April 30, 2012

hey mom!

that`s cool you`ve been able to find my building! the soccer/basketball court is cement, but there`s a decent size grass lawn thing too, and the church is fairly big, at least enough for like 100 people at church on sunday. but i`m afraid i don`t know the address. i can tell you i live by this restaurant called "el molino" and we live like 2 minutes away by walking. i still can never figure out which way is north haha, i don`t even know where david is in panamá, but yep that`s my area! and it`s a little crazy to think it`s already been a whole school year i`ve been gone! i guess i did leave like 2 months in, but still, time hasn`t been as slow as i thought it would have been!

but yeah things are still good down here! we`re working a lot harder than i have my first 2 changes, so things are a lot tougher and i`m just dead at night, but i`m learning faster and having fun. we`re finding all kinds of weird and cool people. sometimes i can`t believe some of the things people believe, and it`s really hard not to bible bash, but my spanish is so limited that i still can`t really do that haha. it`s actually coming along though, i finally don`t hate my spanish. there are times where i still really struggle with words, but i understand a ton more, and so i can actually talk to people and it`s a fairly  normal conversation. i`m not dreading lessons either cause i can actually follow their answers to questions or understand when they ask stuff, so i`m just generally more at ease. i`m still not a fan of contacting, just walking up to random houses and trying to teach from nothing, but that will probably just come with time. we`ve got a couple of baptismal dates, one is really shaky, and the other one isn`t quite solid, but she could be going somewhere. the really hard thing is getting people to church. yesterday we said we`d stop by 3 people`s houses, so we went to each house, and one didn`t answer, one said he had a previous engagement he had to go to, and the other didn`t get out of bed to come talk to us. so it`s really frustrating, but we`re still working hard.

as far as me and my comp go, we`re doing pretty well. i mean i don`t know if we would have been best friends in high school, but we talk between visits and joke and stuff so it`s a lot more fun. he kinda blew up at me the other day though, cause i like to read my english scriptures during personal study time, and he does not like that i guess. he went on for like an hour about how i need to read in spanish, and i do during my language study time, but i feel like personal study time is for me to just sit and read and feel the Spirit, not really for me to focus so much on translating. and i mean he does have a point, like it would be good to study in spanish, but personally i like to read for 45 minutes or so just in english. maybe i`m wrong, who knows? so that was a little too much, but after we were cool about it and things are fine. we actually switch off during lessons, and play off each other fairly well. president wrote me and said he gave me elder livesay because i`ve had some tough companions to start my mission with, and he wrote my comp last week and said he would be a fresh breath of air for me, and it`s true. it`s been a pretty rough start, but i think i`m being blessed for enduring.

well, as far as food goes, no, i still don`t really like anything haha. actually there`s one thing that i have come to really like, they`re called "patacones." so they have "platanos" down here, which is more or less just a big banana, and so what they do is cut it up to little discs, fry it, press it down flat with like the bottom of a cup, and then fry it again, so it`s really not very good for you, but it tastes good haha, and then with some "picante" or hot sauce on top with some ketchup, it`s even better haha. we eat at this "el molino" place i mentioned almost every day, cause the members don`t cook us food, well only like 4 meals a week. so i usually will get a quarter of a chicken with some patacones, with some "chicha," just like a juice basically, and that `s what i eat everyday. there`s really no variety here, but the chicken is good so i`m ok haha.

i actually did have a bit of a sore throat this last week, but i`m good now. i don`t know why i keep getting sick, i`m taking multivitamins and i`ll usually pop some fiber just to make sure i still use the bathroom haha, and i exercise and whatnot, but i guess i probably eat some bad things a lot so maybe that`s why. and i`ve been trying to practice some juggling so i can do more tricks for everyone. actually, i was thinking it would be cool if i had that juggling dvd, just so i could practice on like pday or at night or something, and learn some more stuff, cause right now i can do the basics, but no i`m ready for the big guns haha. and i`ve learned some more tricks with coins, and everyone loves the bite out quarter emily sent me, every time i see a little member kid they want to see the quarter again haha, so i do lots of coin tricks and they love it, so it`s cool!

