Week 1 - First week at the CCM

Wednesday is finally here! I was waiting by the computer ALL day to hear from Ethan. His email finally came around 1:00. It was so good to hear from him and see his smiling face! He sounds amazing. Here is his letter home this week:

"Hey how is it going? It was fun reading all of the emails. I'm also sorry if words are misspelled or grammar is weird because the keyboards have are a little different and have extra letters and symbols, and learning Spanish is kind of making me forget some English.The CCM is wonderful. The food here is pretty good, it is a lot of rice and potatoes, usually with some kind of meat and sauce or gravy. I tried some Inca Kola and it is actually pretty good it tastes like bubble gum.

 Spanish is hard but probably not as bad as Japanese. It is a little bummer because almost everyone has had Spanish classes in school before they got here, and that German class I took doesn't really help. All of the teachers and workers and leaders speak only in Spanish, with only small amounts of English.I am doing better though, I can say a prayer and start a conversation with people. Everyone here is super nice, all of the workers and native missionaries love the gringos. There are a lot of Latinos here too, but they are all from South America or Central America, none from mexico. they are all super friendly and help us to learn Spanish, and we have taught them some English words too. last Friday we had to do a first practice lesson with an investigator in Spanish, and I had no clue what was going on. We did another on Monday and then we have one tonight the should go better.

General Conference was in English and it was great. I payed much more attention to it than i ever had before. we took lots of notes and it is great that I can go back to read them again. We also have devotionals every once in a while that are broadcasted from the provo mtc. Last night we watched one from Elder Cook. Did you know that he was companions with Elder Holland on his mission? We also got to go to the temple this morning, and it was amazing. It is very pretty and a little small. Then I went to the distribution center and got another mesh top because it is very nice to have down here.

My companion is Elder Miller, from Boulder city, Nevada. He is pretty nice and is learning Spanish the same as me. You can probably see him in the picture that we took at the Temple this morning.

 Lima,Perú is very nice. It stays about 65 all the time and is always foggy. It is very dusty and old though. We went to a government building to get paperwork done for our visas on Monday, and the inside and outside reminded me of a filibertos or carolinas. Good thing we dont have to do tile down here as well, because it is everywhere. Every room and building on the outside and inside has tile. Sorry if the email is a little rushed, we dont have too much time and there is a lot to say."

I am so happy he doing well! It made me laugh that he thinks the government building reminded him of Filibertos! Ha ha! We are definitely spoiled here with nice buildings. I miss him and am already excited for next week. 

Love his name tag!

Ethan and his companion Elder Miller.

Ahh...I love this sweet face!

He's been dying to try Inca Kola for months. Now all the rest of the kids want to try it! I'll have to see if I can find it around town somewhere. Ethan said it tastes like bubble gum!