¡hola familia!
it was so awesome talking to you guys on saturday! after i talked to you my companion was having problems talking to his family so we sprinted downtown to a local locutorio for him to call. it cost him $102 to talk to his family for an hour and a half. it was really late when we left and we didnt feel safe walking so we waited for the bus and didn´t get home until 11:30. that was my christmas present for my comp other than being an awesome missionary. sounds like you had some awesome christmas-es and it is too bad i wasnt there but i was thinking about you guys! dad- i do my laundry in this little cheap washing machine we have at our place. i will take a picture or something... then i just wring out the clothes and hang them up to dry in the bathroom. it is such a pain but i actually did it this morning. transfers are today and i am losing some good friends in my zone... but my companion is now the new district leader and we are getting two new elders in the district. i think they are both gringos getting ready to leave the mission so it should be awesome. it will be good watching my companion in a leadership position too. this computer is VERY slow so i cant see the pictures sent but maybe next week. i have some awesome pictures of me and e´escobar on cerro chenque above comodoro but i dont have my camera right now. we are downtown and this ciber is very expensive. $8 pesos an hour. we have to dress up to meet my old district leader at the bus terminal but i never really liked him. he was always very trucho and i found a lot of sketchy things in his pensión like magazines or coca colas in the fridge and i just dont have that much respect for him. i am excited to see how different things are going to be with our new district. one of my zone leaders is now the president´s assistant and we now have elder taylor to replace him. he is solid and was trained by the elder that i found on the blogs and is a legend here. i just hope to learn more to be a better missionary. i try my best to be a better teacher and i use a lot of parables to explain things. that awesome puzzle for the plan of salvation is being used a lot and i love it. i have the people place all the pieces while we go through each part. i love teaching about the plan of salvation because it is very interesting to hear what they believe is going to happen after this life, where we came from and why we are here. some people tell me that they are just going to rot in the ground and there is no purpose to life and it just makes me sad. the catholics tell me that the whole world is going to burn and everyone is going to die but i dont think that is what the catholics believe, is it? well, i have been here 2 months and i think i only have this next month to become completely independent and i think i can do it. 2011 is going to be a big year for me and i think it will be one of the most exciting and happiest years of my life. i really feel like huge things are going to happen and i just cant wait to get started! this letter is a tad short this week but i just talked to you guys a few days ago. i am looking forward to those packages too! i love you guys and i am so glad i had the chance to talk to you. its too bad i couldnt talk to jacie and annie but next christmas will be awesome if everyone is at home! thank you for all of your support! i cant think of anything better i could be doing right now and i am really enjoying being a missionary. i love you guys!
con mucho ánimo y amor!
Elder Summers.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Monday, December 20, 2010
Day 54
¡Hola Familia!
I am so excited to talk to you guys for Christmas! its going to be
awesome but im still not too sure how everything is going to work out.
i think that i will be able to email you again on friday to tell you
when i call (or when you can call) for Christmas day. right now i am
thinking we will be spending christmas eve on the roof until midnight
to watch all the fireworks and then christmas day with my zone and
this family that wants to make us an asado (the most amazing meat
ever) and i am really excited! this family has some young girls that
the mom is trying to set up with my zone leader but eating that asado
is worth a few hours of strange-ness. i am starting to enjoy futbol a
lot here but nobody lets me play because i am not very good yet. i am
always the goalie because i am the best but i want to get in the
action. thank you for sending me a scarf! im in comodoro right now
and my comp and i were about to go buy one so i will pray that the
package makes it into my hands. still no package yet, but last week i
received a mountain of letters and i was so excited to get them. they
were all dear elder letters from nov 17- dic 3 on diciembre 13. i
loved reading them and i have to say that jamie wrote to me the most
and i wrote her a letter but i don´t want to send it yet because they
are moving soon. jamie, can i just email you next week? i cant
remember your email address. i will take a picture of the awesome
envelope that i made for you but i dont want to send the letter
anymore. my companion told me that i talk a lot in my sleep and he
started to write down the things that i say. i mostly just correct my
grammar in spanish so i think that is pretty awesome. one night i
apparently burst out laughing for a few minutes but i cant remember
why i would. this is my last week of my first transfer!!! i dont know
how long i am going to stay in abásalo but i hope i stay for a few
more transfers. this week we couldnt do a whole lot because we had to
take the bus to the kilometros building a lot to practice for the
