Things are looking up ( April 20, 2009)

THANKS Lars and Layne for praying for us, its only been a week but its a bit better than last week. Last week the Lord blessed me with a clear sense of determinaton and a feeling that i we succeed, i just had to be patient. Weve been able to find some good familias here in the Bastidas Uno area. Its kind funny how we got to find them, we contacted the father who is 68 and taught him, then when we came back his grandson was there who listened to us and liked it so we set up an appointment to teach his family. Did that and while we did his friend was over who liked the message and so we taught his family and BAM! we have 3 familias who are investigating and all know eachother and want to go to church together. This happens pretty often here Latino land because they have got so many different people always hanging out in the same house who are realted some how. And i just struck me that we do all this is Spanish crazy huh, two gringos together is alot different. We get hissed at alot more (thats what girls do here when they like boys) which is extremely ironic because we call them snakes,because they are. The was a den of snakes at a corner that we have to walk past everyday and we were getting sick of listening to them (i was anyway because Elder Shumway cant understand them which i envied) so we gave them Law of Chastity folletos and the next day they stopped, enough said. All the little kids want to know our names and ask us to speak in english, sometimes i tell them my name is george washington, or abraham lincoln just to make myself more gringo. Ive been wearing my glasses for the past week because its so dusty and my eyes hurt so that makes me really makes me look like the classic gringo missionary with all the little bown kids, too bad i cant get the part down or else i would definatly make the cover of the nest conference issuse (which on the mission we count down the days to get it). My area is pretty different than good old puerto. Alot more people to talk to and the houses are really close together is some neighborhoods which is great because contacting is super fast. We have 3 gated communities we need to get into so we can teach tithing. But we also have the mountain side were the people live in huts and work longer hours than us breaking big rocks with little ones (its for a cement company thats nearby). There are 4 missionares in the branch and the building we use is going to be the stake center when they make it here. They have a little piano that is SUPER out of tune and it doesnt matter because they memebers have theyre own tune for every song. Theyre also other fun little details about our area that i can share with you in a year 1/2 or so (haha just kidding...not really). Tell Elder BANG the picture is super sweet and it looks like hes in the 2nd best mission in the world (the name of the best one is in his picture of course). thanks for the words of encouragement Spencer and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Elder Larson.
thanks for your love and prayers
Elder Larson