Today we are in Catacoas

    Here's David's latest email.  Maralea has been communicating with the mother of a couple of other missionaries in Piura, and David got to meet the missionaries over the weekend.  That was fun for David.  Interesting how much it meant to David to be with other American elders, watching General Conference in English and singing in English.  Amazing all we take for granted, and how quickly perspective changes with circumstances.

 

    We love hearing from David.  Good to know he actually receives the Dear Elder letters.  FYI, if you decide to write him via www.dearelder.com, the deadline is Thursday at 11:00 a.m. PST (they go out once a week), so I always send mine main one Thursday morning (although I send other stuff during the week, just for fun).  His email is royal_d@myldsmail.net.

 

    Thanks for all your prayers and support.  There is nothing like hearing from our missionaries.

 

    Mike

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    Hey Family!

    Well, I got some mail from Dad last week, about 30 Dear Elder letters, so that made up for a lot of lost time. (I figured Dad would be happy to know they finally arrived.) First off...today we are in Catacoas, little place right outside of Piura. Cool, cool place, too. It's pretty much the souvenir capital...so if you guys decide to come pick me up after the mish ... this would be a good place to come get little whatever thingies you want. And I dunno if Brad and Whitney would come too, but I can see Whitney having an absolute blast here, and spending lots of Brad's money.

    Alright anyway...got a couple good stories from this week. First one is kinda sad, but at the same time hysterically and ironically funny. Maybe. Well, I think so. Alright, so we are teaching this guy named Jorge whose wife and two daughters were just baptized. He has accepted everything and is ready to get baptized, too. One day, we taught him the commandments, Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom. He was totally cool with it all... He's kind of a drinker, but he said he was ok with giving all that up. So we go another night to teach him....and.....he's drunk. What made it funny is that I asked Elder Yupanqui earlier that day if he'd ever dealt with something like that before...investigators having Word of Wisdom problems.... "Not really," he said. So Jorge was his first drinking challenge...and, of course, mine too. We still had a nice lesson with his family and...to be honest his wife was pretty upset and she was ranting about something and was talking and I thought she said that she saw Jesus outside her house smoking one morning. And I just thought..."oh great we get to deal with this now"...and then I figured out that she was referring to some guy she saw smoking...so that shows how good my Spanish is coming. Actually, I almost understood it.... Let's see, she said there was a man smoking outside her house one morning.... Yeah, I'm just not sure how I got so mixed up about who was doing the smoking ...anyway...Jorge will hopefully not mess up again and we'll get him baptized soon.

    Another good story, we were walking the other day and these two young boys were struggling to carry a big sack of potatoes, so we helped them and carried it for them to their house, where their mother, older brother, and his wife were waiting for them. We ended up teaching all of them and they were all so thrilled by the message of the Restoration. The mother, Rosa, said that she had been praying lately to have God tell show her the truth! :0) So that was way cool...we haven't been able to see them since Friday or so from when we found them, but we should have another lesson tomorrow and see how golden they are. Good, good stuff.

    Alright, besides that...let's see ... we are teaching a lot, and really have a ton of people just SO close to baptism...which by the way...the waist on my baptism pants is like a 28 now... I have no idea why...but they are so tight...but none of my other pants are and I really don't think I've gained any weight. Kinda confused...so I might have to pick up a new pair of white pants for that. Just a side note...um. Oh, and we got to watch some of General Conference. I was so looking forward to that, the great instruction about the importance of prophets and apostles... I was dying to watch it! We didn't get to watch any of the Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon sessions (que triste), but we did get to watch the General Priesthood session. It was a bit challenging to listen to in Spanish translation, not gonna lie. But the American missionaries got watch the Sunday morning session in English, which was pretty much amazing. The Sunday afternoon session was in Spanish again...but it's all good. Actually...question...was Scott Nelson singing in the MTC choir Saturday night? I dunno if he started his mission yet, but I swear I saw him singing in the choir....but I could be wrong.

    Well, that's basically it. I'm still doing really good out here...it is starting to warm up a bit. Spring time here. It's really nice in the morning cause its always overcast, and then from about 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm is when it's hot. But right after 5:00 pm it starts cooling down...feels nice. So I dunno how much that will change...but it's definitely getting warmer here. We'll see. I'll miss the snow, I know that much. But it's all good. Jordan, keep doing good in school, working hard, jumping higher and getting taller (just not taller than me). Good to hear from Jack, and to know he's in the mission field now. It's a great place to be. (Hurry up, Cody. I'm hoping you get called to Piura and I can be your trainer. That would be so cool!)

    Okay, that's it. I think I covered it all. The Church is true. Love it. Live it.

    Elder David "Stud in a White Shirt" Royal