aqui les escribo- October 12, 2009

writing you all again. today was a dia de festivo for some reason so it was a bit difficult to find a place to write but we found one. In answer to the last letters congrats dad that the lord wants you to progress faster in a new calling. All the young adults are going to want to be just like you, succesful, with a great family, not too grey headed, and with a short blonde wifey. Mom tell Pte Howell hi back and that Cartagena is great. yes the majority of the city are negros (you can say that here and its all good) which is fun. People like to ask me if i know 50 cent.... i tell them he was my neighbor. Thanks to the african influence here they have a special kind of music that is called Campeta and its basically alot of noise with a big bass beat. Its pretty crazy when the whole street starts listening to it. Also campeta is not know for its clean lyrics and since now im starting to understand songs better it makes it even harder to focus. Also here in Cartagena they have a shortage of street numbers, oh they have them but nobody uses them, including the people who live on the street. They all make up names that dont really work and are really goofy like cara de perro or gatos patos and coco roto. it makes it hard to find people and basically you have to work by memory to find the house, also you have to write funny descriptions in your agenda like ¨fat black lady cutting her nails¨ or ¨family of 5 with hairless dog¨ or a common one ¨house that had a rat run in when i was contacting¨.

with the zone things are looking up, we had alot of people programed this week and we are contacting alot. We had one missionary who got a little sick so i had to take him to get his blood checked for Dengue, didnt have it. Also this past week i had some miracles happen that hadnet happened for a while, which were contacting and teaching and then programing someone for baptism all in the same 40 mins. It was nice to find prepared people again, it had been awhile, its a good reminder that the Lord wants to bless us.

Sunday wasnt too good, the first sunday to go to church is always hard for the people, and also we had two invest. give us back the BoM not wanting to hear more, but we found an opurtunity to give service in church and felt better. This week we are starting to get out of the hole that we were in and baptize more the only problem is that it takes time and time isnt one thing that is a luxury when you are in your last year. If i could choose one time that the Lord would let me not make mistakes i think i would choose this last year of my mision, and when i have to find myself a wife so i can get to that 3rd heaven that paul went to, but more the mision becuase with every mistake it takes TIME to get out it. But ya paciente and everything and if everything went perfect in my mision i wouldnt learn alot. Well those are my thoughts and im glad to share them with you. Lars thanks for your letter and good luck with the play, have fun passing the sacrament its REAL important just like you.
Love you all
ELDER LARSON