August 4, 2014

Hello Everyone!

Yes, I now have my new comp! His name is Elder Flores and he is from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Also he doesn’t speak a lick of English. However I do have enough time here now that I can talk and understand Spanish so I can communicate with him. I still am lacking quite a few words and my grammar is not the best but it will only be getting better now that I can only speak Spanish. It’s kinda funny because I’m pretty sure this is the first full week I’ve spoken only Spanish. My zone leader and me are the only 2 English speakers in my zone now and I’ll only see him every week or so. But it’s fun with him, he's a hard worker and we get along good. Also I get the privilege of starting to teach him English so that will be fun. But yea it was nice to have 2 gringo companions because even though my Spanish didn’t progress as much as it could have I also didn’t have to suffer trying to learn the language very much. Also now that I do have a Latin comp my Spanish is good enough to be able to talk with him. The only problem is where I am people have Peruvian hick accents mixed with Kechwa so it can be hard to understand them at times but I’m getting more used to it.

Also we don’t get snow here because winter in Peru is also the dry season. I also miss the storms that we used to get every few days. Also while we were eating at our pensions' house, Mount Pucara caught on fire. I wish I had my camera to take a picture of it but by the time we got back to our house it was only smoking a little. But yea now a big chunk of the mountain is black. The wind was blowing up the mountain, though, so the flames didn’t make it to Pucara.

Ok as far as the work goes, most of this week was visiting members and leaders and making appointments with people because last week my comp was getting ready to go so we didn’t really have much time to work. Also Delia is in another town right now and won’t get back till the middle of august so that is kinda on hold for right now. But yea that’s basically everything that’s going on today. Also, this morning while we were walking home from breakfast, we passed a group of drunk people. A lady starting following us trying to get our attention. She kept telling us to come back and kept calling me che, which in Argentina means dude. I guess she thought I was Argentinean.

But yea I love you all and will write you next week.

Elder Halverson