March 26, 2012

hey mom!

so this keyboard is really messed up, so i´m gonna apologize now for any mistakes that may come up haha. with the pictures, i couldn´t tell you why you don´t see them right away. maybe it does just take longer to actually get through, but it doesn´t take me too long to put them on. i actually haven´t seen anything from gentry down here, i actually just got my first letter from someone this last tuesday, from sam, i know that´s pathetic, i´m a loser, 2 months and only one letter haha, but just to check, has karissa by chance put my address on facebook?

the weather hasn´t really changed much. i think i heard that like october through february are dry months, and the rest are all wet. i also heard that march is supposed to be the hottest of the year, but at least where i´m at it hasn´t been horrible. it´s hot for sure, but not too much worst than it has been. we did actually get our first real rain storm the other day though. it´s really weird, sometimes it would rain so lightly that you could barely tell it was raining, and then just like that it can change into a downpour. so it rained basically the whole day, so it was just gloomy. everything´s gray and wet so it´s not too much fun, but oh well.

i´m actually really pumped for conference though. so we do get to watch all the sessions, but i think they´re all an hour behind. they translate everything to spanish, but there´ll be a little room upstairs for all 4 of us english elders. they actually encourage the latinos to learn english, cause the words will mean a lot more in their original language or whatever, but i think most latinos hate anything english. it´s actually really annoying. there´s a lot of elders, at least more than you´d think, that like to pick on the new guys, like me, that don´t quite speak spanish yet. i am starting to understand just a tiny bit more, so it´s really dumb. and they really hate it when anyone speaks english, probably just cause then they´re not in control anymore, so i just can´t wait for the day when i can speak it like them. me and my comp never talk, so last night i had a fairly smooth flowing conversation with someone, and it was pretty exciting. i really don´t care too much when i mess up. i know it´s not my words that will convert people, the Spirit does, so i just talk. of course my comp never lets me say anything, so i kinda have to fight him for a chance, but i do try. and i do feel like it´s improved a bit. not quite as slow as i used to be, so it´s good.

me and my comp still haven´t changed much. he still thinks all of my ideas are stupid, and that he knows everything, when in reality i know there are things i know that he doesn´t. like on saturday, we were just contacting, and i was getting super frustrated. he doesn´t let me talk, he always finishes the lessons without giving me a chance to bear my testimony or something like that, and that went on for like 3 or 4 lessons, so one lesson i just didn´t take it anymore. now i didn´t freak out or anything, but he was trying to wrap up, but i just didn´t let him. it was our last contact for the night, but for some reason i just wanted to invite him to be baptized right there. so my comp is wrapping up, and i just stopped him and asked more or less nicely if i could say something. so i just kept going on. i finished the lesson, i tried to make it quick, just hitting all the big points so that a baptismal invite would make logical sense. i asked a question, i don´t remember what, but then my companion started talking again and it sounded like he was gonna wrap up, but he must have seen where i was going or the Spirit told him too or something, and invited him to be baptized. the guy said yes, so we have the date for the 7th of April. i was super pumped, i really felt like i wanted to help this guy, and i wanted him to be baptized, so i really hope it goes through. he came to church with us yesterday, so that was a good sign, but yeah we´ll see how that turns out.

and then another little cool thing happened. so we´ve been teaching this lady for some time now, and it´s just really weird. she´s been reading the book of mormon, she reads everything we leave her, does everything we ask, but she still doesn´t feel like she´s received an answer. she told us the other day that she kinda feels like her heart belongs to the catholic church, where´s she´s been a member her whole life, so it´s a little hard. but yesterday we finally met her husband, and the cool thing is, is that he works for some company that the church must use a lot or something, cause he said he worked on building the temple and a chapel or two, so i thought that was perfect. he was super impressed how they wanted the temple to be absolutely perfect, and seemed like really genuine and invited us back. so i have some hopes for that one too. and then later that night an old investigator stopped us on the street and told us to come back, so that was cool too, so all of these little things are coming out of the woodworks, it´s exciting.

so yeah not too much happened the first half of the week, but the end of it was sweet. today we actually went to the beach for the morning and played soccer. it was a ton of fun. it was just pouring the whole time but was way sweet. i´m starting to pick up some pretty good soccer skills :) i think i must have ate something bad yesterday though cause i keep burping something nasty haha. we´re actually convinced that there´s something wrong with the water at my house, cause almost every missionary that comes there for divisions is a little sick the next day. who knows, but that could be why.

but i  think that about wraps it up. i´m hoping for a good week with my companion, as well as our investigators. it´s exciting to finally have a tiny bit of success! but i better run. i hope everyone has a good week! thanks for everything!

much love,

elder paskett