stake choir concert. we performed last night and i played 7 songs on
the piano with the choir for about 200 people. it was awesome because
there were people with saxophones, trumpets, and drums accompanying
us. i was kind of a big deal. but we did find some more awesome
families this week. this week we found 11 new investigators. a lot
of the people we found are menos activos but their families are not
members and they let us talk to them. since you asked for it, here is
a list of people we are teaching that need your prayers: natalia,
silvia, mirta, oracio y silvia, jaime y jazmina, zulema, hna vargas,
flia levicoi, juan v, nena, alberto, flia ruiz, flia castro, javier y
su familia, y flia menendez. the first few women listed are about
35-40 with a lot of younger children. there are not very many people
that believe in marriage so they just do whatever here. the rest of
the people we are teaching are menos activo families that we are
trying so hard to reactivate and we visit them all at least once a
week. we are waiting for the miracles to happen in our ward. there
are a few families that wont come to church because there are drunks
or drug addicts that smoke right outside of their homes and they are
too scared to leave with their young families. we dont blame them and
we are trying hard to help them get to church safely every week
because we know the importance of attending and taking the santa cena
cada domingo. there were a few people that we had to stop teaching
last week because they had lots of problems and they dont want to
progress. we found out this week that some women we were teaching
were actually prostitutes and they dont want to change their lifestyle
because they dont think they can support their children in the
dominican republic without the money theyre making. i was not
expecting anything like that because they were so normal and did not
look like they would ever do anything like that. but apparently,
their business here is too good to give up... other than that,
everything here is going great. no mud this week. it is very cold in
the mornings and then in the afternoon the sun is very hot but all the
cold wind makes for a nice balance. e´ escobar and i are finally
going to climb cerro chenque today. the other elders in my zone are
bums and they dont want to make the effort today but we know it will
be awesome. on top of the hill, i am going to take some pictures to
show you guys where i have been serving. it is really windy today so
hopefully you will be able to see all the sand blowing across the
land. i dont know why there is so much sand everywhere. the beaches
dont have sand but they have big ol´ rocks. fun. i found out the
lobos marinos are pretty close so my comp and i will have to get some
pictures with those too. someday... well, i am so excited to talk to
you guys and i will work on figuring out how to talk to you. i may be
able to use skype... but i dont know. i love you all! ¡Feliz Navidad!
Con mucho amor y ánimo,
Elder Summers
I am so excited to talk to you guys for Christmas! its going to be
awesome but im still not too sure how everything is going to work out.
i think that i will be able to email you again on friday to tell you
when i call (or when you can call) for Christmas day. right now i am
thinking we will be spending christmas eve on the roof until midnight
to watch all the fireworks and then christmas day with my zone and
this family that wants to make us an asado (the most amazing meat
ever) and i am really excited! this family has some young girls that
the mom is trying to set up with my zone leader but eating that asado
is worth a few hours of strange-ness. i am starting to enjoy futbol a
lot here but nobody lets me play because i am not very good yet. i am
always the goalie because i am the best but i want to get in the
action. thank you for sending me a scarf! im in comodoro right now
and my comp and i were about to go buy one so i will pray that the
package makes it into my hands. still no package yet, but last week i
received a mountain of letters and i was so excited to get them. they
were all dear elder letters from nov 17- dic 3 on diciembre 13. i
loved reading them and i have to say that jamie wrote to me the most
and i wrote her a letter but i don´t want to send it yet because they
are moving soon. jamie, can i just email you next week? i cant
remember your email address. i will take a picture of the awesome
envelope that i made for you but i dont want to send the letter
anymore. my companion told me that i talk a lot in my sleep and he
started to write down the things that i say. i mostly just correct my
grammar in spanish so i think that is pretty awesome. one night i
apparently burst out laughing for a few minutes but i cant remember
why i would. this is my last week of my first transfer!!! i dont know
how long i am going to stay in abásalo but i hope i stay for a few
more transfers. this week we couldnt do a whole lot because we had to
take the bus to the kilometros building a lot to practice for the
stake choir concert. we performed last night and i played 7 songs on
the piano with the choir for about 200 people. it was awesome because
there were people with saxophones, trumpets, and drums accompanying
us. i was kind of a big deal. but we did find some more awesome
families this week. this week we found 11 new investigators. a lot
of the people we found are menos activos but their families are not
members and they let us talk to them. since you asked for it, here is
a list of people we are teaching that need your prayers: natalia,
silvia, mirta, oracio y silvia, jaime y jazmina, zulema, hna vargas,
flia levicoi, juan v, nena, alberto, flia ruiz, flia castro, javier y
