A slower week due to sickness

I think this may be the street corner that
Eric's apartment looks out on.

Hey family!!!

I'm trying to send pictures as I write this letter to you (so far it's taking a long time to add each picture because the internet is so slow, so I won't be able to send too many at this rate). Hopefully it works, it's been five minutes so far and my first picture still hasn't attached, yawn.

Anyway, first, I received everyone's dearelder letters yesterday because our zone leaders had to go up to the mission home, so they brought our mail back, so thank you all for writing! I got letters from Jared, Cameron, Aunt Stacey, Holly, Mom and Dad, and Nana and Papa. I also got the "greenie" turtle card, they were all so awesome!!! But as I told you before, I will usually only get them every 6 weeks at zone conferences. Remember, on a zone conference week, our P-day changes to Tuesday. I love all of you very much and thank you for writing to me. To all distant family and friends, unfortunately I am not able to email you, because we are only allowed to send and receive emails from our immediate family and our grandparents, but I will try to write a regular letter to you when I can.

I wish I could tell you all that we got awesome stats or even average stats this week, but I can't. Here's what happened: Elder Petersen has been sick for the past 2 weeks, but on Thursday he just couldn't do it anymore, so we went to the hospital and he was given antibiotics and a few other things, as well as a doctor's order to stay in the pinche through Sunday!!! We were taken to the hospital by a VERY NICE member who made us meals every day, and stopped by the pinche like 3 times a day to make sure we're doing alright! The people here are all very nice, I love it. But anyway, so because companionships always have to stay together, I also had to stay in the pinche all day through Sunday. Even though we were cooped up all day, we made pretty good use of our time. I was able to read both the books you sent me for Christmas (Ultimate Missionary Companion, and Things I Wish I'd Known Before My Mission) as well as read through Alma in the Book of Mormon. (Mom's note: I don't think he means he started at First Nephi, LOL.) However, I did get out and do divisions a couple of times with Elder Wilkinson because Elder Carillo was "sick" again, so that was fun.

Now I'm going to try to answer a few of the 2000 questions I have been asked! Yes, they take the siesta here. I thought it was cool at first, but now I kind of hate it, because from like 1 to about 5 or 6 in the afternoon, everything is closed, and the streets are a ghost town, and the people are not too happy to be interrupted during their naps. It's really funny, too, because people are always ordering us to go back to the penche and rest (people are very caring here) and we tell them that we can't because our mission president wants us working during the siesta now. (Before President Villalba came, the missionaries could rest and do their studying during the siesta.) But that seems to make the people mad. They say things like, "Oh, what's his number so I can call him and yell at him, because you shouldn't be out here working!" Another really funny thing is that we've had many people say that they prayed to God, and they received an answer from Him, saying that he would allow us to go back to the penche and rest during the siesta!! And just funny stuff like that!

When we go out and contact people, we usually go door to door. Sometimes we clap our hands, and sometimes we knock, depending on the home, and if it has a door or if it doesn't, or if it has a gate, etc. So we do both clapping and knocking.

Here's an example of a typical day, because so many people have asked me: Wake up at 6:30, exercises until 7, shower and eat till 8, then we have personal study from 8 to 9, comp study from 9 to 10, language study from 10 to 11, then we leave and work until 12 or 12:30 when we come back to the pinche and cook/have lunch for an hour. (The big meal for the day.) Then we leave at 1 or 1:30 and work until 9, or 9:30 if we have an appointment. No dinner break at all! I wish we could have lunch later, because like I said, it takes us about 30 minutes to walk to our area, and then 30 more to walk back, so we have only like 30 minutes of work before lunch!!! And we fast-walk everywhere, and we couldn't possibly walk any faster. During one day we'll typically teach like 8 lessons for about 15 minutes each, then walking to the next appointment takes anwhere from 10 to 50 minutes, although usually like 25 on average, once again fast-walking.

Yes, they have cats here, dogs and cats are everywhere and still a problem, but there's a lot more dogs than cats, and I mean they are everywhere!!! So many strays here, and they all drink out of the sewers. (The sewers here are all open and they run along the sides of the roads like trenches.) It's also gross because they're always clogged so the only way they "drain" is via evaporation.

As far as choosing a soccer team here, I am a Boca fan now, but only because everyone in this area is a Boca fan, so it saves a lot of hassle to root for their team rather than being a River fan.

Don't worry about gas leaks or anything, because our kitchen is separate from our penche. It's like a different room, so even if gas did leak we'd be safe. I'm sending you a picture of our kitchen so you can feel safe. :) (Unfortunately, we didn't get the picture.) I took like 100 pictures of everything in, around, under, etc. of our penche so that you can see it. The more things I see here, the more I realize how beautiful our penche is. The only problem is that so far I've been trying to load pictures for almost my whole hour, and only one has loaded so far, so I think maybe I can only send one at a time.

It was great getting the debit card to work. I know that you could tell from the account that I finally remembered the PIN, but I just wanted to tell you how exciting it was, because I was able to buy a pillow, and so now I have a pillow to sleep on!!!

I'm sorry but it looks like only one picture has loaded for this week, and my time is up. I love you all very much, and I'll try to send more next week.

Love,
Eric


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