Written November 10, 2014

New Tijuana Temple

Family,

Grandma, that sounds like a hell on earth (what you said about every other day seems like it is Sunday). Just kidding, I just thought that would sound funny. Tell Ryan and Vanessa congratulations for me, please. Also, they use chiles in everything, and I have learned a bunch of types of chiles, so we will see what we can do, but that is one of the good parts of salsa. Thank you ahead of time for the birthday present, Grandma and Grandpa! Love you guys a lot!

Dad, yeah I hope Ben doesn´t get sick either. Josh is too hard on himself and Aaron just wants to have a romance movie. I really want to go to the temple, so cool that you always get to go. 

You absolutely have to have members to teach and I would rather they were present to fellowship even if they didn´t teach at all, but sometimes they aren´t very social and that stinks. If people told us they didn´t want us to come, then it would be easier, but we are polite and they are polite and it is hard to tell sometimes. But after a while I lose my patience and ask if they want us to keep coming, haha. I think I am going to celebrate my thanksgiving next week and my birthday the week after, because it makes sense to use stuff before a transfer and buy ice cream right after one. Love you too!

Josh, Learn Spanish. Also, I don´t want a mustache as much (but you are right that it would lower you to a 5 or less). But something I was thinking about was shaving every day, except one hair and seeing how long it grows, but I just have to find one that my collar hides as a missionary. 

Mom, that is funny about the presents (i am trying to be discrete so I don´t ruin it). If you want you can send puffed rice balls or no bake cookies or something else, like gingerbread cookies, whatever you feel like. I like all of those things a lot. Ben is going to kill himself by overdosing on Airborne.

Thise wekk (look! I learned to speak german or something):

Turns out the honey that I really like is just honey-flavored corn syrup but  I didn´t know because it is deli packaged. (first world problems). (but who am I kidding?, it´s probably basically the same as pasteurized honey, unless you believe all that propaganda. But it just doesn´t taste the same now that I know.)

It turns out that fruit and nuts have a tone of sugar and fat too. But somehow I feel better about eating 30 g of sugar and tons of fat in unsweetened dried mangos and almonds than junk food.

Our investigator Araceli that was going to get baptized didn´t pass her interview, but it is really good because she was honest. Turns out she never got divorced and is married to two people. We tried to cheer her up, because she was so ready and has such a desire to serve God. When we went to her house afterwards she prayed and thanked Heavenly Father that we talked to her that first day because she was sitting under the tree asking herself why she was in Ensenada and in such an unstable job and what she was doing here and then she asked God for a purpose and we contacted her pretty much right after that. 

But it was also a week that I felt incredibly depressed and it was the first day I was feeling better and I decided that i needed to contact more people and she was the first one I was able to contact, so I felt really touched by her prayer, because she had never really told us before, but it is like those classic missionary stories that you hear. I am glad that I was able to be the answer to a prayer.

Her husband is cool, but doesn´t want to read the book of mormon, so he isn´t going to get baptized. But her daughter, that was going with the jehovah´s witnesses and was afraid to read the book of mormon for fear of getting confused, is going to listen to us now. Which I am really happy about because that way we can keep going with Araceli to teach her while she gets her divorce settled (because sometimes leaders say we should give time to eternal investigatores and I don´t know how long this is going to take her). Please pray for her. 

I fell this morning on the stairs in our house and I think that I bruised my coccyx because it hurts to bend down and stuff and also I bruised my elbows. I think I will be okay though, but acutally I was really lucky because that is how old people die (they fall down and then they starve to death because they can only eat the grapes they can reach that fell closest to them). If you have any doubts about that, you can watch the LifeAlert commercial.

Also, a sister missionary told us about a family in the ward and she said that the wife got asked by someone she knew in the mission to marry her and that she didn´t feel bad or good about it, so she said no, and now he is a stake president and has been on 3 missions with his wife and the sister in our ward is really unhappy. So, sometimes I am afraid that I am going to miss the right person when I get back.

Sometimes I have dreams still about being home and that the time went so fast, and it is true that it does go really fast. Soemtimes it is cool because I know Spanish when I get home. Sometimes I have dreams that I am stressed out because I haven´t practiced piano the entire week because I have been so busy...

¿Cómo les va con su español, Ben y Josh?  but I don´t want to forget and you guys and my wife are my only hope (and tv).

Love you guys trainloads and just keep swimming and eternal family and

love for josh and love you more than apple pie and chevrolet and stay in the boat and the atonement and t hugs and it gets better and better and hold to the rod and love you guys and eternal family