su familia, y flia menendez. the first few women listed are about
35-40 with a lot of younger children. there are not very many people
that believe in marriage so they just do whatever here. the rest of
the people we are teaching are menos activo families that we are
trying so hard to reactivate and we visit them all at least once a
week. we are waiting for the miracles to happen in our ward. there
are a few families that wont come to church because there are drunks
or drug addicts that smoke right outside of their homes and they are
too scared to leave with their young families. we dont blame them and
we are trying hard to help them get to church safely every week
because we know the importance of attending and taking the santa cena
cada domingo. there were a few people that we had to stop teaching
last week because they had lots of problems and they dont want to
progress. we found out this week that some women we were teaching
were actually prostitutes and they dont want to change their lifestyle
because they dont think they can support their children in the
dominican republic without the money theyre making. i was not
expecting anything like that because they were so normal and did not
look like they would ever do anything like that. but apparently,
their business here is too good to give up... other than that,
everything here is going great. no mud this week. it is very cold in
the mornings and then in the afternoon the sun is very hot but all the
cold wind makes for a nice balance. e´ escobar and i are finally
going to climb cerro chenque today. the other elders in my zone are
bums and they dont want to make the effort today but we know it will
be awesome. on top of the hill, i am going to take some pictures to
show you guys where i have been serving. it is really windy today so
hopefully you will be able to see all the sand blowing across the
land. i dont know why there is so much sand everywhere. the beaches
dont have sand but they have big ol´ rocks. fun. i found out the
lobos marinos are pretty close so my comp and i will have to get some
pictures with those too. someday... well, i am so excited to talk to
you guys and i will work on figuring out how to talk to you. i may be
able to use skype... but i dont know. i love you all! ¡Feliz Navidad!
Con mucho amor y ánimo,
Elder Summers
Monday, December 13, 2010
Day 47
¡Hola Familia!
the christmas season is coming and i miss hearing the awesome north american christmas songs on the radio... the people here do have christmas trees but they are all about 2 feet tall. that is just about all of the decorations they have for christmas but it works. my zone leader called me and told me i had a ton of letters this week including some hand-written so i am super excited to see my pile of love and see who loves me the most! i learned a new word this week: barro. it means mud and we had a whole bunch of it this week because it rained a lot. the weather here was pretty strange this week because it is a cycle of rain and sunshine all day. i love the rain here and i think it is way better than the wind. the other day was the worst day of wind i have ever experienced because there is a lot of dirt and sand blowing really hard and it cut my face pretty bad. my nose was bleeding because a piece of sand hit it so hard! my comp took a picture of me after one of the windy days and my hair is caked with sand, im wearing my awesome goggles and my tie knot is really twisted. im surprised i can keep it around my neck! i really want to buy a scarf to protect my neck from the sand and the cold wind so i will probably get one next week.
I loved getting pictures of my nephews today. caden and kingston look a lot older! please send more pictures because the people here love looking at them. it sounds like mollie had a great performance and i hope the weather is nice enough for you guys to travel to doug´s graduation. Congratulations Doug! we decided that hna vargas is crazy but we are going to keep visiting her. she has old books of mormon that other missionaries gave to her and there are notes inside saying to read different passages but she told us she cant read and she doesnt want to learn about those things. it is so frustrating when people choose not to be baptized even though they tell us that they can feel these things are true. there is one mother that we are teaching in a less active family that tells us she believes in the gospel but she ´`knows she wont be saved´´ because she does not want to stop smoking. people have their agency but i hate when they decide not to do the right things. we are teaching many different families but the hard part is being able to find them again. we taught so many people about 2 or 3 times but then they just disappear and we can´t find them anymore. i really want to climb cerro chenque and take some pictures of comodoro so you can see where i have been but i dont want to take chances with getting my camera stolen... my comp and i end up walking a lot because our ward boundary isn´t really defined and i was thinking the other day that having a pedometer would be awesome. i have gained a lot more confidence walking down the streets here in abásalo and i am no longer afraid of the drunks and junkies that watch us closely. i have seen a lot of really cool things here and my testimony of priesthood power has really strengthened. i have been really good with writing in my journal every night and i swear i could write a book while i am here. e´escobar and i have had some really cool experiences and we know for sure that we are being protected and led to the people that really are going to progress.
