Week 8

Hey Everyone! 

Week 2 into the mission. Life is good! Spanish is getting better too! It’s really weird though because somedays my Spanish can be pretty good and then others I feel like I can’t understand anything. Like sometimes I am able to hold up conversations and ask questions and all that, and other times I have no idea what people are saying and I just smile and nod, hahahah. And Peruvians start talking for soooo long about random stuff and telling random stories that I just don't have the vocabulary to understand. Like earlier this week we were talking with an investigator and I thought he was talking about his job but I guess he was talking about tornados and I guess I accidentally told him that there are tornados every day in Utah, hahaha.  And my Comp got super sick this week and lost his voice so I had to do a lot of the talking and whenever he would talk to me I couldn't understand! hahaha. A lot of the little things he does are starting to bug me, but I defintely need to learn how to be more patient so its kind of a blessing. 

This week I think I figured out why people call it the best two years, and I also figured out why some people struggle really badly. Lots of ups and downs—it’s defintely a learning experience! One of the best feelings though is being able to teach somebody and watch their countanance change as they feel the Spirit. You feel so happy for that person and just want them to continue to feel it and progress! And you feel like you are really making a difference and I love it!

But then there are the times where people just don’t accept it or just don't care, and you can’t speak the language very well and stuff so that just bums you out from time to time. I only have 2 weeks here so I’m not super experienced, but that’s at least what I've noticed so far. 

Something great that happened this week though is yesterday at church we had 3 of our progressing familes come to church AND 3 less active families come too! Very cool, we are really hoping that they let the spirit in and noticed the joy of the gospel. Hopefully I’m not just getting my hopes up. 

Our investigator, Gustavo, and his family didn't get baptized on Saturday because they couldn’t make it to church last week so the baptism is set for Friday! 

Also, general conference is this weekend and I’m praying that our mission Pres lets us gringos watch it in English because I wouldn’t get too much out of it in Spanish and that would bite because GC is my fav. ALSOOO we are going to CHILI’S this afternoon and I am stoked out of my mind! Also since I couldn’t send pics last week—here are some now.

-Elder Hale

This is me and Elder Ramirez!!

This is the dog that's outside our door that wanted to kill me the first week but now we are pals!

This is the view from my front door.

This is the hole in our roof, which I like to call the sunroof because it makes me feel fancy, lol!

This is just the daily view!!

This is my area—super good view!