Cuatro Semanas!

Well hello everyone, and happy St. Patrick's day to all!  I've never seen so many green ties in one place!  Everything is going pretty well, and I can even communicate somewhat smoothly in Spanish now!  Me and Elder Hendrickson set a goal to only speak spanish all morning yesterday, and it went pretty well.  A lot of goal setting here.  Our zone keeps shrinking, and it's kind of a bummer.  We'll only have 3 districts pretty soon and ours is small to begin with.  It is all working out though.  I've been assigned new responsibilities as of last week.  I have to pick up the mail for our district, conduct our district meetings, and prepare a ten-minute lesson for Friday, because that's when we have our zone meeting and I am part of the rotation of lessons.  I am teaching about patience and humility.  Pretty simple topics, but really important.  I'm using the sons of Mosiah as an example, because they definitely had both attributes.  I'm also teaching about the need to humbly accept correction when needed.  I'm comparing the cities of Zarahemla and Nineveh.  They both had prophets call them to repentance, and one chose to listen, the other chose to ignore.  Not bad eh?  Next week we have to teach in Spanish, so that's going to be pretty crazy!  My Spanish mishap of the week - we were practicing talking about what we were going to do the following day, and I accidentaly said that I was going to "eat myself for breakfast."  oops.  Lesson learned!  Today we had manicotti for lunch!  best stuff ever!  I'll miss that in Ecuador!  On the other hand, I'll warn anyone who will be in the MTC soon NOT to eat the "cherry cobbler."  they basically dump a can of cherry pie filling into a cup and put a bit of oatmeal around the edges to trick you into thinking it actually has some substance to it.  I was shocked that the MTC would participate in such horrendous acts of deception!  Besides that, it's been good.  I had green pancackes for breakfast today.

I hope everything is going well with soccer!  Sounds like perhaps the team is moving in a POSITIVE direction this year?  That's great to hear.  That's sad about Brother Miles.  Is his family doing alright?  And has dad caught up on sleep?  Probably not, but hopefully he got at least somewhat close!  I have been receiving all of the dearelders you've been sending, including the ones about the other missionaries, although I didn't really take that much interest in it.  I think I prefer mail telling me about what you guys are doing.  :)    I'm very grateful for my companion because he's willing to work and takes his call seriously.  It makes a really big difference in how productive you are and how effective your teaching is.

We had Quentin L. Cook of the Twelve speak to us last night.  Pretty cool.  Funny story as well - we always sing beforehand, and the chorister says, "now we don't stand up when we sing, but remember, when one of the Lord's apostles comes in, we do stand."  As if that wasn't a dead give-away!  The funny thing was he tried to get everybody quiet after he said that, which sort of worked, but not really since everyone was so excited! 

Well, is there anything else?  The days are basically all the same around here!  I can't believe it's already been a month!  Time sure does fly.  I have decided that personal study is my favorite time of day.  We watched this video clip in a meeting where Gordon B. Hinkley was saying, "well?  smile!  come on, SMILE!"  Have you seen it?  pretty funny.  I don't think there really have been many other happenings around here.  I run three miles during gym, practice a lot of spanish, and do a lot of study and prayer.  that is all.  You guys will have to provide the interesting stories!  I got a postcard from grandma and grandpa Wallace, which was enjoyable.  What's their address?  What's Karsen's address for that matter?  And is Justin in Argentina yet?  I would think so...  so yeah.  If I could get some addresses that would be cool.  I enjoyed your pictures, especially the "Nemo" one!  And I think I might send some things back home that I might not need.  I'm feeling very doubtful about the necessity of that big coat.  We'll see what I can fit.  Is there a time when I'll get that photo book?  my wall is pretty empty!  It's warming up over here, how about in Roosevelt?  I'm pretty glad because they don't provide very warm bedding over here!  Everything else is great though.  Well, my time is up, so I will update again next week!  I will write the siblings individually if I have time, so bye!