i finished the book of mormon in spanish for the first time and i started over again. i love reading it in spanish because there are a lot of little things that i haven´t noticed before that are so cool. i have a testimony of the book of mormon and i am very excited to share it with everyone i meet here. some elders in my old district emailed me from the mtc and they are so jealous that i am out here already and they still have 3 more weeks. i have almost completed my first transfer of 6 weeks on my mission! that is so awesome! time is going by surprisingly fast and i have to enjoy every moment i have here. some days i look at my watch while we are out clapping doors and time goes by so slow and we have the opportunity to talk to so many people. some of the excuses people come up with to keep us out are pretty interesting but most people tell us they are just busy or they are already catholic or evangelist and they have ´´heard enough´´ about the mormons. one guy told me he would make his dogs attack me because i wasn´t catholic. another said he would let us inside to explain more but his dogs would eat my face so i should stay away. i love dogs now...
it just makes me appreciate the people that let us inside even more! i am grateful for my companion because he wants to work just as hard as i do and we get a lot accomplished. we spend a lot of time visiting the less active members and i love seeing families progress. when we asked hno ruiz about how his ´´reading assignment´´ of the book of mormon was, he just lit up and ran into the other room to tell us all the things he read and how much he loved reading. more people are coming to church and i love looking out and seeing the people we have helped come to church again. the elders in my district are going to act and sing together friday night for a christmas party in our wards and it has been pretty fun practicing for it. i am playing ´´army of helaman´´ and another christmas hymn on the piano while the elders sing and we sound great. i am getting pretty good at improvising on the piano and people like to sit down and listen to me play after some ward activity. i love the piano!! thank you for sending some sheet music! i know that i am going to enjoy playing it.
now that the christmas season is upon us, we can direct our messages towards the savior because pretty much everyone here believes in him. i believe the greatest gift we can give for christmas is the gospel and i would like to ask you guys to focus on helping your friends find it. i know it can be scary but following the promptings of the spirit really does a lot and you will feel so much better if you do. Family, i love being a missionary. i am so grateful for all of your support and i love you all very much.
¡¡¡Con mucho amor y una sonrisa grande!!!
Elder Summers
the christmas season is coming and i miss hearing the awesome north american christmas songs on the radio... the people here do have christmas trees but they are all about 2 feet tall. that is just about all of the decorations they have for christmas but it works. my zone leader called me and told me i had a ton of letters this week including some hand-written so i am super excited to see my pile of love and see who loves me the most! i learned a new word this week: barro. it means mud and we had a whole bunch of it this week because it rained a lot. the weather here was pretty strange this week because it is a cycle of rain and sunshine all day. i love the rain here and i think it is way better than the wind. the other day was the worst day of wind i have ever experienced because there is a lot of dirt and sand blowing really hard and it cut my face pretty bad. my nose was bleeding because a piece of sand hit it so hard! my comp took a picture of me after one of the windy days and my hair is caked with sand, im wearing my awesome goggles and my tie knot is really twisted. im surprised i can keep it around my neck! i really want to buy a scarf to protect my neck from the sand and the cold wind so i will probably get one next week.
I loved getting pictures of my nephews today. caden and kingston look a lot older! please send more pictures because the people here love looking at them. it sounds like mollie had a great performance and i hope the weather is nice enough for you guys to travel to doug´s graduation. Congratulations Doug! we decided that hna vargas is crazy but we are going to keep visiting her. she has old books of mormon that other missionaries gave to her and there are notes inside saying to read different passages but she told us she cant read and she doesnt want to learn about those things. it is so frustrating when people choose not to be baptized even though they tell us that they can feel these things are true. there is one mother that we are teaching in a less active family that tells us she believes in the gospel but she ´`knows she wont be saved´´ because she does not want to stop smoking. people have their agency but i hate when they decide not to do the right things. we are teaching many different families but the hard part is being able to find them again. we taught so many people about 2 or 3 times but then they just disappear and we can´t find them anymore. i really want to climb cerro chenque and take some pictures of comodoro so you can see where i have been but i dont want to take chances with getting my camera stolen... my comp and i end up walking a lot because our ward boundary isn´t really defined and i was thinking the other day that having a pedometer would be awesome. i have gained a lot more confidence walking down the streets here in abásalo and i am no longer afraid of the drunks and junkies that watch us closely. i have seen a lot of really cool things here and my testimony of priesthood power has really strengthened. i have been really good with writing in my journal every night and i swear i could write a book while i am here. e´escobar and i have had some really cool experiences and we know for sure that we are being protected and led to the people that really are going to progress.
