers'' essentially.  The amazing family that we teach English too all got us huge chocolate bars for this Day of Teachers even though we're not really official ''teachers'' but I thought it was really cool of them.  That really brightened my week.  Also, out of the blue a random man gave us free churascas as we were walking down the street on the way to a house, and churascas are my favorite street food here!  So that made me happy, and evidenced to me too that even when you have bad stretches in your mission, God goes out of His way to make your day to give you just enough encouragement to continue moving forward.  The tender mercies were small, but I really appreciated them.

I (apparently around the same time as Mom) finished Jesus the Christ this week, and I agree with her in saying that it's easily one of the most beautiful books every written.  There were some parts of it that lead me to have very emotional and powerful spiritual experiences, especially in reading about the last week of the Savior's life.  Things that I've never really considered before suddenly became very spiritually and emotionally potent for me, especially the Last Supper.  I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it.  There's a lot to be gained from a better understanding of the Savior's life and mission.

So that's all I have this week, I love you all!  I hope you all have a good week.  The church is true!  Chao!

Love,

Elder Fox