Monday, April 14, 2014

In Soviet Russia, you don't come to church--Church comes to you.‏

There are many signs pointing to me leaving, next transfer. Ya, I´ve made many long lasting friendships here. I also have many vacations to take down to Ecuador and probably many places to stay. But we´ll see what happens. I´ll tell you guys in person! You never know.

I still am "in charge". I´m written as the senior companion and I´ve been in the area a while, so I still have much to do. But I´m glad the area is up and running normally again. And the bus strike ended! Now we don´t have to walk ridiculous distances. It´s all getting much better day by day.

We had a farewell party for a ward member from Cuba who´s going back for half a year. Everyone´s very sad. She´s really nice. We´ve all been doing well with baptisms! We have one like every other week or sometimes a few weeks in a row! The hermanas just baptized almost a whole family from Ecuador. The father is waiting a bit and the extremely cute baby is obviously too young. And I hate that rule about not picking up babies. 

I got the birthday package! Thank you mum! The socks were a bit short, but they´re really comfy. It´s funny to see that missionaries enjoy package openings vicariously through other missionaries. Everyone gets excited when there´s a package. And I had to explain to a lot of people my late package scheme. They all thought the mail system here was just that terrible.

We got to go to the temple! I love it. I´ll be sad to not be able to go in farther areas. The people in the Canaries especially can´t go. Although once in a while we do get to give tours if we live close. Mostly they involve outside stuff but they can chill out in the waiting room. Raquel, our Spanish convert, didn´t want to leave when we took her in. And there´s lots of cool facts and lessons to do. Like there´s an olive tree next to it from the Garden of Gethsemane that´s a couple thousand years old. I´ll give the tour to everyone when we visit.

I found what is essentially corn nuts but with the giant corn (something like homily in English) from Ecuador! It´s dang good. Our Spanish investigator (who´s just waiting for marriage papers) made us Holy Week food. It´s called Torrijas and it´s a fancier and tastier version of French Toast. It just has more spices and it´s more wet and they sprinkle granulated sugar on it. I don´t remember if I mentioned it, but I found out at the beginning of the mission that our "grilled cheese maker" is a sandwich maker and it makes really good things. If you put lots of nutella in a sandwich it´s amazing.

I forgot to ask an investigator if we could help him with anything and he pointed it out. So I asked if we could help with anything and for the first time he said yes and we taught him and his brother (my first convert) how to tie a tie. It was very funny and hard. Nigerians are a very direct people and they mocked each other a lot for their mistakes and we laughed a lot. And I was on intercambios with Elder Johnson from Washington (Aunt Toni, He says he´s heard of Yakima and has been there.) and he learned a bit of Édu (A Nigerian dialect) from other investigators and these people kind of flipped out when they heard him say it. They laughed a lot too. They´re kind of a laughing people. It´s fun to be around them. 

We taught the young men this Sunday! Although one didn´t come to church so we brought church to him and we all went to his house. One guy went in first and then secretly opened the door for us and we all suprised him in his living room. It was a really strong lesson and I loved it. 

We had a small ward sports activity this morning, and we represented America with american football. Firstly, I was proud walking down the street dressed normally with a football in my hand and being a big, tall American speaking English. The football has a magical effect. But when we got there they all acted like the football was an object from space and wanted to touch it and asked how to throw it since it´s not just a normal ball. It was really funny to watch, and we all had fun today.

I hesitate to say things that will happen in the future, because they seem to realize that I mentioned them and change themselves. But I´m excited for this transfer and we´ll do good work here. I´ll be sad to leave this area when the time comes, but for now, I can enjoy it. Miss you and and love you loads!

Os quiero,
Elder Morgan

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