That Smell...

Dear Dad:

 

Thank you for the email. William told me about the City game. It is very frustrating. At least there was a draw so we got something out of it. 

I`m grateful for your counsel. I feel like a need to do a better job at seeing my victories. I haven't really looked at those, and I need to start. You can`t surround yourself with your failures because then you can`t see where you've progressed. The comment you made in the other email reminds me of a talk Elder Ballard gave at the most recent General Conference. There is nothing wrong with slowing your pace on the spiritual hike that is this life. You should never stop, but it doesn't hurt to slow down and see where you are. It was a very good talk. I would recommend listening to it again. I think it is important not to forget the failures, though. You have to remember them so you can see where you need to grow and change. We have failures in this life so we can learn and change, so we can become more like our Savior. I`m trying to learn from my failures. 

This week was OK. A little weird. We had changes last Tuesday. My companion and I did not change, but my companion was made a district leader. This is a little weird because our former district leader was not released. My companion was called to take over a new district. The other thing the other district leader and his companion and my companion and I are all in the same ward. So in our ward there are two district leaders. It`s a little odd but things have been good so far. Our new district has four new missionaries though, including me. Three of them are also gringos, so it`s going to be very interesting when my companion has to do work visits to the other areas and I`m in charge of our area with another gringo.

As far as missionary work, we didn't have too much success. My companion has said that this is his hardest area and he has 20 months in the mission so he has a lot of experience. We had one of our investigators come to church though, so that was really nice. He hasn't accepted a baptism date but he is a really good guy. Some of our other investigators will probably have to be dropped because they haven`t come to church for a couple of weeks but I don't know. My mission president likes to keep things moving. If one investigator isn't progressing, find someone else and visit the investigators in a couple of weeks. 

Sunday was kind of a bad day. One of the families in our ward has a family home evening on Sunday night and during church, my companion asked if we could bring some investigators (they weren't actually our investigators but the investigators of the other elders in the ward) and they said sure. My companion had to go do a baptismal interview in another area as well and the other elders didn't know where the family lived that was having the family home evening so I went with that set of elders while me companion went on an exchange with a ward member. When we got to the families house though it didn't seem like they were prepared for the family home evening and I`m pretty sure they were mad at us. My Spanish was also pretty bad as I taught and it just felt like a fool. Afterward, my companion and I went to another members' house and had a dish called Tokush. My spelling of that could be wrong, I`m not sure. She wanted us to try it so she prepared it for us. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but it smells terrible. It smells like someone pooped and didn't flush for a week. It is foul. It doesn't really have a taste, though. I ate it and would eat it again. My companion had trouble with it. It is supposed to be really good for you, health wise. 
We also visited a ward family this past week that was having some trouble. The wife was very ill. My companion thinks she might have breast cancer. She is going to the doctor today to see what is wrong. It is very sad. They do not have money and if it was something very serious like breast cancer, I don't know what it would do to the family. It reminded me how blessed we are to live in a place where prevention and help is so readily available. We have resources in the US and we need to us them. I gave the family 100 soles from my own personal stash. I don't know if I was suppose to or not but the needed it to pay for the doctors visit. 

Love,

Elder McMurray

PS Elder Cook is coming to speak tomorrow so that should be interesting.