the weather has been starting to change. we`ve already had more rain these last 2 weeks than i did my first 3 months. but it`s not very "cool" to carry umbrellas, so i just go without. actually the other day it was raining, but we still have to work, so we were trying to contact, and for a good hour no one would let us in. usually people are more nice when it`s raining, but not that night. so we just trudged in the rain for awhile until it was time to go home. i`m not a big fan of the rain, but oh well, i`ll survive :)

also, i was thinking it would be cool to have one of those biggest loser yoga dvd things, cause i can never decide what i want to do for exercise, so i thought that might work. not sure how to get it, but still haha. and actually i had a couple things for dad. i was talking to some guy, and he said he actually has a brother? that lives in af or at least has a house there, and he said his name is juan estrada. he said he lives close to papa johns, and he used to be or is a counselor in the bishopric? i thought that might be cool if he knew him. and also i wanted to know which mission dad served in, cause i keep meeting people that are from or served missions there, and i keep saying my dad served there, but i don`t know which mission.

but i think that`s about it. things are good. we`re working hard, doing a lot of stuff. i`m glad to finally have a good working companion, and to understand and converse and meet cool people. it`s still hard, i don`t think it`ll ever be easy, but it`s fulfilling. so i hope everyone has an awesome week, and i`ll talk to you later!

much love,

elder paskett

April 23, 2012

hey mom!

dang michael`s going to korea! that`s so nuts! what are the chances that all four of us are speaking different languages! that`s dang sweet though! i`m pumped for them! with the jazz though, for their sake, i kinda hope they don`t make it to the playoffs. by now it`s probably better just to try and get a good draft pick, but maybe playing a couple playoff games will be good for such a young team, who knows? that`s weird too that there`ll be an elder cottrell. maybe i`ll train him! :) actually i just talked to elder clarke, and he said that another kid from af is coming down to panamà sometime soon too, after graduation anyway, and he said he met another girl here in the mission from af, so we`re just gonna own the mission!

so, i guess i should tell you what happened this  week ......................................................................................................................i had changes! thank goodness! man i was so ready to leave! when we got the phone call and they said i was leaving i was so pumped! so i got the name "el padre," which is just to know where to put your bags when you get to the bus station, so i packed almost all my stuff that night, and got up at about 5:30 to finish packing, cause we had to leave at about 7:30, and it`s a little slower to pack than you`d think! so anyway we leave to panamà city, and put my bags with everyone else that had el padre, and then everyone just kinda chills for an hour or so. i ran into a couple kids from my mtc district, namely elder clarke like i mentioned, and that was the first time i saw him. it was a ton of fun. we talked forever about how the first few months have gone and all the crazy things that have happened. changes are really exciting cause no one knows where to go, so it`s fun. so we take a bus to the church in panamà city, where president talks to us for a bit, and then we watch a movie and it tells where everyone is going, then the people that are "dying" or are done with their missions share their testimonies. so i was just waiting for el padre to show up, and it finally did, and so now, i`m in the province "chiriqui," the city "david," and my area is called "bolìvar."

so, i`ll start with my comp. his name is elder livesay, and he`s from california. he`s another gringo, which is both good and bad. so he`s got about 8 months, and his spanish is fairly solid. but it`s a little harder with 2 gringos cause we can`t really ask eachother spanish questions as much. we have  been speaking spanish all day together though, cause we both decided we`ll need to work a little more since we don`t have latino companions. he`s a cool guy though, he did water polo through high school, he`s a little quiet, but as the last couple days have gone on we`ve talked more. it`s just a lot more fun with another gringo. to be honest, i think i`ve had more "success" these last few days with him than i have my first 2 changes. i don`t know if it`s the area, me, my comp, or what, but things have been really good. it`s actually a lot harder, because he actually lets me teach, so i`m having to actually think about things. plus i can`t really zone out at all cause i don`t have a latino companion that can just take control of everything. so it`s been really good, i`m having to focus more in lessons, so i do a lot better. we were teaching this one guy the other day, and he said you can`t know anything unless you`ve seen it with your own eyes. basically all of his arguments were bogus, but whatever. afterward my comp was like "man you must have had a good dad and step-dad (your trainer and your comp afterward) cause you did a ton of things like perfectly." and then later that night we were talking to some members, and one of the hermanas didn`t believe me that i only had 3 months out here, or that i didn`t speak spanish before my mission, cause she said my spanish was too good. i got that sunday too, all of the teachers and priests were wondering how i learned so fast and how i understood so much. i just love it here haha. but basically i attribute all of my learning to being obedient. i wouldn`t say i`ve worked the hardest at learning spanish, i think i could be doing more, but i`m where i`m at because i`m being obedient, and the Lord is helping me. it feels good to finally feel like i`m progressing.

