2013-04-09 2nd p-day in Peru

Elder Howlett with Elder Dallin Olson from AZ

Hey,

To answer some of your questions, yes my p-day at the MTC is Tuesday.  No I have not received any pouch mail but neither has anyone else.  I think it is just slow (2ish weeks I think).  Maddy was on my flight.  We had seats together from SLC to LAX. I don’t have a recuerdos book yet.  Spanish is coming along.  I know it a lot better than most of the other North Americans here.  I can’t remember what picture you even saw where I was still in a suit, sorry.  No proselyting yet because it was General Conference but we will a week from Saturday.  We aren’t allowed to eat anything at the investigators’ houses though.  I don’t have any trouble sleeping.  Having every minute of every day planned with things to do wears me out.  Yes keep telling others to write through dearelder.  Thanks for the pictures.

General Conference at the MTC is awesome and it’s a lot easier to pay attention in a room full of missionaries than a room full of my family.  I did miss eating while I watched though.  I really liked the talk by the guy in the presiding bishopric during priesthood session.  I missed his name and just called him next guy in my notes.  Elder Holland’s talk was great too.  A few days before conference we watched a talk by Elder Bednar about developing the character of Christ.  It is one of my favorite talks I’ve ever heard.  If you can find it you should watch it.  I think it was given at the MTC in Provo around Christmas of 2011.  Hey Grandma Marie, do you remember that one talk we watched at your house where a prophet or apostle just talked about what all the other prophets had liked?  That was the most fun talk I’ve ever watched.

I love my district.  We spend almost all day together every day so that’s a good thing.  Class is a blast.  I can feel the spirit all of the time and it is still a ton of fun.  The language barrier between us and the teachers is pretty big.  We accidently told them that in America we call poor people Peruvians.  oops.  I have no idea why they called to test my Spanish and said I would be in the intermediate class.  I think they must have thought I was still going to Provo, because we all learn the same things. 

The weather here is great in the morning and night.  Mom, you would love it at night.  It gets a little too hot in the afternoons though.  Unfortunately that is when we have our physical activity time.  I play basketball, soccer or volleyball every day.  I’ve played soccer the most just because that’s what most people usually want to play.  The basketball court floor is like a glossy concrete.  It could double as an ice skating rink.  I think that was a pretty poor idea. 

The drinking fountains here have two buttons, one for cold and one for warm water.  That seemed pretty cool at first but it turns out that in order to get enough water pressure to drink you have to hold them both down and you get warmish water by default.

It turns out that I actually enjoy writing in my journal most nights.

Today is kind of sad because all of the Latinos left this morning.  They are only here for two weeks.  Our roommates were awesome.  They both spoke English, one of them completely fluent.  They apparently listen to a lot of American music in South America because they know all of the popular songs.  One of them also knows the words to every Disney movie song in Spanish and English.  Pretty impressive. I’m going to miss them and I hope we get good roommates to replace them.  I heard that they are having trouble getting visas so we only have 9 North Americans coming tomorrow. 

Food here is usually good except for the eggs at breakfast.  They cook the fried eggs so long that cutting through them is similar to cutting through the toughest steak you ever had.  They have probably 25 different kinds of juices and 2 at every meal.  Most of them are really good and you can tell that they are all completely natural.  The orange juice and strawberry juice are probably my favorite.  They have delicious bread with every meal.

I think you can keep mailing things here until I only have two weeks left, then you should switch to the Bolivia mission.

Love,

Elder Howlett

the street that the missionaries walk from bus to temple