....Elder Ketchup

What's up Fam,

First off I appreciate all of your emails. They are so fun to read and I like to hear about what you are all doing. This week was pretty good. Except the hot water broke last Tuesday so I've been taking freezing cold showers every morning.... it sucks. It's honestly the worst. And it probably wont be fixed for a while... so cold showers for days I guess. The water before was actually bettter than I expected. but now its ice. but anyway It got humid yesterday for the first time and confirmed the fact that I hate humidity. So the summer will be a lot of fun. Every Thursday we do like a correlation meeting with the branch presidency and as we were leaving the Branch Presidency assigned me to speak on Sunday. So Friday and Saturday during my personal study time I had to prepare a 10 minute talk on missionary work. I actually wasnt as nervous as I would be for a talk in english cause here everyone knows Im a little newbe American, So there isnt as much pressure as there normally would be. But it was good. I used an Ensign so that helped me. But I definitely feel better this week about everything. I mean I definitley am still overwhelmed at how much I have to learn, but I created a plan and am just going to focus on staying on my plan and staying productive each day. Because I have this mountain I need to climb and I cant be worried about climbing the mountain in one day. So I just have to take each day. I always like P-day cause obviously I get a break from everything but I also get to talk to other missionaries and just talk to other people that are new. And the other missionaries always give me advice and I can see where I will be one day. So its all good.

The food situation is good. I eat every night when I get back to the apartment. I usually make eggs or cereal... and eat chips or something. So im eatting lunch and dinner. Breakfast... I eat a little orange or grab a handle full of dry cereal as im walking out the door so I think thats going well. And Money definitly goes farther here so that $13 charge that you saw last week got me 1.5 liter coke, doritos bag, cereal, and 4 AAA batteries. But
the thing is, is we get about $1800 pesos a month and that is around just over a $100 dollars. So I have to learn to stretch my money to last amonth. I think I will use my debit card once a week at Subway for lunch on P-days. So there is a charge on that for this week. But I dont think there is anything that I want. I will probably know if I want anything much later in the mission. So dont worry about anything that I want right now cause I cant think of anything. But Im sure things will come as I get farther into the mission. The mission offered me sheets the first day but I told them I already had some so I didnt take theirs. And that pillow in the picture is the pillow they gave me. So my pillow I brought is still in the packaging. I probably wont start using it until after my training. But like I said the weather is starting to warm up. The bugs are only bad in the evenings. So we apply bug spray around 5-6ish at night. But there isnt any weird bugs or anything. Any my companions name is Eric Butler. And he is from Brigham City. He was a swimmer in high school. Thats about all I know about him haha. And yeah the town we are in is called Fotana and the area in the mission is called Fontanegro. Overall the language is coming. I can definitley tell a difference from my first couple days here until now. First couple days or just that week everything sounded like giberish. And no I can start to hear words. Not nessicarly understand the words but I can hear people a little better. But I think if I stick to my plan I will be just fine. I am just writting like 15ish word every day in my planner and trying to learn 15 words each day. And then during language study I do activities or read this text book thing that the MTC gave me. So hopefully with that combo I will start progressing and learning. I guess I'll find out.

Any way everything is going well for me. Nothing too crazy or funny this week. This week I am going on a division with the zone leaders so maybe where ever I go they will have warm water. But the guy im splitting with is in his last 2 transfers. He just got his flight plans today to go home. So that will be fun to be with him for a day or two. Oh also a guy in church or in the branch calls me Elder Ketchup.. but overall people here butcher the name the same way people in america would butcher the name. As far as the actual work that Elder Butler and I are doing, its going pretty well. We havent had any investigators come to church yet though. There is a family that will get baptised once they get married. Once they get married they will get baptized. They are really cool. There is another little family which is a husband and wife (i think they are married) and they have a 2ish year old daughter and they own a bakery. And usually after we teach them they give us a little pastery. And Saturday they gave us this pastery thing that was bread with powder sugar on it and in the middle was this stuff called ''Dulce de Leche'' which is pretty much just non-sticky carmel. SO good. But overall its going good. I hope you all are doing good. Keep me updated on all your adventures. I think about you guys all the time. Stay cool.

Love,

Elder Keicher