Travelin'

This Sunday\Monday me and my comp are traveling around the mission so Elder Ramón can visit his old areas before he leaves this Thursday. That being said, we don´t have much time and this will be a rather short email.

So my comp leaves this Thursday and I’m not really sure what’s going to happen. I could get a new comp in my same sector, or be in a group of three with the other elders in the house or I could go to a new place altogether and restart. But either way, wherever I go will be where I need to go.

I´m starting to really love Lota. Especially after traveling to other parts of Chile yesterday. We have an awesome branch, awesome investigadores and 4 other great missionaries in the sector. I really hope I can stay after elder Ramón leaves.

My Spanish is still bad. Way better than the beginning, but I still can´t understand what people say most of the time. And talking is even worse. But I’ll get there and it will just make me appreciate it more when I can talk to people. I´m also coming to realize that the Spanish language is sort of lazy. I love it. If you don´t like something you only have to say "Boooo" and it´s a sufficient response. Or if you can´t remember someone’s name, you just call them by what they are compared to the world. For example: youth, woman, missionary, mexican. It makes things easier. My comp is also teaching me how to write poetry in Spanish. I´m not going to write poems but I’m excited to write music in Spanish because it´s so much easier. In English, the only way to be more specific about things is by changing tone or putting emphasis on words but in Spanish you and short words here and there. This makes it super easy to match sylibles and rhyme and stuff.

I wish I could tell you about investigators and stuff but these past couple of weeks have been so scattered and we haven’t visited someone more than two times. And if you add to that not being able to speak the language, the days are pretty scattered. The keep telling me that the mission isn´t like this, which is good, but I also need to learn what the mission is like eventually. We also aren’t doing the 12-week training program that every new missionary is supposed to do. Which is another reason why I feel like things are pretty scattered. But all that being said, I have learned so much these past couple of weeks. Even if I went home now, I would be forever changed by this experience. I am also happier than I have ever been before.

Shoot I’m over time. Love you guys. Keep doing what’s right.

Paul