Week 014 - "Always Look Up"... Is Not Doing It For Us

Oh taxes. I remember those. Wait no, because my boss somehow forgot those while giving us those underground checks. Remember all the good times at the ole Mama Lucci's.

Man you guys sound busy, must be exciting. Glad you guys got my letter. It’s good to know the mail system still comes in clutch. I’m jealous of Katie’s nature walks in the Livable Forest. So many things that could be living in there.  Tell Claire, she is awesome, and to finish school off strong, and that "if you believe in yourself I know you can do it." I just know it.

This week has been pretty awesome. I took another trip up to Santa Fe for zone conference. Bus naps are the bomb. Got to talk to the Prez. Now that I’m like Spanish King, we had some sort of real conversation, of "muy beunos" y "si".  But it was better than that. The best part about going to Santa Fe is that you always get fed, with the good stuff… meats, vegetables, desserts.  Sister Perez loves buying this cake thing called a torta, which is like fired tortillas with tons of dulce de leche (caramel) layered. I swear I can feel the poundage piling in me as I eat that. It’s awesome. Everyone eats dulce de leche here with everything. You can just buy huge amounts of it at the grocery store, so I eat that with my pan all the time. Way good.  

Our finance missionary guy is kind of the king right now, Elder Thompson. Because he like somehow convinced the Prez to give us 2000 pesos a month instead of 1400 pesos. I don’t know… for ice cream and stuff. Everything here is like dirt cheap. Well, not like the American stuff. But when I go to my carneceria, pandaria, polloria, it’s pretty cheap.  

I had my first meal at a member’s house the other day. It was pretty awesome. She's actually less active, and she made us some kind of meat… way good.  And she’s pretty poor, and she said "do you want more food," and I thought she said something like, "do you like it?" So I was like, "yeah." So she ran off and made like a ton of chicken. I kind of felt bad but kind of not at the same time. She’s a Capo. Like Donato. Man, Donato is such a Capo, except he didn’t show up to church yesterday because he thought it was Wednesday. He felt pretty bad, because he was planning on blessing the sacrament yesterday. Come on Donato, Wednesday is like 3 days away.

So we’ve been teaching this guy Augustine lately, he’s kind of one of our younger investigators who’s been having trouble understanding the need for authority in baptism. But he hasn’t answered for like 1.5 weeks, and on Wednesday we decided to go to his house, and it was pouring like crazy-out-of-my-mind rain, where the streets are covered in water that you could swim in, and there’s water up to my shins. But we were like, "oh he can’t let two missionary stay out here in the rain." So we went to his house and he let us in, and like his mom and brothers were all living in his house because her house was having trouble in the rain. So we taught his mom, who has 12 kids and doesn’t feel very close to her family lately. So I told her to read the Book of Mormon, and that if she reads it and tries to read with her family and pray with her family that she would feel closer. So we came back on Friday, and she and 4 of her kids were waiting for us at the table with the Book of Mormon. And we taught them about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and asked them one by one to be baptized, and they all said yes. It was awesome! They are pumped and want to come to church and stuff. One of the brothers might have said yes because everyone else did. But we are invited back to the house to teach more, so this is good.

VAMOS GALVES! Galves is the bomb, and I don’t want to leave it. Even though I step in dog poo like 5 times a day. No joke. President Monson's advice to "always look up" is not doing it for us. Remember that talk by Elder Cook (I think).

So I hear there is a new Mt Dew and it’s black. I have sources, and my sources are telling me this. If it is true, it has to be awesome. I don’t know, maybe it’s like black licorice flavor. Dad likes that kind of stuff. My sources are also telling me that dad really didn’t like my Kurt Rambis picture. Don’t worry, it wasn’t that cool, that’s why I gave it away to my teacher.

So my prayers have been answered. My companion has this flash drive full of music that he plays on the dvd player all the time, and it’s always this chick named Page who sings songs about Jesus. And she has this song called Joy, and it’s like the quirkiest song. You guys should look I up. But I was searching around on his music, and he’s got a lot more than Page. He’s got like all these Disney songs on the violin… sick.  He’s also got all the Lord of the Ring songs.  I stay away from those. But anyways, Disney is now in the house. Apparently the missionaries get to watch a Disney movie on Christmas and last Christmas was Frozen. Something to look forward to.

Actually, Mother’s Day is in like less than a month. Sweet. That’s exciting. Love you guys and congratulations on the prom date Emma.. Christian is pretty studly.

VAMOS GALVES