i finished the book of mormon in spanish for the first time and i started over again. i love reading it in spanish because there are a lot of little things that i haven´t noticed before that are so cool. i have a testimony of the book of mormon and i am very excited to share it with everyone i meet here. some elders in my old district emailed me from the mtc and they are so jealous that i am out here already and they still have 3 more weeks. i have almost completed my first transfer of 6 weeks on my mission! that is so awesome! time is going by surprisingly fast and i have to enjoy every moment i have here. some days i look at my watch while we are out clapping doors and time goes by so slow and we have the opportunity to talk to so many people. some of the excuses people come up with to keep us out are pretty interesting but most people tell us they are just busy or they are already catholic or evangelist and they have ´´heard enough´´ about the mormons. one guy told me he would make his dogs attack me because i wasn´t catholic. another said he would let us inside to explain more but his dogs would eat my face so i should stay away. i love dogs now...
it just makes me appreciate the people that let us inside even more! i am grateful for my companion because he wants to work just as hard as i do and we get a lot accomplished. we spend a lot of time visiting the less active members and i love seeing families progress. when we asked hno ruiz about how his ´´reading assignment´´ of the book of mormon was, he just lit up and ran into the other room to tell us all the things he read and how much he loved reading. more people are coming to church and i love looking out and seeing the people we have helped come to church again. the elders in my district are going to act and sing together friday night for a christmas party in our wards and it has been pretty fun practicing for it. i am playing ´´army of helaman´´ and another christmas hymn on the piano while the elders sing and we sound great. i am getting pretty good at improvising on the piano and people like to sit down and listen to me play after some ward activity. i love the piano!! thank you for sending some sheet music! i know that i am going to enjoy playing it.
now that the christmas season is upon us, we can direct our messages towards the savior because pretty much everyone here believes in him. i believe the greatest gift we can give for christmas is the gospel and i would like to ask you guys to focus on helping your friends find it. i know it can be scary but following the promptings of the spirit really does a lot and you will feel so much better if you do. Family, i love being a missionary. i am so grateful for all of your support and i love you all very much.
¡¡¡Con mucho amor y una sonrisa grande!!!
Elder Summers
Monday, December 6, 2010
Day 40
¡Hola Familia!
im sorry that i wasnt there to help put up the christmas stuff but it sounds like everything went ok. it is really hot here but the wind can really pick up and cool everything down really fast. my comp said that during winter, the wind here is so cold that it would cut his face really bad with all the wind so i hope i don´t stay here until christmas... i have learned to appreciate the wind because there aren´t any drunks on the street when it gets bad outside. more people are congregating in the streets with a bunch of liquor and it gets really scary sometimes because they call out to us and they whistle a lot to get our attention. we have learned it is best to keep our heads down and just keep walking when they have alcohol because they most likely want to ask us for 10 pesos or to empty our pockets on the spot. my heart jumps everytime they call out to us and my comp warns me whenever he sees a group of guys walk out onto the same street. i always thought my mission would be a breeze just walking up and down streets knocking doors. i never imagined that i would be dodging streets and using code words with my comp to run from dangerous people.i just keep thinking of DyC 122:9 that says that my days are set and these guys can´t hurt me because i am protected by God. i know he is with us even thought things get pretty bad.
