Salta Gringo!

Hello family of mine!!

Well, this week was AWESOME!! But super slow honestly... the weeks were like days with Elder Corpona and now they shot back to normal a bit. haha but things are going super well.

This next week will be an interesting one. Today I am off to Piura for a District Leader Training, my favorite meetings in the mission so far, and also I need to start doing a little bit of training about the weekly planning session with my district. But I love the work here!!

Elder Encarnacion is seriously the coolest. He talks really really fast, but that is helping me with my Spanish. Right now I honestly feel like I can understand 95% of everything. Well, then there are those days where Spanish just doesn't come out of my mouth and I turn super Gringo. haha but with Elder Encarnacion I am growing to understand more and more and also talk with more fluency.

But he is just a fireball for finding new people. This week we found a spectacular family!! They live real close to our apartment and just understand everything! So we are going to really start working with them. In that famly, there are the parents, with their three children 18, 13, and 6. So we will be working with them.

R. never attended church. And now she is studying in the afternoons in college. And so after this being like her 4th time with a baptismal date falling, and 3 or 4 years as an investigator I've been told, yeah we are going to put her on hold for a little bit. A great family, but right now we need to find the chosen ones for right now. Their time will come.

J. is doing real great. He wants us to talk to his wife, who is always busy doing stuff when we visit. She is having a real rough time with all that's going on. So that is the goal for this week. We really think they could progress super fast. And his wife already loves it when we pass by.

Now in our district we got ELDER WILSON!!! He is fresh out from Meridian, Idaho!! He now has one week in the mission field and we are helping him out with his Spanish. He is the man, seriously. He worked on the farm, loves to hunt, played linebacker in football, he is so great. And for never having studied Spanish before, he is learning real fast.

One of the big laughs this week was when the 6 of us missionaries were invited to lunch on Saturday. Here there is something called Aceituna. It is an olive, but they call it the death of Gringos. It is nasty. Suuuuuuper bitter and just gross. But we show up and they serve us this meal with an aceituna on top. And we were all like "Hey, Elder Wilson, do you like Aceituna?"

"Wha-?"

"It's like an olive. It's suuuper delicious!! Try it! Try it!"

"Ok." and he puts a whole aceituna in his mouth, then we watch him fight to swallow it down and we are all laughing, it was quite comical. We shouldn't take advantage of the greenies like that, but I'm sure one day he will get a laugh out of that. Every North American passes through it.

Another fun thing was during proselyting. In our area they are always doing huge plumbing jobs, so the dirt roads always have their trenches and massive dirt mounds and such. And a couple times this week Elder Encarnacion and I talk about jumping the gap of these deep holes. And there was one time where he went and jumped it. Then I am getting all ready, backing up to get some space, game face, then I run but chicken out in the last moment. All the people in the street start laughing at me. A couple days later, the same thing happens. But this time I am backing up and getting ready, and this guy repairing a roof a couple houses down starts yelling "Salta Gringo! Salta Gringo! Salta Salta!!" (Salta means Jump) so then I was determined. I had to make it. So then I jump and stumblingly land on the other side. But I made it. The crowds here sure get a kick out of the Utah boy. But Elder Encarnacion and I were always laughing this week.

What was the most difficult thing you experienced this past week?

The most difficult? Hmm... probably the usual. Visits falling through. Here the people tell you they are going to do something then they never do. I just get frustrated. But we just keep working hard, I am growing and learning from them. One of the biggest and greatest lessons I have learned in the mission is the law of obedience and the law of sacrifice. Now I am working hard to help these wonderful people learn as well.

Well, all is going well! I am also now teaching Family History classes in the ward, man I love that topic now so much! It is so awesome. Approximating dates, how to find, it is all so fun! You should all get a hold of that stuff! And I think Mom, you mentioned indexing! That is the best!!! I cannot wait until Tumbes gets it's indexing done... we need it here.

Well, that is a couple things about what it happening in my neck of the woods! Hope all is going well back home!! I love you all, keep being awesome!

Atte:

Elder Russell

(Collin downloaded these pictures a couple of weeks ago … there were 20 similar shots. It makes me smile to see their enthusiasm and to think of Collin getting everyone lined up for jumping -- he's a funny boy! :)