Week 7 - First week in the field

It was so hard waiting so long without hearing how Ethan was doing. It was great to hear from him today! It sounds like he's near the city of Chiclayo, to the north. I am so grateful to know he has a nice companion! 

"I am writing a letter now I think I can only send one because I don't have very much time. I had to write a letter to the president in Spanish and that took a while.

Hi how is it going? I am adjusting to the new things here My companion and my trainer is Elder Fernandez. He is from Cochabamba Bolivia, and he has been out for 5 almost 6 months, and I am his first person that he is training. He is actually a pretty great person. I was pretty nervous at first because I didn't know how to talk to him but he actually knows a lot of English and wants to learn more. He probably knows as much English as I Know Spanish. So when we walk and talk he will try to talk to me in English and I try to talk back in Spanish. Other than that him and the other missionaries in our district are pretty fun. There is one more elder in our district besides me that is white. Elder smith. He is from Arizona too and was just in the group of missionaries the left for the field the day that I went to the CCM. He has been having some of the same problems that I have with missing home, so it is kind of nice to talk to him when we get to see each other. Our pensionist is a family with two kids who are like 5 and 2, they are very nice and fun to be around even though I can't understand them fully yet.

Our apartment we where in was really bad. I would feel more comfortable sleeping in one of the containers, but we moved into a different one today that is really nice. The rooms are just me and my companion. The area that I am in is Tarapaca, in the little town that is just north of Chiclayo called Ferreñafe. It is pretty dirty and the people here are pretty poor. I'm still trying to figure it out because people live in these apartment rooms with dirt or concrete floors but all of them have flatscreen tvs and smartphones. Everyone here is pretty excited as well because if Perú beats New Zealnad in the next soccer game they get to go to the World Cup for the first time in 35 years.

 Spanish is coming along but it is pretty difficult. Especially since everyone speaks so fast and all of the words blend together and seem like one really long word to me. This Sunday was a stake conference that they broadcasted in our building from the stake center that is 20 minutes away but no one here has cars. They broadcasted it through skype with south american internet so it was pretty bad quality, and i could not understand the Spanish at all. The members are pretty nice and help us with a lot of things. We had a missionary night on Friday and only one of our investigators showed up, but lots of members. The people here are pretty different, they will listen to our lessons and say that they will keep letting us teach but trying to get them to do stuff is a challenge. They wont show up to church or read, or pray, except for a few that are doing well. I will try to send a few pictures but i'm not sure how it will do since the internet is slow. Thank you for all of the emails, and I'm sorry that i don't have time to reply to everyone. I miss everyone so much and love you all. 

Bye, Ethan

Ethan with his district.

Ethan with his trainer Elder Fernandez.