We are serving in downtown Salt Lake in the Liberty Park area...

Hola Familia!

Well this week has been crazy! To start things off we finished up at the MTC and said bye to all the guys in my district and our teachers. We traded ties like crazy! ( haha)  I think that I have 10 new ones!! Last Wednesday we got up at 4am to go check out and catch the bus which left at 6. We dropped some kids off at the airport and then we headed to the mission office building.

We got there at around 8:30am where we were met by President Winn (Sister Winn was in the kitchen :). President Winn emailed us to questions to help determine who our companions would be. He just said to tell about ourselves and why we came on a mission.  We only talked for a few minutes.  After that he just said he knew who my companion was, I don't even think he was finished but oh well haha. 

We then sat at the table waiting for breakfast (granola bars, fruit and pancakes) and we met this guy who calls himself Guapo.  Guapo's job is to marry people so if we bring him a couple that needs to be married to be baptized we get a "guapo tie" haha. Then we had lunch and got to meet our companions.

Mine is Elder  Avalos. He is from Mexico City, is 26, and is a convert since he was 18. He played college football in Mexico as a strong safety.  We get up every morning (except Sundays) and we run for at least 4 miles!!  I'm trying to convince him that maybe some pushups or something might be more fun but he's not buying it haha.  He is a great companion!!

 We are teaching well, mostly him -because I can hardly understand what is going on. It is difficult sometimes too because I am trying to learn Spanish and I thought it was going be sweet since I had a native companion but he is trying to learn English and likes to speak it a lot :)  So hopefully we can work something out so I can teach.

We are serving in downtown Salt Lake in the Liberty Park area. We cover like 3 or 4 English wards and 1 Spanish branch with approximately 30 people.

We did have a baptism last night. He is 10 years old.  I didn't start teaching him of course since I haven't even been here a week but I got to teach probably 4 times, in English. So he was baptized yesterday and I was asked to give a talk so I talked about baptism and gave him a blue tie with a message on it. He loved it!

Also yesterday I was asked to give a 20 minute talk (in Sacrament Meeting), in Spanish! haha It went good- I talked about missionary work and trusting in the Lord, and I didn't have to speak the whole 20 minutes because of time.

As far as food goes, it has been good but they all stuff you so full! (haha)  The first night we had dinner Peruvian style, the next 3 days were Mexican. I don't think I will be fed American food for dinner in this area but no complaints here!!  The place where we stay is not even in our area, it is in the hills above the capital building. We stay at a member’s house. He is probably somewhere around 80 but idk for sure.  He is really funny and served his mission in Germany so he always talks with a German accent. He also is a really good cook. Every Sunday we get to have dinner with him and some of his kids and their families. It is like a 5 course meal haha. He also owns 25 chickens so we are allowed to have a couple eggs a day which is cool. We get 110 bucks a month for food, laundry, haircuts and anything else we might need. We were told to budget 2 bucks a day for food! Good thing Brother --- has chickens haha.

For p-days everyone plays soccer, so no ball for me for who knows how long. And apparently everyone wears soccer jerseys so my companion gave me one from Mexico.

Mom if you have any room in that package do you think you could squeeze as much snacks in as possible? A nice mix of junk and good stuff please haha :) Well love you guys!

Siempre Crean,
Elder Creer