(Sorry for dropping the ball a bit on posting Jordan's letters! I promise to post them as soon as they're emailed. - Melyn)
Thank you mom so much for the oreo recipe! Haha, that makes me happy! Before I forget... There was a piano song at the MTC that I LOVED, that I need to learn for Sacrament meetings and things like that. It was called : Oh How Lovely Was The Morning. There´s probably a ton of songs called that, but it´s just straight piano, and it´s GORGEOUS. Wow.. It´s been such an interesting week here in Esquel!
So Tuesday morning we had to get up really early like always to meet our new companions! E. Sharp was with me in the new area, and E. Syddall with E. Rojas. I was so ready to get to the terminal to meet E. Sharp, but E. Rojas had to go the the bathroom... In the new house, there was a problem with the bathroom door, and I had told him not to close it all the way, or else he´d be locked into the bathroom and wouldn´t be able to get out. Guess what he did? ..... Yeah, he got stuck in the bathroom. Dang kid!! So after 20 minutes of helping him squeeze through a tiny little window in the back of the bathroom... We got to the terminal to see our new comps waiting for us. E. Sharp is tall, not as tall as me, but tall enough. He´s a distance runner... Blegh!... ;) And likes a lot of the same things I do. I was SO happy to see my new comp, and turn E. Rojas over to E. Syddall, because however you look at it... 3 months with him was enough. Ha. So we took all of his stuff to the new apartment where the Hermana missionaries were living, then we went to the house and grabbed all my stuff. It´s exactly like you said it, Mom... It was such a pain to pack up everything that I had just unpacked. :/ Haha. But, anyway.. We got to the apartment and had to clean it up a little bit.. I´m seriously disappointed in the sister missionaries... It was a pig sty! We were cleaning until lunch time, finding long girl-hairs in every crook and cranny, throwing away the extra tampons they had..( Oh PLEASE!!!) Stuff like that. It was terrible. But, we got it all into order and went to lunch. The problem is that the apartment is very small... I didn´t have any space to put my suit cases! So for the first few days.. They were sitting in the kitchen, on the floor. Anyway, we began to explore the new area on Tuesday. It was very, very interesting, because usually at least one of the Elders knows the area, the investigators, members, etc. E. Sharp and me? Nope! It didn´t help either that in all the information the hermanas left us, there were hardly any addresses! I´ve "Whitewashed" an area before, and I´ve been wondering why Pres. Peterson put a new missionary in a whitewash, but whatever. Cliff Maxwell, did you whitewash as a missionary at all? It´s... interesting. This first week has just been finding everything. Even when we have the address for someone, the system here is all names and neighborhoods, not numbers. So even if we found neighborhood Baden 1... Where the heck is that?! Haha! I´ve never asked so many people for directions in my life... It´s such a hit on the pride... ;) Ha!
We decided to go meet our Branch President and let him know that we´re here to work and help him build the Branch. We had a good meeting with him. He´s very short, is 26 yrs. old, married, has a fohawk, and huge coke bottle glasses that magnifies his eyes really big. He´s such a stud! Haha, His name is Pres. Russo. We will work well together, because he went on the mission, and so he understands exactly what it is we do and how to help us do it. So he gave us a bunch of names of people to visit, and directions... After that, his brother in law took us for a tour of the area in his car. Our area is about 2 and a half times the size of my first area, it´s HUGE! I´m so happy, because there´s a lot more beautiful things in this part, more people, more houses... A lot more potential. After the tour began the fun week of walking... and walking... and walking! We both bought ourselves personal maps, and I´ll bet it was so odd for so many people to see these two men in suits on a street corner, their heads buried in big sheets of paper! Ha!
The members are very nice, they help out a lot. We´ve got lunch every day like in the other area which is a definite bonus... E. Sharp and I on Friday were knocking doors and this guy named Leandro opened up to us. He said: I was just studying the Bible... Want to come in? We had a lesson about the BoM, prophets, and the Restoration. He took the BoM and accepted a baptismal date for the 8 of October! We put it so late because we haven´t met the wife, don´t know if they smoke or drink.. Things like that. He´s got three boys. One that´s 7 months, 1 yr. 7 months, and 7 yrs. old. Good guy. I´m excited to begin working with him and his family so he and his wife can make the date for the 8th!
Oh! Something I forgot to say... The first night in the new apartment, we got ready for bed. E. Sharp chose the bottom part of the bunk bed, so I had the fun opportunity to have the top. Obviously, as someone like me who can jump, Oh so High... ;) I decided to jump onto the top part of the bunk bed to go to sleep! Bad Choice. I snapped the supporting beam... And slept on the floor that night, and the next three nights... Hahaha! Also, we were talking to a sister member out on the street, when a guy on a motorcycle drove by, screaming at the top of his lungs... SATAN SATAN SATAN!!!!! It was so funny!!! Haha, we laughed about it as "Mormons"... Ha. Sunday was a tough day. Sundays are usually the worst, because people are either sleeping, or not at home, or don´t want to talk to anyone that´s not family. After lunch... We walked. That was our entire day, basically. We went to every less active, every investigator, and every person we could think of, and we didn´t get into anything. We were DEAD by the time we got to the apartment. I don´t know how far we walked, but it was far. I wish I had a pedometer to know how much I walk a day, it would be interesting to see!
E. Sharp is a very good companion. We get along great. He´s from Arizona, was born in Alaska... He likes working out, eating... He´s got a sarcastic attitude which makes good for some fun jokes, something I couldn´t do with E. Rojas because Spanish jokes and English jokes just aren´t the same. He´s a little fidgety, and doesn´t like to get into peoples way, but that´s why he´s got me! Haha. I´ll probably only be here in Esquel 1 for one transfer... After that I´ll prob be transferred somewhere else and leave behind good ól E. Sharp. Sorry I didn´t send any pictures... I really didn´t take many this week. I´ll get betta! ;)
Well, life as a missionary is as fun as ever. It´s exhausting, but rewarding. I began to see a lot of the good I had did in the other branch, because now whenever I see any of the wonderful members from that branch, they come up and are so happy to see me. Nicol, my stud who was baptized, he saw me in the street yesterday, and BOOKED it to me and gave me a huge hug. The same happened the day before with his little sister Emily. She ran as fast as those little legs could carry her and hugged my legs... It puts such a smile on my face to know that I´m not a burden for these wonderful people. I love the people here... I´ve fallen in love already with this country and the people. They´re incredibly kind, and always smiling. I love the mission. I´m so excited for this transfer with E. Sharp. We´re going to do good things here, I know it. Please continue to pray for me... I need every prayer I can get. I read the BoM in 3 weeks... I LOVE that book! I have such a testimony about it... I´ve started D&C, and am very excited to learn more about it. Keep sending the letters... I love you all.
E. Cuthbert
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