That Child of His

Querido familia,
Aquí estoy otra vez en el locutorio con los ordenadores que no
funcionan. Esta semana pasada volió super rápido. Me quedo aquí en
Hospitalet pero ahora yo tengo otro compañero se llama Elder Bodily.
Él es de Utah y es super listo. Vamos a tener éxito juntos. Alright,
if you can understand that I will be impressed! I got the package
with the peanut butter and the Ensign and the pictures. I still
haven´t opened the peanut butter yet - the more I´m on the mission the
more I realize I´m like dad - I have to hang up my towel so it dries
out, I don´t sleep as well at night when I don´t scrub my feet before
going to bed. Love ya dad. I think today I will have a good peanut
butter and jelly sandwich with all the Elders in our piso. I think
they´ll like that.
Anyway, this past week was just a joy. I really enjoyed it. On
Lunes, we had two Noche de Hogars, and it was fabulous. The members
here are wonderful. They always feed us, and they love the
missionaries, and we love them. They are all such examples, and they
have such beautiful families. So on Martes we had our thanksgiving
dinner, and we bought a 4.7 kilo turkey, and Elder Booher cooked it.
He spent so long preparing it. Elder Booher is quite the cook, it´s
really impressive. He is not with us anymore, he has left and has
gone to a different area in the mission, but my seven weeks with him
were great. He cooked so well. For the dinner, Elder Atkin and I
were in charge of chocolate chip cookies. So we made the cookies, but
we didn´t put in enough flour, so we put the cookies in the oven, they
melted into a big pool, so we poured it back into the bowl, added more
flour, and cooked the cookies. We were so worried about how they
would turn out, and they turned out to be such a hit. It was so good
to celebrate thanksgiving. It was kind of cool to that a bunch of
American missionaries were in a little chapel in Hospitalet eating
mashed potatoes, turkey, pumpkin pie, cookies. It was way good.
After the dinner, I went on intercambios with Elder Booher for two
days, and it was good. We talked to a lot of people. I never thought
I´d say this, but knocking doors is pretty fun. You really never know
who you are going to get, who is going to answer the door on the other
side. Most of the time, people are pretty rude, but some times people
are pretty nice. We had a good time together, Elder Booher and I.
I´ll miss him a lot, especially his cooking! Our eating habits are
going to go way down!
So on thursday, we kind of had a tough day. We had seven visits set
up, and all of them seemed pretty solid, but only two showed up. It
was a little bit of a struggle, but it was good. Those days that are
hard are the days that you remember. Elder Hansen and I still worked
hard, and we enjoyed our time in the street we had. It´s so fun
talking to people. There are so many people that just blow you off,
but when you find someone who will talk to you, it´s wonderful.
People can still tell I´m an American when I talk, because of my
accent, so that´s something that I´m going to try really hard to work
on.
On friday, the same thing happened. We had seven visits set up, and
this time only 4 stood us up. It was still good though. We are
working with this Menos Activo guy named Salva, and he is a good guy.
He is a Spaniard, and he doesn´t have upper teeth and so it´s nearly
impossible to understand him, but he juts loves the missionaries,
feeds us scary lamb loins and sheep cheese (nasty!). He has quite a
few problemos, but we are working with him on that. The Lord loves
this child of His.
Then, we had a visit with a member that night, Felicidad, and on my
right toe, my toenail was starting to hurt, and so she fixed it up,
because that is what she does for her job. She gave me some good
hints to take care of my feet. People are really nice to the
missionaries!
On saturday, we had a really good day. We had our Dominican friend,
Victor, and he is just great. He loves the missionaries, tells his
nephew that he needs to come to church and get baptized so he can go
on a mission, and wants to be baptized himself so bad, but he has to
get divorced from his second wife first. The change we´ve seen in him
is incredible. Only the gospel can do that. Then, we had a visit
with a 12 year old Chilena girl sho is inactive, and it was crazy
because Annie is older than her! Annie is probably getting so big,
isn´t she? This girl is really shy, and it made me think - if two
foreign missionaries came and visited Annie, she´d probably be pretty
shy too wouldnt she? I love the people here.
Then, Saturday night, we went and taught a lesson to the mom, the
teenage daughter, and the Dora the Explorer look a like in the house
of a member. We did this activity called Señor Huevo, and it explains
the gospel of Jesus Christ, and how they are certain things that we
have to do in order to enter into the kingdom of God. You use and
egg, and it won´t fit in with the shell, so you have to take off the
shell. Still doesn´t fit. Needs baptism, dunk it in water. Still
doesn´t fit. Needs the holy ghost, drop some matches in, and it fits.
Then you put the lid on, and that´s perserverar hasta el fin
(preserve to the end? I don´t know how to say it in English!) The
family didn´t seem like they were getting it, but we found out later
that they understand perfectly. The member family was great, and they
helped us so much. The mom and two daughters made up some lame excuse
not to come to church. Pretty much, they hated church. Can you
believe that! We had a visit with them yesterday though, and we
sorted everything out . They want to be baptized so bad, that they are
willing to work through this whole thing of church. We´re just going
to keep working with them, and they should be baptized the 11th or
18th of December.
On Sunday, we didn´t have any visits all day. We spent the whole
afternoon after church passing by people, and no one would let us in.
It was okay though, we got some good street work done and talked to
some pretty good people in the street. Elder Hansen has really taught
me a lot about street contacting. It´s fun to talk to people about
the gospel.
So yesterday we had a neat experience. We were in the house of a guy
we talked to on the street, Victor, another Dominicano that we are
teaching, and we find out that the woman he lives with almost got
baptized back in her country. We were excited to work with them, and
then all of a sudden this guy comes through the door, someone who also
lives in the apartment. We just ran back to his room, and we didn´t
think anything of it. We continued talking to the Dominicans, and
then the guy came out and said, "hey, you guys are Mormons right?"
"Uh, yeah we are, why?" "Well I studied with Mormons about 3 years
ago and I´ve been looking for some more missionaries to come and teach
me. I almost got baptized!" We were very excited. It was really a
neat experience, and we´re visiting all of them tomorrow. It should
be really good.
So last night, also was the Barcelona Madrid soccer game here in
Barcelona. So basically once the game started at 9, there was not a
soul in the street. We would walk around, and the town would explode
at different times, and we knew that Barc scored. It was awesome. We
did not get any work done during this time, but Elder Hansen and I had
a good time in the street walking around looking for people.
So yeah, everything is going great here on the mission. I see
miracles everyday, I have a new companion now, I´m still here in
Hospitalet, my Spanish is improving slowly, we´re excited for this
upcoming transfer. Basically it´s just wonderful.
That makes me really happy that you had the missionaries over for
breakfast! I bet they loved that. Keep being great family.
For Christmas, I really don´t know what I need! I have basically
everything. I really do. Maybe I´ll think of something and let you
know. Thanks so much for the package! I loved it.
And it´s crazy that one year ago tomorrow, I broke my arm in Provo.
Look at how far I´ve come in one year. I can do hard things with the
Lord´s help. Without Aunt Lisa and dad, I don´t know if I would have
made it! That was a trying time - get dad to tell you about when I
was all depressed. It makes me smile. The challenges we have in life
are all for our good. Well I have to go, next week I´ll send
pictures. Keep being great, love you all.
Love,
Elder Pericle