May 7, 2012

hey mom!

well firstly i should start with calling. so president is really relaxed about calling, and he lets us use skype. so i don`t know if you want to do that, but you can just make a quick account and i`m sure i can make one up real quick too, or if you want to make me one and give me the username and password and all that information so i can just sign in that would work too. so we have church at 9 here, which is 8 where you are? and we get done at 12 obviously, and i think you`re an hour back now, so that would be 11 your time. i don`t know when you guys have church, but i would assume right after church would be the best for me at least. but we only get to call twice a year so i`m sure i can during the day too. actually what we`re gonna do is call saturday night, just from a payphone nearby, probably at about 8 your time, and we can set up a real time. i probably should have mentioned this earlier but i never really know what day it is anymore haha. so basically just expect a call on saturday night and we can set something up then?

as far as looking up mr. estrada, it`s not a big deal. i just thought i`d check and see, but that is a little crazy!

and with the food, i really do hate platanos, they`re super disgusting, but for some reason everyone loves them. mangos i can stand, but they`re like a pest down here. they really start coming in may, and there`ll just be thousands. people just give us bags cause they`re everywhere. the other day some lady gave us crackers with homemade mango jam, and it was pretty good. sure mangos aren`t my favorite, but i can tolerate them. the few tamales i`ve had, they`re gross too haha. i`ve mastered the missionary "chew-swig-swallow" technique though so i can put a lot of stuff down that way :) but yeah i do like patacones, probably just cause they`re fried and don`t taste like platanos, they kinda just taste like chips, so they`re pretty good. i like to say "guacala" which just means "gross," because there are lots of gross things down here haha.

and with the dvd`s, you may want to talk to whitney, cause she`s been asking me what i would want in a package cause she wants to send one, so maybe you can chat with her a bit. and we do have dvd players, so just some exercise i could do in the morning with some yoga would be good. actually, i`ve come to like this pen i bought in the mtc, it`s a pilot g-tec C4, i don`t know if you could find some of those, but they`re good. also, i`ve been trying to look for scripture covers, but i haven`t found any that are separate. so i have the bible and the triple in spanish, but right now they just chill in a plastic bag, but some more sturdy covers would be nice. i maybe should give you the dimensions, but we can talk a little on sunday :)

but anyway, a couple of cool things happened this week. so the zone leaders gave us a reference the other day, and had no information other than her name and number, and that she just wanted to be baptized. so we were thinking she`d just be like a 9 year old girl, and it would be no big deal. so we called her, but she didn`t answer so we left a message. she called back that night, and told us she was 20 years old, and wanted to meet with us. she said she didn`t want her parents to know she was talking with us, so we set up to meet her at the church and have a lesson there. we also thought it would be good to bring some members along, so we talked to an RM that got back like 8 months ago and his sister too, who is about the same age as the other girl, jocelin is her name. so it was us, 2 members, and jocelin, and we just had a super sweet lesson in the church. she already knew like everything, she had been to mormon.org, but just had a few little questions. but it was just a good lesson, it flowed well, she had good questions and answers, and it was just good. so we left her a book of mormon, and she came to church yesterday and she had been reading, and she`s just craving more information. it`s fun to see. i`ve never seen anyone progress down here, so it`s fun. i`m a little worried with her parents, i don`t know what they`re gonna do, but we set a baptismal date so we`ll see how these next few weeks go.

but things are going pretty well down here. me and my companion are getting along, we teach fairly well together. we`re still both a little young, he`s got like 8 months, but things could be worse. we have our good days and bad days with teaching and contacting and whatnot. like yesterday was just not good. for some reason no one would let us in their house, we contacted all day, and on top of that the rainy season has started, and so it rained for like 6 hours yesterday, which makes for a long wet day. but overall things aren`t bad. actually, one week from wednesday i have 6 months in the mission, so i`m way pumped about that! i get to burn a tie here pretty soon! haha but i don`t know what else to say, i figure it will just be easier to talk on the phone in a few days haha.

actually, a couple weird things have been happening too. i`m hearing all kinds of music from the states, but it`s none of the popular stuff. like we`ve passed by this bar a few times, and i swear all i hear playing from there is 80`s music. like i heard africa by toto, and it was just weird. then someone was jamming out to owl city, someone else to michelle branch and bon jovi. i don`t know why but it`s kinda funny :)

but that`s about it. not too much has happened. we actually changed pday to tomorrow because today is a holiday, and we wanted to go paintballing but we didn`t think it would be open, but president says we have to write on monday, so we just won`t write tomorrow i guess. so i hope some good things happen this week. and i hope everyone at home is doing awesome as well! i`ll talk to you on saturday, and then on sunday as well! have a great week!

much love,

elder paskett