a little about the church down here. so my last building was just a house with like one room. everyone met in the same room for relief society, priesthood, sunday school, everything. just the primary got a different room, all 5 of them. here is a different story though. it`s actually a chapel, with classrooms and a kitchen and offices and everything. i wouldn`t say it`s quite as big as chapels back home, but it`s big. we had 91 people at church yesterday, which for me is a lot, cause i`ve only ever seen 25-30 here. there`s a pretty big "cancha," or soccer/basketball court. so this place is just great. people here are just in general a lot nicer, all of the members are already good friends with me. i just like it a lot more. me and my comp are teaching way better lessons, we`ve already set 2 fechas, or baptismal dates, which i don`t know if that`s a lot, but from what i`ve been a part of it is. so i`m just super pumped to be here. i was talking to elders hawks and clarke, who were in my mtc district, and they both have had a pretty easy start to the mission. they`ve had good houses, good comps, baptisms, everything. i on the other hand, would say it`s been a little rough. but i think i`m being blessed for enduring it, and it`s great. but both of them were saying they know they`ve got tough times ahead since they`ve had it so easy at the start, and president always tells me that buena vista will be my hardes area in my mission, so i`m hopeful for the future.

the area here is a lot more civilized too. there`s actually streets, houses that are in blocks, supermarkets, there`s like no garbage in the streets. really just everything here is an improvement. i really think this is gonna be an awesome change. i was a little worried to have a gringo companion, but he actually wants to work and is obedient and so things are good. that`s really all i can say right now, things are just good right now. it`s hard, cause i actually have to work, but i feel good at night and i`m gonna learn a lot faster.

i think that`s about it though. really it`s just good here, like i`ve said a million times already haha, so i`m happy. i don`t have really any interesting stories, but i`m sure something`ll happen this week. anyway i better run. thanks for everything, i always love reading letters and hearing about the little things. i hope my letters aren`t too scattered or anything, but yeah thanks a ton. i hope everyone is doing well, and i`ll talk to you next week!

much love,
elder paskett

April 16, 2012

hey mom!

yeah i agree those pancakes probably weren´t the best for me, but they were so good! haha and i´m not sure when i´ll do them with chocolate milk, they do have milk down here, but i just hadn´t seen any for awhile and they didn´t have any at that time so i did what i could! :) i didn´t even realize it was time for spring break! the weather hasn´t really changed too much down here, but it´s starting to rain a little more. sometimes i just forget what day or month it even is. i guess time isn´t going by too slow! although these last six weeks have been the longest of my life! i really hope i get a change this week! and we did get i think it was this month´s liahona, but we haven´t gotten the conference ensign, probably not til next week, but i´´m pumped to get it cause there are a lot of talks i want to re-read! i did remember that talk you mentioned, and i thought it was super interesting too! i´m excited to read it again! oh and the package was awesome! i´ve already shown off the juggling balls a ton, and the music is great! it brought back a ton of memories! the little ear cleaning stick thing looks a little weird, but it sounds good so i´ll have to try it! so yeah thanks a ton for all of that! it´s awesome!

well a couple of things happened this week. so monday night the zone leader´s asked if my comp and i would teach the zone for  district meeting the following day. the subject was appropriate enough, personal worthiness and obedience, so i thought it would be good for my comp as well as the rest of the zone, cause there are a few others that don´t like being obedient as well. so we did get the assignment a little late, but i still wanted to plan for it, but my comp didn´t. so we go to dinner and after getting home at like 9:30 i finally get him to plan. we planned for about 15 minutes cause he thought it was good enough. i don´t know, i wanted to have a bit of a more solid plan, but whatever we ended up just winging it mostly. i planned on my own for a bit longer of what i wanted to say, and i guess overall it went pretty well. or maybe not cause none of it stuck. the next day my comp is still getting up late, not studying, dumb things like that. we actually had another little obedience interaction this week cause we were alone at this girl´s house for like 3 hours, and basically those two just talked. i tried to get him to realize we should leave, but he didn´t want to i guess. so after we got home at like 9:45 i asked him how he felt about that, and he just played dumb, pretending like he didn´t know what i was talking about. so i told him, and he just told me that he thought there would be more people. i didn´t try to fight, but i was wondering why he ate SO slow, or would just do dumb little things to delay us, or why he didn´t tell me about it before, or why he´s here if he doesn´t want to follow any rules, but i let most of it go. i´m pretty sure i´m getting changed this week, and it couldn´t come at a better time. i mean i´m not sure, we might both be here or maybe he´ll leave, and i think usually you´re where you started for 3 changes, but president always tells me he doesn´t like to leave elders here for more than 2 changes because he feels like he´s torturing them. he keeps telling me i´m getting a new companion so who knows? but i´m hoping i leave. the zone leaders will call us tuesday night if we leave or not, so only a little more than a day and we´ll see!

