July 23, 2012

hey mom!

it makes me pretty excited to hear everyone else going out. i didn´t even realize that cameron was that old, but that´s way sweet! i´m pumped for jake, you´ll have to tell him hi for me and good luck if you see him. it´s a long way in the future but it´ll be fun after the mission with all of us cousins to talk about everything, how we went in like every part of the world, it´s cool. i would say i was a little surprised that 6 months went by so fast, but the last 2 months have been a little slow. i´m finally not quite the youngest one here so that´s fun. once i hit a year though i´ll feel good about the time. i know colón was hard, my first area, but i wouldn´t mind going back just with all the stuff i know now. i guess there are a few mixed feelings with 8 months, i´ve still got a long way to go, i have to do everything i just did 2 more times haha, but it´s good, it probably will sneak up on me my end date.  the lumina really could just go away though haha. well maybe karissa can drive it for a month or two just to get a good taste of a crappy car, but then it needs to die haha. i would imagine after sitting there for 8 months it can´t be looking too good :)

so yeah my comp is actually from the other fork, spanish fork. he´s a good enough guy, but i did want a latin comp. like really his spanish is just not good, i´m sorry, but that´s how it is. we must be together just so i can help him. it really kinda feels like i´m training even though he has more than a year. he doesn´t know how to teach or what to say, he just kinda says everything at random times. it´s just hard, i don´t know how to help. i´ve tried dropping casual hints at trying to correct a few things, but it doesn´t seem to help. really i´m not at all fluent, but i can express myself, and now i have to talk for him. more often than not people ask me to read the scripture or interpret his spanish, just cause no one understands. i feel bad, but i don´t want to tell him i´m better and try to correct him, cause i don´t want him mad saying he has more time and whatnot, cause that happened my first change with my dad, i tried giving him some advice and he would always whip out how much more time he has and how much more he knows. so it could be a touchy subject, and even just from the little hints i´ve given here i don´t think he likes to talk about it. but for his sake he needs to learn. i realize spanish isn´t easy, i seriously thought i would never learn it, but with a year you should talk pretty well.

it´s hard cause i basically have to teach everything, which is wrong i know. it makes me think of my second comp who wouldn´t let me talk and he taught the whole lesson, and how much i hated that, so i´ll try to just pause and stop talking and look at him which means "ok talk now," but he never says anything. he´ll just avoid me and look away or something, but he won´t talk. he´s not really big on the rules either, so that´s probably a contributing factor, but who knows. we actually did have presidente amado come on friday, i´ll talk about him in a bit, but that didn´t seem to spark any interest in my comp. if presidente amado can´t i don´t know who can. i´ll have to see what i can do this week to change a few things.

but yeah presidente amado came on friday, and it was just super awesome. president ward called us the next day and chatted with me and said he talked for over 4 hours, but really it only felt like 1. he is an inspired man for sure. he just said tons of stuff that i never thought about or realized before. probably the biggest thing i got out of it was obedience. he asked why we as missionaries have so many rules, while a bishop can have a cellphone and dance and go on dates with his wife and watch tv, but still be worthy to receive revelation for the members, or why even presidente himself doesn´t have all these rules but he´s not any less worthy than us. there were a million answers as to why, but i thought it was interesting how he said the bishop is only entitled to revelation for his members, but to us it´s given the ability to receive revelation for other people that aren´t members. i don´t know, he said it better, but it was just super cool. he talked about a ton of things, and i just loved it. it made me realize a few places where i need to improve, and i hope that it gave my comp something too.

but that was about all that happened this week. the area is slowing down, and it´s hard. the Lord won´t give us anyone to teach if he knows we won´t work, and i´m having a hard time dragging my companion around. i saw my last companion at the conference with presidente amado and i told him he needs to come back, cause we actually worked together and got stuff done, but my comp now just doesn´t want to work as hard. i did actually see elder smith, the other elder from american fork, the elder that grandpa had talked to in the mtc, so that was cool. i also saw elder cottrell and talked with him for a bit, but i don´t think he knew who i was really haha. but yeah it was a pretty quiet week. we had some random people come to church yesterday and we have visits set up with them and members so this week should be good. i hope everything is still going well at home. sounds like things are awesome! ¡cuídese mucho, y hasta luego!

much love,

elder paskett