i wasnt robbed this week! yay!!! other than that, we have a lot of families that we are teaching and we are really trying to help them. most of them are progressing and i really do believe we can have some baptisms by christmas because i really want a `white christmas´!!! we understand the importance of baptism and we are inviting everyone to be baptized. i love the feeling i get after i challenge someone for baptism because there is a huge ´relief´ like i have done everything i needed to do. things are going very well with our invesgators. we are teaching 6 families that are so close and we are doing all we can to help them find the faith that they need. e` escobar tells me that i remind of robin williams because i am always smiling like him. i tell him that he must have one good looking smile then... my legs are really toned because we are always walking ´´with purpose´´ past dangerous people. i want to take a picture and send it to you guys because i am not lying. my face was pretty burned at first but it is turning into a nice tan and the people think i am from chile!!! i really believe that i can blend in with these people and i just have to practice my accent. here, they don´t say the ´s´s at the end of words and some of the ´s´s are pronounced like ´j´s. kind of strange but recognizing that has helped me understand a lot more and i feel a lot more comfortable talking with people. my ward mission leader kind of looks like the guy from ´no country for old men´ but is skinnier and has shorter hair. i need to get a picture with him because he is really cool. when we go on divisions with the ward members, i actually lead the discussions! sure, my castellano is a little weak but they can understand me and i can generally understand them and i am so glad that i am here instead of being in the mtc! the missionaries in my first district still have 3 more weeks in the ccm before they enter the mission field and i am grateful that i was able to use this time to my advantage to learn so much more than the others. i feel so lucky but then i remember that the lord has been preparing me so i could do this.
could you send me more pictures of the family? the people here LOVE to look at pictures and i feel dumb only having a few pictures of my family. i want to show off how amazing you all are so you should send me some good stuff! i didn´t get any dearelder letters on jueves because we had a zone conference with pte peterson. it was really cool meeting with him and we practiced teaching about the importance of the sabbath day and how to talk about the law of chastity here because nobody here gets married. i am the only elder in the zone that can read piano music and play the hymns. elder cortes can play songs by listening to them and i really wish i could do that but it takes him awhile to figure it out. elder cortes is chileno and i am trying to pick up an accent from him so people actually could believe i am not a ´´yankee´´ and i am getting better.
every monday is my p-day so we come down to this place where there are a bunch of computers and i pay like 3 pesos to use one for an hour. i look forward to this ´´sacred day´´ when i can just relax for a few hours with the other elders before i unleash again in comodoro. i am really working hard here and i think my clap has been perfected because everyone can hear me on the street. now i know why i have such large palms! the water is ok here but we have to buy all of it. nobody drinks a lot of water but they have a lot of juice. i love jugo de pomelo the most and i buy more when i can. i think that means grapefruit but i´m not too sure. yesterday for fast sunday we walked the farthest i have ever been in the mission boundaries to eat some little tortilla things with a member but then we found out we were supposed to eat with an hermana that lived really close to us and she made us an asado, an amazing potato salad and lots of chorizo (sausage), and pizza! i felt so bad that we didn´t eat with her but she still brought us all the leftovers and there were a lot... i eat so much here but the other elders are telling me that i look like i lost a lot of weight in the last week. i discovered white chocolate alfajor cookies and i eat one every morning with my pomelo juice for breakfast. im feelin´ good, i love the weather here, i love the families we are teaching, i love the huge support we get from the ward, i love the music here because they blare a lot of 80´s music in the streets with lots of Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi songs. if i was not a missionary, i would be dancing up and down these streets but we end up humming lots of church songs to keep the spirit and to discern where we should be going all day. i love my companion and the lessons we teach are becoming a lot more balanced because i can contribute a lot more. thank you for paying my tithing for me, i was actually going to ask about that today! i am glad that shane´s birthday went well. i am glad that you are writing me more dear elder letters but i should receive some today when i meet my zone leader. elder nuñez is awesome. thank you for all of your love and support!
con mucho ánimo y amor,
Elder Summers
im sorry that i wasnt there to help put up the christmas stuff but it sounds like everything went ok. it is really hot here but the wind can really pick up and cool everything down really fast. my comp said that during winter, the wind here is so cold that it would cut his face really bad with all the wind so i hope i don´t stay here until christmas... i have learned to appreciate the wind because there aren´t any drunks on the street when it gets bad outside. more people are congregating in the streets with a bunch of liquor and it gets really scary sometimes because they call out to us and they whistle a lot to get our attention. we have learned it is best to keep our heads down and just keep walking when they have alcohol because they most likely want to ask us for 10 pesos or to empty our pockets on the spot. my heart jumps everytime they call out to us and my comp warns me whenever he sees a group of guys walk out onto the same street. i always thought my mission would be a breeze just walking up and down streets knocking doors. i never imagined that i would be dodging streets and using code words with my comp to run from dangerous people.i just keep thinking of DyC 122:9 that says that my days are set and these guys can´t hurt me because i am protected by God. i know he is with us even thought things get pretty bad.
