#18

Hello family!

Valencia. It has definitely been a week of growth. I have been thinking a lot about something that Hermana Pratt taught my first week in the CCM. She told us that our whole missions would be a cycle of Garden of Eden´s and the Lone and Dreary World. When we start our missions, we leave the Garden of Eden (home) to go out into the lone and dreary world (CCM). I started out kinda backwards, because I left dreary Moapa Valley to go to the Garden of Eden. But she told us that there isn´t progression in the Garden of Eden, and so when the CCM started to become too comfortable, it would become our Garden of Eden, and we would be cast into the lone and dreary world of the mission field. But after a time, that area would become our Garden of Eden, and we would need to progress, so once again, we get cast into a lone and dreary world so we can learn and grow and progress. I testify of this. Milagro became my garden of Eden, and I was way too comfortable there and it got to the point where I wasn´t progressing as much as I could have been, so I got cast into what is now my lone and dreary world. But I´m working on garden of eden-izing it!

Things have definitely gotten better. For starters, my Spanish has gotten better. I also got sick this week (combination of different foods and stress) and so I´ve had to talk on the phone with my colombian lider de zona a few times (usually I would have to call the president, but I´m not too keen on calling the head honcho to tell him that I vomited. So I´ve been talking to the zone leaders and they inform the presidente, but I can do it! It´s hard to talk on the phone because it´s even harder to understand, but gosh darn it I´m a Spanish speaking machine.

My first night here, I thought that there were quiet sirens going off every where, but it turns out they´re frogs. They inflate themselves, and when the deflate, they make this siren sound. It´s weird. Kinda cool. Here, it rains a ton, which means it´s not terribly hot, which is awesome. 

We don´t really have investigators right now except for Ramon. Ramon is the spouse of a member that is less active. He´s 77, and went blind two years ago. When we first started talking to him, it was obvious that he didn´t really care too much if he lived or died. But we forced him to come to church (I mean that almost literally) and now he´s so much happier! It´s presh!  We´re teaching lots of people, but no one is married, just living together which makes things VERY difficult. But we´re doing all we can, so I know that the Lord will bless us with people that are ready for the gospel in their lives. 

This week the elections for mayor and stuff finally ended. They celebrated with a concert that went until three in the morning that we could hear at our house. They do things way different. Anyway, I´ve got to go, I love you all, things are fine, we´s a progressin.
Love you all!