Hola de Los Alcarrizos

Well Im really enjoying this transfer so far. My companion is Elder Russell and he is from Flordia. He is a really weird but fun person. We talk a lot about tons of stuff. He has 2 more transfers after this one so he is fairly old. I think he is alright but i have found out why the other missionaries think he is crazy and a tigre. But i wont go into that because that isnt important. All I can say is that im having a great time and i think he is my most favorite companio than any other companion I have had. The only problem is that he hasnt worked that hard for most of his mission. So Im changing that. Our first week was the hardest he has worked in 6 months he said. We have a huge area in Los Alcarrizos. My area is called, Los Alcarrizos 2. We are in a stake now adn we are working in the same ward as two other missionaries. Almost all of our zone is americans and I like that a little more. I have 3 other missionaries from my group here in the zone. It is aweosme. Also my former Zone leader has a son in the zone. he is a trainer. We call the companions of trainers, sons. It is the capital and there are tons of people. Practaclly living on each other. What is amazing is that it is quieter that Nizao.We have everything pretty much within 20 minutes away. Huge superstores adn tons of other stores. I can live very well here. hahah. And that is amazing. We live together in a 2 man house. It is huge. So we have our bedroom, a study room with 2 desks, A clothes room(litterally just for clothes and our shoes there is nothing in our bedroom but beds adn our fans), and then we have a kitcken, and also a little room for laundry, We also have a big open room in the front wear we eat. It is neat. Ill take pictures. It is actually very clean. I was surpized. The light is the same. off and on. but it usually comes back at 10 in the night. Well the water is differant. We take bucket showers here. And it is freezing cold. It is very cold in the mornings and I have been shivering in the night. This wont last long though. So in hte morning it is very cold with bucket showers. But it does help to wake us up and get ready for the day. Our area is huge. The first thing I did when i got to the house was go through the Area book. It wasnt good putting it in the least. It had stuff from 4 years ago adn most of the investigators sheets didnt have address. We dont have any baptismal dates here but this week we are going to put one with an investigator that was being taught by elderRussell and his old companion. I told Elder Russell that we were going to make miricles adn that we were going to work hard. I am slowly changing him and we are really picking up the work for what we were left with. Yesturday we had Zone Confrence with President Bair. It was awesome. I learned a lot and have a ton of excitment to go and preach this work. I learned that we are ¨salesman¨ of a product bigger and better then a mercades benz dealer or of tiffanies jewelry. SO we need to act and look like we are selling that. This gospel is without price but the benefits are worth eternal gladness. We need to raise the bar on baptisms. The president take about the confrence talk by Elder Perry about the high jumper. We have constantly been at about the same baptisms for a couple years, and now this is the year we are going to bust it out. So we are focusing on baptisms. But how do we get baptisms. The president spoke to us how the members are the key. The key to the sucess of the work. They need to be in the lessons, they need to help them come tochurch. They need to baptize the people. They need to help them go to the telmple and recive their endowment. I really belive this is true and i have been really trying to follow it. But this is the second time the president has said this so Im going to try adn have everyother day have lessons with members present. This will help the work grow faster and will also help with the retention of our investigators. Last night we spent the night at the zone leaders house because we played basketball in the morning at the stake center. It was fun. After we ater at PIZZA HUT!!!!!! haahah It was amazing. Well thats about it. Im as happy as I can be. Im a missionary.

Love,

Elder Spud