Hola,
Well, another week has come and gone. A lot of things have happened this last week. One week ago, I was junior comp, and now I'm training. I must admit, it's been a bit of a system shock, both physically and spiritually. I meant to ask you guys to guess whether my new companion was going to be american or latino, but the time has passed. So, here it comes. My new companion is... Elder Hall. He is from Arkansas, and speaks virtually no Spanish. He's a good guy, and he's trying hard, but he's had a kind of rough first week. This week we basically did a treasure hunt, which we kind of lost. By the end of the week we had found out where most of the investigators they left us lived, but we weren't able to teach very many lessons. Not everything was bad though. We found a great new family to teach. We talked to the grandpa in the street on Wednesday, and set up an appointment for Friday. We got there on Friday, and when we came in we got a pretty good shock. The grandpa and his wife were there, along with their son and his wife, and 7 or 8 grandkids (Not all of them from the same parents). We ended up teaching the first lesson to the grandparents and parents and two of the older kids. We have another appointment with them tomorrow, and we'll see how everything goes, but I have faith that they are going to progress. Part of the problem this last week is that we didn't have a ward directory, and the members that the last missionaries told us could help us went to Morelos for a few days for a young single adult activity. But they're back now, and we have the directory, so everything should hopefully go smoother from here on out.
Well, other than that things were pretty good this week. I'm still getting used to the whole training thing, but it's been fun so far. I would have liked to have been able to know the area beforehand, but ultimately the Lord knows what He is doing. Still, Elder Hall and I get along pretty well so far. To be honest, I'm kind of glad I got an american to train. It allows me to share the things that I have learned, having been in his position about a year ago. Not that I have anything against latinos, it's just that they have different challenges, and I might not be able to help them as well as I can an american. It's also kind of nice since he's my second american companion in my entire mission. It's also fun to see the mistakes he makes. (Greenie Spanish mistakes can be pretty funny. The other day he was trying to say disculpe, which means exuse me, but he ended up saying escupeme, which means spit on me.)
As far as the ward goes, it's pretty good. It's one of the stronger wards I've seen, a staple of the stake where I'm serving, called Solidaridad. Anyways, the ward is called Independencia. Like I was saying, it's a fairly strong ward, although not very punctual. Our area is pretty far from the chaple though, which kind of sucks. We live about 30 minutes walking distance from the chaple, and our area is even farther away. I'm hoping to find some public transportation that passes by the chaple, for the sake of the investigators. Other than that though, things are pretty good in the ward here. We live next door to members, which is always nice. They're not the most active members I've met, but the less actives love the missionaries here, so that's OK. (We were actually talking about how weird that is. I've never been a missionary in the states, but in my experience the less actives usually want nothing to do with the church. I guess I'd have to ask the missionaries there how the less actives recieve them.)
That's about it for news on my part. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find somebody to help us out to call home on mothers day. I'm going to talk to our neighbors, and I'll try to get news to you as soon as I can. It's been kind of hard this week since we didn't know anybody, and I really don't know how it's going to work out. I'm sure the Lord will provide a way though. If worse comes to worse, we'll go to an internet cafe to call home. Today we found out that we can call home Saturday or Sunday, so if that ends up being the case it would be on Saturday. I'll let you know as soon as I have word, I just wasn't expecting to end up in a situation like this so soon to mother's day.
I love you so much. If all goes according to plan I'll talk to you this weekend.
Love,
Elder Samuel Long
PS Here is a picture of my new companion Elder Hall
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