August 31

My companion is Hna Palma, who´s from Ecuador (in the north nearish to the coast, but I forget the city). She´s 19, really short, and already a really great missionary. We are getting along well and learning a ton together. 

First the photos:

I am the village, innumerable people
I have in my voice the sheer force
Give me your hands I see them
on the rough sand
this hand and that hand
and what it returns to be planted
I do not feel alone at night

in the darkness of the earth



We went to the Cristo with the new missionaries, just like when I arrived. The landscape hasn´t changed, but my new camera takes panaramic shots. :)

Try to find a tiny sand colored lizard in the close up shots of the ground. (Hint I can only find it in one of them.)

The laguna Alalay. Villa Mexico is one the other side of that hill. 

Selfies with Hna Palma so that we can send photos of us to our families. 

This has been a very busy week as I get used to being a trainer and Hna Palma gets used to being a missionary. I´ve learned a ton already.

I forgot the first two days that even though she can speak Spanish and put on the appearance of participating fully in lessons, she still doesnt know what to say. When I realized that, we slowed the pace of the work down a bit and starting planning in much greater detail for each lesson, which has helped a ton. I love that she is so eager to learn everything. She easily realizes what she needs to work on and suggests that we do practices on that thing in companionship study. I´ve also realized that I´ve improved a lot since last time I was doing 12 semanas, which makes me feel confident and that this (training, missionary work in general) is something I can do.

However, this first week has been a bit stressful for the two of us and I´m really grateful for the book on adjusting to missionary life. Hna Palma´s been pretty homesick and I´m adjusting to training a new missionary. 

On the other hand, I´ve really felt the Spirit this week. I´ve felt that I could understand the problems and concerns of the investigators better than usual. Especially on Friday, we could see the hand of the Lord. As we were walking to visit someone with a sister from the ward, I suddenly remembered a reference we had recieved for Alberto in the house we were passing. We stopped to ask if he was home and he was and invited us up to talk. We got to know Alberto and discovered that the member used to be a member of the same church where he goes now and she was able to share the story of her conversion. Alberto still has lots of question and doubts, but this was a great start with him. That same day in the night as we were walking to the pension we passed by a former investigator, Marco. We said hi and starting to pass by, but I felt that we should cross the street and go talk to him. We had stopped visiting Marco because he never ever was home even when we had a set appointment. However, he told us that he´s kept reading the Book of Mormon and is now in Alma and really likes it. 

Not everything is perfect. One of our best progressing investigators, Gonzalo, told us on Sunday that he´s not going to have time to meet with us anymore, which really broke my heart. It came out of no where. 

Being punctual with the morning schedule is also a lot harder than I thought it would be. Hna Palma just isn´t used to following a strict schedule and we run late for just about everything. I want to set a good example and get her in the habit of being punctual, but I also want to be sensitive to her feelings and needs. I think in this coming week we´ll be able to be more strict the schedule.

In all we are off to a good start and getting along great. 

Congratulations on beating croo in volleyball. It sounds like you had a great time. Next year I´ll be there too, although I don´t promise to help much in volleyball.

Wow, Charles is really starting college. Lots of luck for him. I think he´ll have a great time. Please send me plenty of photos. I´ve never seen Princeton in person. Also, Charles, what are you thinking of studying? What classes are you going to take?