Sunday, July 29, 2012

One month down - 23 more to go!

Hey guys!
It's been a month. A whole month. And it’s gone by so slowly. But it's also gone by so fast. It's been a very weird experience to say the least. I got your Pioneer Day package late, but it was still very well received! Thank you for keeping me in the loop of what goes on in the real world. I did think about the trek a little bit during the devotional.

Before I start, thanks everyone for the letters! Brother Mayo and Erin, you two especially, I am hand writing letters to you right now as well but you two deserved shout-outs.
This week has been a fun one. I got my haircut on Tuesday! It is suuuuper short. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am one dang good-looking missionary, when I have short hair. The guy who cut it was really good. He didn’t use scissors once! He was incredibly deft with the clippers and fast too.  Mom, I think you should take some lessons :) The sisters were quite happy because they had been telling us that we needed trims for a very long time. I was starting to look especially shaggy. But now, no more.

Something else that was really fun was on Wednesday I got to play volleyball with some native speakers. They were all from Mexico, which was super cool. One guy only knew like 20 English words but every time I hit it he would yell “dream team!” which made me super happy and a little bit ashamed. I definitely did not deserve his praise. We played hard. We lost our first two games badly, but after we had a huddle in Spanish and switched up our game plan a little bit, we came back to win the next 3 in a row and were kings of the court by the time gym ended. That was a good day.

I hate to stereotype, but I am going to. All the Mexican people I have met and talked with here are so sweet. They have a happiness and a politeness that I'm not really used to. When I talk with them they are always excited (or act that way) to talk to me and to ask how I am doing and have been. I hope that the people of Las Vegas are like that as well.  I think I already said that but oh well.

Last night was hilarious. I am the closest to the elders on our floor out of my companionship, so sometimes some of the elders come and talk to me about my week or day or other stuff. I was chilling last night before quiet time with Elder Shields and we were talking about the MTC and our missions when suddenly one of the guys yelled “jousting” and on cue a bunch of half naked representatives of Jesus Christ appeared and they started jumping on each others’ back in like chicken fight positions. Elder Shields apologized and said that he had to emcee and then he went in the middle of the hall and called out companionships to run down the hall at each other. The top man held out his fist and tried to knock the other elder off the opposing charging "horse." It was completely not allowed but I must admit it was hilarious to watch. It was kinda like wipeout but in a hallway. I dunno, if I would have been allowed to videotape it I would have.

Saturday Smackdown ended on Thursday, as silly as that sounds and it was actually really sad. Our district has gotten really close to the ones that do Saturday Smackdown and they all leave Monday so that will be sad to see them go. But I'll survive, its just weird to like make these temporary friends. It’s been fun though.
This letter has been super lame. I don't know why. Sorry in advance.
Thanks for the poem and oath. I liked reading them a lot. I don’t’ know why I wanted to read those two things but I wanted to really bad.

Things are weird here. I want to go out and start serving and helping people but I also know that I wouldn't be able to do as good of a job as I want to. I've been practicing for a month to make people happy and bring families together but right now I don’t really get to do that so it's hard. It's not hard to focus cause I have goals and so it’s just hard to not get too anxious to be out in the field.

Kate - thanks for the letter again. You write good letters and I know how you feel. Most of my journal entries are "I want to write stuff, but we did the same thing again today. I'll try to write more tomorrow" but thanks, Kate, for just telling me all of it. I liked it a lot. Good luck on getting that license :)

Jacob - Thanks for writing in Spanish. It's pretty good practice to read it. Good job on winning the song thing and the I spy the dead guy too. I'd have believed you. Shame on you, dad.

I'm trying hard to think of things to write about or what to say. I guess I'll just write about Elder Harvey.

He and I are getting really close. We are pretty similar guys so we have a lot of fun and a lot of jokes. The Sisters say that we can read each other’s minds which is of course only half true. Humans cant read minds, that's silly. We always talk about our pasts and stuff and we both like a lot of the same things. It's nothing super, super exciting but he's a good guy and I like him a lot. I think we'd be good companions in the field. I like Elder Noyes too! He's a good guy as well but Elder Harvey and I are just closer.

Ahhh!!! I don’t want to waste this valuable letter writing time because I miss everybody so much!

It's been interesting being this away from everything. Some things fade away and other things have come up more strongly than they have before. I don't have lots of time or anything to sit and think about home or anything like that but when I do I think about the more important things... if that makes sense. I don’t know how to properly explain it. I guess since I've been out here I can think about things more clearly and I wish I could have done that in the months before and the years before I came out here. I hope that kind of makes sense to anyone reading that at home.
People like my Zelda shirt a lot. I think I already said that but whenever I wear it people get really happy and start talking to me. I hope when I get out to the real world having the name of Jesus Christ on my shirt will do the same thing. I am skeptical but when I am done I'd like to have helped people get that excited. If every time someone saw his name they got that excited I would have done my job.
I've been thinking about my goals for these next 23 months and that really sums it up. I just wanna share the good news. Share the joy. Bring the happiness of families and hope to everyone I possibly can.
Yeah. That sounds about right. I want to make people happy.
But you all knew that, that's my life goal too.
Anyway....
I love and miss you all so much
Estoy mas perdido que los hijos de la llorona
but not really 
:)
Sam

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