E-mail Oct 11, 2010

Dear all,
Well, I´m not sure I have quite as much to share as I did last week, but I will try to share some of the experiences. So first, I am sure learning a lot with training. Every day is a struggle and a test of patience. I amagine that this is what it is like to have a real child. lol but everything is good. We are getting along a little better.

On Thursday, we had interviews with Presidente Arredondo. It was good. After, Pres´s wife drove with us to our houses to see how clean they were. Luckily, we usually keep our house fairly clean and we had a little bit of a warning in the morning that she was going to come. We also watched the District 2, the video or how to do missionary work perfectly ha ha. It was filmed in like Long Beach California and we were seeing all these nice houses, missionaries with cars, leather couches, and CARPET!!!! It is wierd, but yes. We miss carpet. The ability to be able to walk barefoot in your house without getting muddy!! So Thursday was a trunky day. I was thinking about the states a lot. We don´t get trunky for our families or our girlfriends here. We miss the good ol´ United States of America.

Well, I got my first experience as DL this week. I did my first three interviews. It was easy. The first one, I forget to ask about the word of wisdom, but it was a 11 year old girl that is pilas, so I didn´t worry about it too much.

I also gave my first blessing. I have done the uncion, the umm.... anointing, before and I´ve given blessings of consuelo, but never sealed the uncion. So we had to give a blessing to this lady that was really sick. Right before the blessing, she told me she wanted to die. It is some disease with her nerves. So I did the sealing and the blessing. I think I actually did a good job. The missionary I was with said it was good. It is hard becuase you have to talk in Tu, which we aren´t allowed to talk in and we didn´t really ever learn it. But it was good.

We had a baptism this week. We had to marry them and baptize the wife. The husband is a less active and they just moved in to the town from the coast where he fishes on a boat. So she is awesome. Her name is Ilda and she is awesome. She learned fast and came to church all on her own. So we married them and I got to baptize her. We had 3 of the people that we are going to baptize at the baptism as well. So we should have another wedding and baptism of 3 for next week. We will see how it goes. But things are good.

The rain has virtually stopped and the sun is getting HOT. I thought it was hot before and it is only getting worse.

The days are flying and we are working hard like normal. To my brothers and sisters, thanks for your letters. It was great to get the postcard from Boston and some updates from a few of you. Thanks for all of the support that you give.

The mission is going great. I have been really tired this last week. With having to report numbers and everything, we have been going to bed late and waking up early. So i have to try going to bed at the right time. So for those of you who are curious what this greasy rice is doing to me, I weighed myself today. I weigh....136. That is a 16 pound gain from when I left my fachenta house in the US of A. But all is well and my shoes are still trekking along. The shoes I had for 4 years before the mission are the ones that are most comfortable and are working the best. Well, that is all for now. Until next week...

With Love
Elder Ashby