One Month

On sunday ive been out here for a month and it doesnt even feel like it!!!

Jueves- We set new district goals after i emailed you last week, we kept them pretty close to the smae but added that on wednesday our district would only speak in spanish.. also that night we got to listen to president which is truely always amazing!

Viernes- During our IP (Invistagidor progesivo) we taught the law of tithing... during the lesson i said pegamos diezmo.... trying to say we pay tithing... which is actually pagamos diezmo.. the practice investigator laughed because i said we glue tithing... it was preety funny we also got to do service today! i love doing service we go to the hostile and this time we cleaned all the walls upstairs... that didnt have enough rags for everyone so i went around and just asked people if they need more in spanish... it is always a great time. Also we had fish for the second time here, and i have learned that with enough ketchup or salsa barbocoa i can eat anything. ( salsa in spanish means sauce).

Sabado- We got to go prosilting today! As district leader i get a cell phone when our group goes out, but it doesnt make to much sense why cause no one else has phones.. its cool thouhgh. also its crazy how much i dont think about my phone or facebook or instagram or anything like that.. i havent had any sort of withdrawls or anything! theres one kid who had a little in the begging it was funny to see everytime he reached for his pocket. As for prosiliting, we returned to the same area as last week, and we did not have as much success. At one point one lady was going off about how she was catholic and she didnt need another religion and so before it escalted more i said thanks for your time... gracias por su tiempo.. but she must of heard templo (temple) becuase then she yelled at us about how here boday was hers, and that was her tample and then just started screaming caio and walking away it was crazy. We tried to meet up with alecander for a return appointement but he was never home, we went to his house twice first his little sister answered and then his dad. We talked to his dad about the church but he wasnt intrested... he did say he would give alexander our pamphlet about the restauation though. Like i said we had a pretty rough day but with 20 minutes before the bus came we ran into pablo. He was probably 14 to 16 and was so patient with our spanish and really wanted to know more about the church. We taught him as much as we could in the limited time we had, and then asked for his address so he could learn more. He couldnt remmeber his address though so that was super sad. i told him to look out for anyone else in name badges and white shirts, and where the church was... i hope he is able to find what he is looking for, but looking back on it i think he was just a blessing to us from god so that our spirits could be a little more lifted for the day. It was a good day and very tiring at that. The city is crazy, there are stop lights on the main roads, but they dont have stop signs, they just honk as they drive and hop there isnt another car going through the intersections. The house are all crammed in there two, its not super poor horrible living conditions, but its definately way smaller then the states. Its eye opening, but the people here really are great!

Domingo- Today i conducted sacrament meeting. I was a litttle nervous but nothing to bad. Also since president hand the person conducting the 5 names of whose speaking, once he handed me it, anytime i looked up into the auidence people were looking at me trying to find out if they had to give a talk, it was hard to say yes to the few that had to... and i didnt enjoy having to say the 5 names, but there was nothing i could do about it. Idid learn about how the church conducts meeting when the presidening athourtiy speaks last. Dad could probably tell you since he was a bishop and all. Also we got to take pictures today! i got some good ones... ithink it was a lot more than last time because both north americans and latin americans were hedaing out into the feild... Which means we are the "old group" now its great. I also interviewed everyone today. There is serious struggle at the homefront in some peoples lives and it is really hard when i cant do much to help them here. It does make me count my blessings and i do really enjoy the interveiw time and getting to know people better.

Lunes- Today our district had meetings with the president. since its our last two weeks he set two new goals with evryone. 1) anytime that we have unsupervised time we need to break the time chunk into 15 minutes and choose what we are going to do in planning the night before. 2) we need to set 2 companioingoals that will strengthen our companionship. I have implented both it is has deffinantely helped me, my companionship, and our district in our focus as we approach the end of our time here. We also had a difficult spanish lesson that was hard for Elder McRae to leearn ecspeacially, he started rasing his voice because of the frustration of it not making sense... my companion then strated to sing "Love at Home" as a joke but still a lot of people joined in it was so funny and totally reminded me of home! We sang "Llamados al Servicio" that night to the leaving north and latin americans. elder posada left at 4 in the morning so we had to get up to say good bye to him. Elder copa didnt leave tell wednesday because his visa for ecuador didnt go through so he got re assgigned to a mission in argentina until its good.

Martes- Today was BUSY!! after everyon taught ip in the morning that had it, our teacher pulled me out into the hallway, she said she gave some feedback and critiscm that wasnt taking well, and long story short me and my companion Elder Hall had to be the mediator between the two... it wasnt fun for sure but its part of my duties so it was something i had to deal with.. i think a bandaid got put over it and hopefully it doesant get worse over the next couple times here. The new group that comes in latter today is small, 28 latin americans which is just a little undersized, and 13 north americans which is tiny! they are sending american missionaries that are going to paraguay or uraguay to the mexico mtc now beacuse its easier for americans to apply for a visa when they are down here, so we are some of the last with this mission call to get to be herre. im grateful im here because i love it and have been truely blesed by all the expierences ive had! Elder copa gave our room all a gift tongiht. Choclate!! from argentina i saved it tell wednesday though because i wanted to dip it in dulce de leche... it was amazing, not difffernt i just havent had chocolate in a while.

Méircoles- Today we spoke all spanish as a district. Elder copa left in the morning and he will be a great missionary, we get new ones today. We taught in the morning and were told we were great teachers and taught by the spirit but need to use simpler words and pretend like were teaching children. That made me miss my primary class! tell them all i said hi! We also get tnew investigators for the last time.. its crazy and exciting to think ill be in the feild soon, itll be a long wait though.. i just want to head out now! our speak spanish goal failed at night because we started learning the hardest spanish because there is no direct translation to english. We all had to speak english to help us understand more and to help explain it to each other. After we started, we didnt stop, but we did really good for the resst of the day. We will have learned all the spanish language by the end of this week, and then will get to practice for our last week here... its crazy how much and fast we have learned i just hope im able to retain alot of it.

Jueeves- that brings me to know. we had to write at 6:30 this morning because they need the computers free for when the new people come in. It also means i probably wont get breakfast because i leae from here straight to a meeting with president.. hopefully ill get to eat alittle something!

Love ya lots!!! cant wait to send pictures in a couple weeks, and to answer your questions mom, my companion is elder tyler hall from Kaysville utah. he is great! i cant remember all the questions that you guys had but will try to include them next week. I leave for paraguay on a tuesday mornign but am not sure what time, it will be the 27th.

Mom! wow sounds like you really killed girls camp!!!! i knew you would your such a great leader and person!!

Dad glad to here your using insanity well... i promise that if you keep doing it, youll get better at it and your health will deffinately increase... but only if you do it consistently.

Mckenzie! My companion said his sister works at a hospital in utah so if you every meet any halls, im probably her brothers companion.

Coble stone- your leaving so soon!!!! you will have to send me pictures from lithuania im so urious to see what the world looks like over there!!

Tmoney man- Hows football? what position you looking at? defense is the best.... just syaing! hope your ready for school and your first game i know that both are coming up soon!!!

Did you guys get that letter yet or not? the hand writting one? let me know how long it took im curious to see how fast the puoch travels!

Love you all and i know your all doing great!!

peace and blessings peace and blessings

Elder Jace Gummersall