Querido Familia,
Well, it's been another interesting week this week. My leg is all the way healed now, so i have been playing soccer again, and it hasn't had any more problems. Well since last time I was able to email, one of my teachers, Hermana Lakip, had a family emergency that she had to go back home for (in Georgia) and so now we have a new teacher in place of her, until she gets back the last week that we are here. The new teacher is Hermana Chinn, and no she is not Chinese, and neither is her husband (we all had to ask that to make sure) She is a really good teacher, and we have already learned a lot from her.
We have had a couple of English fasts the past two weeks. Our first one lasted until about lunch until people started giving up on speaking Spanish. This last one (on Saturday) lasted past dinner, and worked out really well. We set new goals yesterday for the week, and we decided we are going to be doing English fasts on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.... so pretty much only two days of English this week. Our class is one of the fastest learning, because there are two classes ahead of us that still haven't completed a full English fast. Anyway my Spanish is coming along well, i can form pretty much any sentence i want in my head... even though it takes a really long time sometimes. I had an interview with Hermano Kress last week, and he told me that I am one of the fastest learning people in the class, but that he doesn't want me to just study by myself all the time, and get ahead of everyone else. He had me set a goal to try and help other people study/learn for at least 30 minutes in the day. One thing I have been doing a lot is reading out of Predicad Mi Evangelio lately so that i can learn Spanish that way. Yesterday, I had one of my companions and another Elder in the district do it with me, and even though I had to go a little slower than I usually do, I know I learned a lot more from doing that, then I would have just doing it by myself. My teacher also told me that the best goals that you can set are those where you are helping other people.
We had a TRC appointment yesterday, where we are supposed to help people move, talk about there family, and then teach them how to pray, all in Spanish. We did that part pretty easy, but then we had to come back to teach the lesson. We were supposed to teach the Plan of Salvation, and talk about the Word of Wisdom in it. It definitely wasn't one of our better lessons so far. We were really jumbled up, and didn't teach with unity or with the spirit very well. I think part of our problem, is that we have had a couple of arguments this week, and so we sat down after, and talked about what we need to do differently so that we can all feel, and teach with the spirit better.
I can't believe how fast the time is going here, I have already been here 4 weeks, and we get another new district in our zone tomorrow. It's really weird how the older districts really look like they are older than us, and the younger districts really look like they are younger than us. I don't know if it's just a mental thing or not. Well Sister Rasmussen (Aleni) sent me a letter saying she is heading out next week I think, crazy! I can't believe how fast and slow the time goes by here, it's quite a weird sensation.
Well I got a letter from Grandma a couple days ago, I also got one from Tyler, Dana, Melissa, and Devin. It's amazing how much letters make your day better when you are out here. I just get so used to the same things every day.... class, breakfast, class, lunch, class, dinner, then MDT.... pretty much the same every day. Getting letters is just nice because it actually gives some contact with the outside world. I really do love it here though; it has been a great experience while being able to learn a language and the gospel at the same time.
I keep on eating a ton of food, usually about two full plates or more for each meal.... but I’ve only gained about 4 pounds or so while I’ve been here... kind of disappointing. We have talked to a bunch of people that have been to Paraguay, and they say that in the summer, it gets up to 110 degrees, and with humidity, it makes it more like 125... sounds like fun huh? They also said that most people who go down there for missions lose weight, which is definitely not what i want to do, guess I’m going to have to eat a ton. I've heard some mixes of people who have said in Paraguay they do and don't speak Castillano (the j sound in place of the double l). so i don't know if i will be or not, but i guess I’ll know in a month or so. Well I’ll talk to you next Monday, farewell
Mucho amor,
Elder Ryan Griffin
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