we also had an interesting experience teaching this guy yesterday. well i should say my comp did. ok well firstly, i think this guy is 7th day adventist, and we´ve taught him 2 times and it seems like he was fairly receptive to everything. everytime we read the book of mormon with him he says he´s really interesting and he likes it and stuff, so i thought that was cool. but we went there yesterday and as we walk up he tells us that his church doesn´t want him meeting with us anymore and that we should go. of course we tried to find out why and if we could share just a little more, and he seemed a little hesitant but said yes. so i think it could have gone well from here, but, it didn´t. my comp gave like an hour long bible history lesson and all this weird stuff, and i said nothing. we were probably there for an hour and half, my comp spoke an hour and 15 minutes, the guy spoke like 9, the member that was there spoke like 4 and i spoke like 2, no joke. i was furious. he never looks at me, never pauses, never asks questions, just talks, and i just get mad. i told him like week 2, i was like "do you think we talk equally in lessons?" and he said "no i agree, maybe that should change." it didn´t, week 6 i told him it makes me super mad that he doesn´t let me talk, and he just blew it off. so yeah more or less things aren´t good between us, and so i need a change.

but i think that about wraps it up. sorry that´s so boring, it´s just i never have spirtitual experiences with my comp, or really any experiences for that matter. everything is just bad. i´m trying really hard, but it´s still dificult. my spanish is coming along, i´m starting to actually have fairly decent conversations with people and i can understand a little bit better. i mean just an hour ago in the street some lady came up and i think she was a member, but she was talking to me and i almost got it all. i think right now i understand more than i can say. like usually when me and my companion fight, i speak in english but he speaks in spanish, but i can still understand him, my mind is just too slow to fight in spanish haha, he more or less knows english so i´m not trying to one up him or something though. so i´d be really happy with a change, but we´ll see how that goes.

so that about wraps it up, not a very exciting week. i hope everything is going well back home. good luck to karissa with her schooling, i know my hair is leaving, but after 2 years of cutting it myself, an expert to cut it might be good haha. and good luck with those bees, i hope no one gets stung too much! but anyway i hope everyone has an awesome week!

much love,

elder paskett

April 9, 2012

hey mom!

hey so yeah i do have some antihistimine, but the rash was like all over my body, and so a cream doesn´t really work that well for that. the nurse said go get a pill, but no one had any, but it went away on it´s own, weird though! as far as ensigns go, i´m not sure, but i think we get the liahona´s and ensign´s at least every two months. we may get lucky and get them tomorrow during district meeting, but yeah i think we get them, i really want to read some talks again though! it really was a great conference! and i haven´t seen the package yet either, but i just asked my zone leader´s and they said it´s here, so they´ll give it to me tomorrow, i´ll let you know what i think of it next week haha. i feel bad for dad though, i really would love so much just to play some basketball, the few minutes of exercise i get in the morning just isn´t very fun by myself haha. and speaking of how amazing the earth is, i told you i just finished Jesus the Christ, and it talks about miracles in there, and it says something about how people today, now that they understand things like planting seeds and electric bulbs and computers and all that, they don´t see them as miracles, but there really are some crazy things on this world that we probably take for granted a lot!

with easter down here, they´re really big into "la semana santa" which just means holy week. and so it starts on like thursday i think, and it´s like suffering thursday, crucifixion friday, holy saturday, and resurrection sunday, or something like that. and so this past week it´s just been like a ghost town. everyone left to go visit family and whatnot in the bigger cities. it was really weird, there weren´t buses or taxis or anyone in the streets, and not a ton in their houses, it was just silent. there would be like parades in the street, and everyone wears purple and there´s a big Jesus carrying the cross, and i imagine a lot of people that are the "i only go to church on easter and christmas" kind of people. so not exactly the easter i´m used to haha, but yeah they celebrate something like that down here :)

