In the Field

THAMMMMMMMMYYYYYEYYEYYEYEYEYEYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok so this is the haps. We are all family here so I will be straight honest. I definitely, positively cried twice or three times while reading all your emails to me. Thinking about you all and Christmas and all our traditions and the house and the cold weather and all the english isn´t the easiest thing in the world, but I am managing very well. Yeah ok, you win. I miss you all. But I am having the time of my life. Nothing could ever compare to this, mom.

So we got to the mission home and we met the APs and the President and his wife and I got STOKED! There is one AP from Hawaii who just got me stoked and now we are way good friends! We had a long day of training and preparation, then we got our area and companion assigned and I lucked out to the maximum! My companions name is Elder Orellano. He is from Chile. He is 26 years old and has a 6-year college degree in biochemistry, yeah I feel inadequate to say the least, but he is such a cool guy! He knows english so we can joke around in english whenever we want and he is a master teacher in spanish and the gospel. The Lord really does know our needs. We also have another companion, he is waiting for his visa to mexico so he is with us! His name is Elder Ramos and he is just a cutie pie beyond belief hahahaha. Our living quarters are really nice, actually. We all have a bed and we have two bathrooms! Now hear me out on this, one shower only has hot water and one shower only has cold water. Not warm. I´m talking you are either scorched beyond repair or frozen to the bone, no other option. So I just randomly choose my fate every morning according to the death that I think would be more tolerable that day. We have a maid lady who is a member and her whole family lives just above us. She makes us breakfast and dinner and it´s always really good! Lots of rice. And we eat lunch with a member every day. If the member forgets they are having us over, we just go and buy a hamburger for 2 soles (roughly 65 cents).

There are 8 Elders in my zone and I love them all! We have such a cool zone. There is one other Elder who is our zone leader and he is stoked just like me so every time we get together it´s a blast! Ok I will try to give you some basic information. I got your package and I´m just staring at it with anticipation. I have received two letters from dad, too. They are kinda old haha. The address you will send stuff to for the rest of the mission is the exact same address that you sent the package to, maybe you can post that on my blog or whatever. Monday is P-day, we have an hour of email!!!!! And plenty of time to write letters and read letters and open packages and play and read and smile and get stoked and breath dirty peruvian air and say "buenas tardes" to old people and watch them smile back and then call me a gringo. I wish I knew a whole bunch other stuff to tell you all. Spanish is coming along, I can almost understand everything when I´m paying attention haha and I can teach with a decent amount of confidence and when I dont understand I just smile and it makes everything better cuz I have all my teeth.

I have a really good trainer and we have some amazing investigators right now. It´s so cool to watch people learn and change and start to grow a testimony. In Lima, there are like idk how many, but a lots of tons of different districts or zones or providences or something and we are just in one of those. So we have our certain area of proselyting which consists of two different wards (really small) and in this area there are all different kinds of living situations. Down by our house, it is pretty nice. You just can´t compare it to the U.S., but it really is nice. About a five minute walk from our house (up on the hills) the houses just make me want to cry. They are all made out of material just stronger than cardboard. Four walls, a roof, and a door. And there is nothing inside, I mean nothing. They have a couple chairs and that´s it. We have two investigator families up in the hills and its an amazing and humbling experience when we visit them.

Ok, back to the happy stuff! Hahahahahaha I´m gonna call you tonight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I´m gonna call for only five or ten minutes and just set up everything for when I get to call on Christmas and it´s going to be dirt cheap. I can get a card here that will allow me to talk for like an hour and twenty minutes for about 10 soles ($2.77) so I will get to talk to you all for about an hour and a half on saturday! I will probably call in the night, but I´m not sure. I will definitely call you tonight tho!!! I´m not totally sure what else to tell you all right now other than I love you all so much and everyone asks about our family picture and I show it to EVERYONE! I love our family so much and I had to go 3000 miles into a different country to realize that. You all are my strength and one of my favorite reasons for coming out here. Every time I read the last name on my tag I just want to do that much better. Tell all my friends and the ward that I say hi and I´m praying for them and I love them, too. Tell jake to get used to itchy shirts and tell Beckham I will be home soon. Oh yeah and I can´t write emails to anyone else, but the family so SOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRY! But I can read all kinds of emails from whoever so no big deal. I will tell you next week what to put on my missionary plaque hahaha. super much love, talk to you tonight!

Elder Emett