It is like watching grass grow...

Hola Famila!

Hope everything is going well there.

Dad- thanks for getting my bike situation taken care of.

Mom- it sounds like your brownies made you pretty much famous. Even the guys here love them, but Turtle Bars are their favorite, I looked up how to say it in Spanish because our goal is no more English and it is, los tabletas de tortuga haha.

Bry- sounds like basketball is going good there. You better keep practicing because I am going to whoop you when you get home from your mission even if you are 6´5 haha. The basketball here is not as fun as it used to be. There is a new district in our zone that all want to play basketball. We were really excited when they came in and heard that we would have some new competition, yeah that excitement lasted until the first game we played. A bunch of them think that they are better than Michael Jordan or something and never pass the ball. It is not very fun if you get stuck on their team because of that. We used to just play for fun and have a good time while still playing hard, but now there are too many kids out there to prove themselves. Don´t worry though, Elder Black and I kicked their trash when we played against them. I don´t know how much we will be playing with them from now on, we might just go shoot by ourselves or go lift or something.

When we went to the temple last week Elder Shuster and I did sealings, it was my first time so I thought it was cool. There was a family in there that had a kid who is reporting to the MTC in a week and he is going to the Kennewick WA Spanish speaking mission. So we talked backed and forth about the fact that I am basically going to his home and he is going to mine and just different stuff about the areas. He seemed pretty cool and his family was nice. His name was Elder Gray and he is probably 6'2, blonde hair and looks like a linebacker. So if you ever run into him, treat him well...emphasis on the "treat" haha.

The Spanish is still improving like a turtle, but I am learning a lot. It is cool to look back and see how much progress I have actually made because it doesn't seem like I am making a lot day to day but when I look back I have realized that I have made a lot. Our teacher said that it is like watching grass grow, if we just sit there and watch it; it will take a long time to even realize that something is happening.  But if we evaluated or check it every couple of days or every week we see how much we grow. That just makes me think to lose myself in the work and have the Lord do the rest. I have been working a lot on vocab and practicing the grammar when I talk. I feel really comfortable giving prayers in Spanish but that is because I have been trying to do all of them including my personal ones in Spanish from the beginning so I have had a lot of practice. Hopefully the rest of my Spanish will get to the same comfortable stage once I practice it enough. The more practice the better we get. I know that learning Spanish will require me to do everything I can first, with faith, and then put my trust in the Lord and he will take care of the rest.

Elder Shuster and I have been doing really well teaching together, even though we are not much alike. We have been using a lot of visual aids when we teach because we feel that it is helping the investigators become more involved in the lessons and they are more fun to teach. I would make some cookies or something like you mom but we don't have an oven and I don't have money haha.

Crean Simepre,

Elder Creer