I am glad all is well! I´m sorry your weather is about to get worse, ours doesn´t change! It is ALWAYS hot, and we always sweat like crazy and my clothes are going to look super ugly I think in about two more months of this heat. Supposedly it is cooler in December....
I will be sending pictures next week since I know now there are SD ports on the computers. I have some really neat pictures of some old ruins here that we were able to see on Pday. Supposedly they were from the time before Christopher Columubs, but I don´t really know. Anyway they were super nice brick buildings which you will get to see next week! We also played this game called bitilla.It is baseball with these weird cap kind of things and a broomstick. It is sort of fun, as far as baseball goes. I think maybe it is a little bit more fun than baseball. I kind of stink at it haha. Eventually I hit the cap a couple of times, and they ended up being really good hits. I´m definitely not a baseball kind of person though.
So we had a conference with Elder Civic, one of the area presidency, last week and it was super neat! Our zone has kind of fallen out with baptisms... so I guess we need to work harder or something. Still trying to get one for Elder Peterson it is super sad he still hasn´t had one! We set some dates for baptism and are really working towards it with great fervor and we are trying to get everyone closer to a goal. Of course they need to come to church. 3 investigators came last time, which isn´t awful. We really want certain families to progress since they are super smart and receptive and great but... well everyone here has problems with attending the church for some reason.
One particular family, the mom´s name is Yaijara and the son we teach the most is Yonlaiki, we are really trying to work with since they are super smart and learn quickly and thoroughly everything! They basically teach us out of the folletos um pamphlets we give them and are very very receptive to hear about everything. Yonlaiki is 18 and can repeat anything we ever teach him exactly. Yaijara as well, and there is a certain sparkle in their eyes that we only have seen in a few people. Some sort of spirit is with them, and if they would just come to church they could progress so much better. It will be tough, since they work and the mom works in a hair salon, but I have really started to learn, especially being a missionary, that the gospel requires sacrifice. That sacrifice is a law that we have to follow, and if we are not willing to change from the natural man and follow Christ through our will, the spirit and prayer, we can´t expect anything different. I know that for these people keeping the Sabbath Holy will be super tough. But I really want someone to change. To see that if they change they could have so much and prove to themselves that they are above their natural state. Everyone here wants to talk about God and Christ and profess to follow him. We have had some lessons where the person recites thousands of scriptures to us and gives albeit strange opinions and insights, they sure have a lot to say. Dominicans have a gift for talking. They can talk and talk and talk and talk until wow two hours have passed and nothing was accomplished. But they have a passion for Christ and the gospel. But no passion for change. Everyone is very tranquil and relaxed. Humble in a way, but still very proud. Proud to profess they follow Christ, but unwilling to do anything about it. Very strange. I have yet to grasp the way of thinking here. The sort of do what you want. Nothing is serious. All churches are good and equal. Yeah, the tranquility. And the noise and poverty. I really like it here though. People always invite us in their house. They ALWAYS want to talk.
Anyway it is super cool. I sweat buckets everyday and my feet are adapting to the walking. Um, people still do weird stuff here. Like run around without clothes. Or answer the door without clothes. Food is pretty cheap, especially fruit. It is like 5 pesos for everything. For some reason we always run into the Haitian people who don´t speak English here. We can´t teach them, but I guess I invite them to the church in some sort of weird French I try to speak. L´Eglise du Jesus-Christ. Haha. We have lots of fun. Our foursome in the apartment is super funny. In spanish it is considered funny and cool to call people charlatan. It´s like a way of saying funny dude. And we use it to describe the spanish elders in our apartment. Wow. One night someone had a fiesta outside our house and gave us all headaches since they played music until like 4. Loud, crashing music that according to the Elders and my limited spanish was worse than most rap music and would have made their mothers cry.
What else... um... Elder Peterson lived a super cool life before. Skiing in Arizona and such. Our investigators are really neat too. In a different sort of way. Not many people here live lives of adventure or anything. A lot of people kind of just sit around in fact. And drink. We had a cool experience though with one recent convert who went inactive because of alcohol. We really wanted him to come back, and one day he did. We are trying now to keep him here. Elder Peterson and I both shared stories of talking with the Bishop and reading the scriptures and always doing things like that to cast the sin out of our minds and I think it got to him. I hope so a lot.
Life is good. Our house still rocks. Stuff still doesn´t work like the toilet and the oven and the sink leaks and the washer is kind of strange. But the shower is to die for!
I am starting to get to know everyone around here more and talk with them more as their friend now. We often visit a super funny family of youth who love hearing about my life as a half-chinese canadian. Everyone in the streets always calls out CHINO whenever they see me. Especially the ninos. It´s almost anoyinng, but not yet. Right now it is still funny.
I hope everything is still super well with you guys and all. Missionary work is really interesting, and I hope the people who we promised to work with if they will work with us will come closer to God and enter the church. I hope your missionary work goes just as well or even better than ours.
We tried to teach this one guy in English this one time, and I´m understanding now why my mission call says Spanish and not English. It was so difficult! Especially praying! Wow! I hope I get more native sometime here. If you want to send me something to ponder for a while, you can Dear Elder it. It takes a few days to get here, but its free and I can read it anytime. I don´t know if sending pictures in an email is very useful, since printing costs money.... but ah well. Se quiero! Estoy en la lucha tampoco! And good luck with all your callings and such! Keep it up!
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