the weather is changing a bit down here too! it´s starting to rain pretty regularly, and pretty hard. it makes or some really loud noise in the houses, cause most of the roofs are just metal, so all that water falling on it is loud! and it feels really good when the rain is falling, the temperature falls a bit, but then after the rain stops and it´s even more humid, it just gets super hot. and everyone says it rains about 8 to 9 months of the year, so here´s for a long wet 8 months! :)

so i had a bit of an interesting interaction with my comp this week. so there are a lot of lazy latinos here, called ponchetas, and my comp isn´t exactly poncheta, but there are just some rules he doesn´t like to follow. he´s always telling me to calm down when i tell him we should follow a rule, and it´s never anything huge, but things like studying in the morning, coming home late at night, things like that. and so i always tell him we should do those things but he doesn´t like that. so we had a bit of a fight cause i just couldn´t take it. he wanted to come home late, but i just told him no. he didn´t really like that, and told me how stupid i was being, and i was just like, how can you be mad cause i want to be obedient? so after that little argument, about a half hour later he wanted to talk, and he was chill about it so we did. but he told me how when people found out we were companions, i guess a few people told him to watch out because i´m really strict with the rules, and then he basically just told me how i need to calm down with following the rules, and it´s ok to not follow some, and i was fuming inside. i told him this quote i like, from the wife of Elder Nelson, she said "obedience brings blessings, obedience with exactitude brings miracles" and i feel like i need a miracle right now. i´m sick of not understanding everyone and not being able to say what i want to say, so i want a miracle and i want to learn spanish as fast as i can, so i´m gonna try to be exactly obedient. maybe it´s just cause i´m new, but i don´t know, i don´t think i´m here to sleep in or stay at member´s houses all day and do nothing. so yeah that was interesting, and so i´m really hoping i leave this change. we have changes the 18th? so we´ll see how that goes.

i did have a fun little experience with cooking the other day though. so like i said there were like no buses, and on saturdays for lunch we have to ride a bus for like 30 minutes, and after waiting awhile, we just decided to not go. so i took the opportunity to cook, and it was pretty fun. so i bought a pancake powder mix, but i was lacking a few things. it asked for milk, but i didn´t have any so i used sweetened condensed milk. it asked for an egg, but i just forgot to buy one so i didn´t use that. it asked for some oil, but i did have that so that was good. i threw some vanilla in for good measure, and so they ended up being the sweetest pancakes ever, cause of course i had syrup on top. the pan must have been old or scratched or something, cause the pancakes would stick, so they were pretty ugly, but pretty good too haha. i think i might try with chocolate milk next time, cause i haven´t seen milk where i live for awhile now.

not too much else happened. it was a fairly quiet week. and i mean that literally as well. me and my companion never talk when we´re walking in the streets. it makes for some awkward moments, but oh well. we don´t really have any investigators right now, no one ever comes to church and they have to come two times before they can be baptized, so our two baptismal dates we´ve had have fallen through because no one goes to church. we try going to their houses on sunday but usually they´re "not there" or some other excuse. so not much to tell there. just hoping for some change in about a week. but i hope everyone at home is doing well! it sounds like things are good so i´m glad! i hope everyone has an awesome week!

much love,

elder paskett

April 3, 2012

hey mom!

hey so i´ll just start with a few things in your letter. i´m super pumped for gage! and logan! and jake too! that´s so awesome! i hope logan learns some spanish so i can have someone to talk to haha! but no i didn´t see (elder) david archuleta! i was actually looking for him cause i thought he was going in sometime soon, so that is way sweet. i´ll talk some more about conference in a bit though :)

oh hey so i hope this doesn´t throw you off by me responding today instead of yesterday. we decided that we wanted to go to the temple today, but the temple is closed on monday´s so we changed pday to today. so we live about an hour from panamá, and then maybe 30 minutes more from the big bus station in albrook mall to the temple. and so we were supposed to meet, like my zone, at albrook at 8 30 in the morning, and then all of us go to the temple together. so yeah that was the plan, but of course it didn´t go that way. so me and my comp didn´t get there til about 9 30, for some reason the traffic was just horrible, so when we did get there, we just figured that they had already left. so we decided to just go, but we ended up being late for the session. it started at 11, but we got there like right at 11, so we just did initiatories. i´m not sure how much i can tell, but it was definitely a little different in spanish haha, but the temple is just beautiful, and it was still a super sweet experience. i really want to go again and actually do a session. so we wrapped up and now we´re back in albrook. but we came to find out that our zone never even made it to the temple. they didn´t get to albrook til about 10 30, so they just chilled here. so it was a kind of botched attempt to go to the temple, but it was still good :)