i wasnt robbed this week! yay!!! other than that, we have a lot of families that we are teaching and we are really trying to help them. most of them are progressing and i really do believe we can have some baptisms by christmas because i really want a `white christmas´!!! we understand the importance of baptism and we are inviting everyone to be baptized. i love the feeling i get after i challenge someone for baptism because there is a huge ´relief´ like i have done everything i needed to do. things are going very well with our invesgators. we are teaching 6 families that are so close and we are doing all we can to help them find the faith that they need. e` escobar tells me that i remind of robin williams because i am always smiling like him. i tell him that he must have one good looking smile then... my legs are really toned because we are always walking ´´with purpose´´ past dangerous people. i want to take a picture and send it to you guys because i am not lying. my face was pretty burned at first but it is turning into a nice tan and the people think i am from chile!!! i really believe that i can blend in with these people and i just have to practice my accent. here, they don´t say the ´s´s at the end of words and some of the ´s´s are pronounced like ´j´s. kind of strange but recognizing that has helped me understand a lot more and i feel a lot more comfortable talking with people. my ward mission leader kind of looks like the guy from ´no country for old men´ but is skinnier and has shorter hair. i need to get a picture with him because he is really cool. when we go on divisions with the ward members, i actually lead the discussions! sure, my castellano is a little weak but they can understand me and i can generally understand them and i am so glad that i am here instead of being in the mtc! the missionaries in my first district still have 3 more weeks in the ccm before they enter the mission field and i am grateful that i was able to use this time to my advantage to learn so much more than the others. i feel so lucky but then i remember that the lord has been preparing me so i could do this.
could you send me more pictures of the family? the people here LOVE to look at pictures and i feel dumb only having a few pictures of my family. i want to show off how amazing you all are so you should send me some good stuff! i didn´t get any dearelder letters on jueves because we had a zone conference with pte peterson. it was really cool meeting with him and we practiced teaching about the importance of the sabbath day and how to talk about the law of chastity here because nobody here gets married. i am the only elder in the zone that can read piano music and play the hymns. elder cortes can play songs by listening to them and i really wish i could do that but it takes him awhile to figure it out. elder cortes is chileno and i am trying to pick up an accent from him so people actually could believe i am not a ´´yankee´´ and i am getting better.
every monday is my p-day so we come down to this place where there are a bunch of computers and i pay like 3 pesos to use one for an hour. i look forward to this ´´sacred day´´ when i can just relax for a few hours with the other elders before i unleash again in comodoro. i am really working hard here and i think my clap has been perfected because everyone can hear me on the street. now i know why i have such large palms! the water is ok here but we have to buy all of it. nobody drinks a lot of water but they have a lot of juice. i love jugo de pomelo the most and i buy more when i can. i think that means grapefruit but i´m not too sure. yesterday for fast sunday we walked the farthest i have ever been in the mission boundaries to eat some little tortilla things with a member but then we found out we were supposed to eat with an hermana that lived really close to us and she made us an asado, an amazing potato salad and lots of chorizo (sausage), and pizza! i felt so bad that we didn´t eat with her but she still brought us all the leftovers and there were a lot... i eat so much here but the other elders are telling me that i look like i lost a lot of weight in the last week. i discovered white chocolate alfajor cookies and i eat one every morning with my pomelo juice for breakfast. im feelin´ good, i love the weather here, i love the families we are teaching, i love the huge support we get from the ward, i love the music here because they blare a lot of 80´s music in the streets with lots of Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi songs. if i was not a missionary, i would be dancing up and down these streets but we end up humming lots of church songs to keep the spirit and to discern where we should be going all day. i love my companion and the lessons we teach are becoming a lot more balanced because i can contribute a lot more. thank you for paying my tithing for me, i was actually going to ask about that today! i am glad that shane´s birthday went well. i am glad that you are writing me more dear elder letters but i should receive some today when i meet my zone leader. elder nuñez is awesome. thank you for all of your love and support!
con mucho ánimo y amor,
Elder Summers
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