Letter #19 December 2, 2013

Elder Churata is from Peru, and he has 9 months in the mission...and i am learning a lot from him. in different ways. He is such a humble awesome guy, but sometimes struggles with the motivation and desire to do things...which has had the opposite effect on me, i have never wanted to walk as fast, to work as hard, to contact, to teach, to do all the things with more focus and determination than now...well not write now..im a little tired...its P day. haha but seriously this past week, i have felt better than ever. Yeah there are still tons of problems, i still struggle sometimes with spanish, still dont know everything, its hard because we dont have like any investigators right now, etc. But...i dont know. Heavenly Father has blessed me with a fire, a pasion, a desire that wasnt there before. I get up in the mornings and excercise my heart out, and study hard, and im trying to be more punctual to things and im not afraid to talk in the lessons, i am pretty much managing the area right now,...Im still not perfect...WAYYY far from it...but i have never felt the desire to try sooo strongly in my life, or in the mission.

My testimony of change has really grown this past week. Change is hard (well not always i guess, if all of the sudden i had a year supply of chocolate, that wouldnt be too hard of a change) but i have really seen that through change and challenges, trials, we can learn things that we could never learn without difficulties. I am so grateful for the hard things that i have been given, because i have felt myself change, i have felt the growth that comes with them, I hope i can make the most of every situation that i have and learn and grow from it.

Letter #18 November 25,2013

Well first off, ill explain the pictures, so that you can laugh a bit about them and then keep reading! And of course they both contain COMIDA! haha so the first with our little jar of peaches that a miembro gave us, was thursday, and we thought that Thanksgiving was always on the 3rd thursday of Noviembre, so that night at 10 oclock, we were like...wait...TODAY WAS THANKSGIVING! So we took a picture of our feast to send!...but appently, its this week?? haha I think its a good sign that im losing myself..hopefully in the work and not just my mind! haha And the other picture is of us, with eggs, and bacon, and toast, we splurged and made a SUPER yummylicious breakfast. haha

So probably the biggest change! We got a phonecall from our District Leader last night, and Elder Reiley is leaving to finish the instruction of a missionary that is REALLy struggleing with spanish and im staying here, and a peruvian missionary that knows no english is coming to be my senor companion.

We were so shocked, because we were thinking, oh maybe we are going to leave, but about a week ago, we both felt, no, we are really started to work well together and figure this out, and we are going to POUND it this next transfer...so of course we are changing..Its really sad, He is my first real companion, because Elder Neddo and i always knew exactly when we were going to switch, but we have learned a lot from each other, things that we want to keep doing, and things that we have learned from and that we should improve...

Letter # 17 November 18, 2013

Hola familia!! Como les ha ido???? Let me tell you, yesterday i was SOOO excited for it to be P day!!! It was kind of a longer week this past one...but thats okay!

Wow, now that i am actually here writing I have completely forgotten all the things i want to write! So I am doing well, adjusting to the food more, but a lot of times i just get super huge cravings for CHINESE FOOD!! haha i mean i love this food, but man i crave Panda sometimes. haha Actually we had some pretty dang good meals this past week (we ate at subway 2 because none of the RElief society ladies put there names down to feed us a couple days..odd. ;) but we ate BBQ ribs one day and it was SOOOOOO good!!!!! and then another day we had this creamy corny sopa that reminded me of all of your yummylicious soups mom! and this mushroom spicy chicken that was TAN DELICIOSO!!! 

So this past week was good in a lot of ways. Elder Rieley and i have our ups and downs, like sometimes he doesnt have an opinion on things and it irks me, and sometimes i get impatient which im sure cuases him a bit of grief, but for the most time we really have a good time together, and we really did work hard this last week, but it was definetely a rough one. 

OH! so i dont forget, we were on the micro (the green buses that we take EVERYWHERE! ill have to take a picture for all of you to see) but anyway, we were joking around because one of us had sneezed and we were experimenting with different words and structures in spanish, instead of just saying "salud" haha we said stuff like i hope that blessings pour on your head (because of the "bless you" in english" i cant remember all the funny things that we said but the best was that i said "Que bendiciones derramen en su ojo" (i hope that blessings pour in your eye" and we laughed...and then Elder Rieley got something in his eye and started itching it, haha it was SOOO ironic and hilarious. haha so thats the funny thing of this week!

haha Elder Rieley said, im just going to eat cereal and ill be good. I bought onions, tomatoes, lettuce, and avacados, made some ricisimo sandwiches, and of course he didnt just want cereal..haha :D

Letter #16 November 11,20013

One day we ate something called MOLEY and it is really messy, so we wore bibs!!!!

Letter #15 November 4,2013

 i forgot to tell you that i played the piano in sacrament meeting (only the last song while the teachers were leaving to prepare their classes) and it was good, really scary but good. I have actually thought about it a lot, we have a piano in the chapel, but only like 1 person knows how to play it, and i REALLLLLY wish i had practiced more, because a lot of people cant really sing very well without a piano, and there is just a different spirit when their is accompanyment, so yesterday i told elder rieley that we should plan things so we can go to our district meeting an hour early so i could practice, because i think even though i dont know know a lot of songs, if i practice every monday, i could be able to sight read at least the top hand of most of the songs, and maybe i can ask someone for the songs for the next sunday in advance and i could practice them that monday! So yeah, i hope that all hope isnt lost, and i can still learn and do what i should have done so much more!! I realllllly enjoy when i get the chance to play!!! Nic, Jenna, Zac, Hy, Loge, Spence, PLAY THE PIANO!!!! itll be worth it!!!!!!! promise!!!!! haha thats awesome about mixing my name up! And yeah you better practice!!!! ill come back just as fast!!! ;) I am way excited for the letters and that sounds like a fantastic idea!!!

Oh and so i dont forget, Elder Reiley and I bought icecream...3 times. haha so the 31 is halloween right? and we were by this icecream shop that has the BEST icecream ever, and i remembered what you told me, and we treated ourselves with you paying! ;) and then here in mexico they had the days of the dead (dia de los muertos) friday and saturday, and it just happened that both those days we were near that same icecream shop...i hope its okay, but we had you buy us icecream 3 times. It cost in total about 120 pesos, which is about 8 dollars, hope thats not too big of a treat! But just to prove that we enjoyed it, ive included pictures!!!! :D
Love, Elder Pear

Letter #14 October 28,2013

my sundays are actually kind of hectic, haha there is always things to do as a missionary, and because of that i absolutely love when i can just sit back and listen in sacrament meeting (and for sure take the Santa Cena, sacrament, and renew my covenants, i am so grateful for that) and learn! and im beginning to be able to understand most everything! haha so that makes it even better!!! The time really does fly by. sometimes the days are supppper long, but the weeks fly by!!!
Elder Pear

Letter # 13 October 21,2013

the language still gives me a headache, but its getting better, slowly but surely. Thanks for your love and encouragement! thought that i would share a laugh. I was sitting a little to much on the edge of my chair. haha dont worry im not hurt or anything, just kind of shocking and really funny!!! haha