ah man so conference! let me tell you first off that i´ve never enjoyed and not-enjoyed conference so much haha! i´ve never really watched conference like i did with this one, and it was so awesome! i learned so much stuff! i wish i could sit and discuss it with you, but yeah basically all i can say is that it was the best conference ever! i thought it was kind of interesting how there were a decent amount of talks about how close it is to the second coming, and i mean no one knows, but when the apostles stress it you know it must be coming soon. and i´ve also been a big fan of being comforted lately haha, cheesy i know, but just little words of advice or counsel are good cause times are still tough. a couple lines put together from elder holland and president eyring, more or less said something like no matter how far away you are from home and family, or how far you´ve sunk, joy can be present 1000´s of miles away and you´re never far enough from both divine and family love. i really liked that. cause it does feel like i´m a world away at times, and there´s no one to talk to, but just to know i´m never quite alone is good. i also liked the bumper sticker president uchtdorf shared, the "don´t judge me because i sin differently than you" one haha, it´s true though, at least for me i can easily get mad because i see someone sin or do something stupid and think i would never do that, but then i look at myself and i have a thousand other things that i do wrong. and i thought elder anderson´s question of " what thinks Christ of me?" was super interesting too. i think i´ve actually been thinking of that a lot lately, just with all the things i do, what does Christ think of what i´m doing ya know? there really are a ton of other things i could say, but yeah it was just awesome! it was also super hard though cause i admitedly was homesick haha. not waking up to family or food or candy wasn´t very exciting, and then having to sleep on the cement that night cause the airmattress had a hole wasn´t my idea of fun haha. so there were times where it just wasn´t the same and i wanted to be home, but i learned a lot and i enjoyed it so it was ok :)

so some really interesting things happened this last week. so first of all, last wednesday i think it was, i woke up at about 2, and i just felt super sick. i got up to use the bathroom, and boy did i use it haha. but i also found out i had some super gross looking rash, and it itched like crazy. i tried to go back to bed, but it took me forever cause i itched so bad. when i finally did, i didn´t wake up til about 7 30, but the rash was gone and i felt fine. but at about 9 30, it all came back for some reason, but worse. the rash got super bad, and like covered my whole body. the nurse here told us to go get some antihistimine, but none of the pharmacy´s had any. so i thought i was gonna die, but i just went back to sleep while my comp looked around and made some calls. the weird thing was, i woke up at about 11 30, and it was all gone, like it never had happened. and it never came back. i really don´t know what happened, but it was weird haha.

and then i decided that everyone lied when they said march is the hottest month, cause it has been blistering these last few days. like it´s hot down here, but these last few days have been tons worse. i decided that either the clouds are alive and play cruel jokes on us, because there can be clouds in the whole sky, except for like a ring around the sun. either that, or the sun is so hot that it evaporates the already evaporated clouds. it´s that hot haha.

so a couple quick things. i had my first real coconut the other day. we went to this house that we had an appointment, but no one was there but the kid. so we were just chatting for a bit, and he was eating a coconut and asked if we wanted any. we said sure, so he just rips off his shirt and takes off his shoes and socks, and walks over to the coconut tree in their yard and just climbs up it with a machete in his mouth haha. so he just chops a couple down, and we just ate coconuts. truth be told, they´re not that good haha. they´re not bad i guess, but they´re not my favorite. but hey it was still cool! i also just finished Jesus the Christ, and that is a super sweet book. there´s so much stuff i never knew in there. i´ll probably start it again just cause there´s so much deep stuff in it. i definitely recommend that book.

not too much happened with me and my comp this week. things are still the same, not sure if they´ll ever change. that´s really bad i know, and i learned a lot of stuff in conference that i want to talk about with him, so we´ll see. everytime i talk to president he says i´ll be getting a new comp this change, and honestly i´ll welcome it. i need a comp that will just talk to me, let me teach sometimes, let me make mistakes, but then help me, but then someone i can just be friends with. so i´m hoping i´ve survived this test the Lord has given me and now he´ll give me someone i can work with haha.

but i think that´s about it. i´m always happy to hear how things are back at home, and it always sounds like things are good! maybe i should have left home sooner huh? :) nah but thanks for everything, thanks for the emails and prayers and support, i really appreciate it all! i hope everyone has an awesome week!

much love,

elder paskett