29 September 2010

Dear home,

Whoa! That sounds super awesome! [I told Mark that a friend of ours will be

in Peru and will be able to take him a small package--you can see what he’s missing]

What is the occasion? And I can have requests? Chocolate! uh... Snickers or Hersheys kisses

or Twix in fun size? qué mas.... oh what would be THE BEST would be to send me a

couple of those cheap pens that have the thin little ink thing... I

know we have a ton around the house. I bought 15 pens here for 2.9

sols which have identical ink cartridges, but the plastic body is such

bad plastic that it starts to crack and fall apart after only a few

days. So to be sure, the ink cartridges are a little over a millimeter

in diameter I think, something like five inches long, and at the front

they have a plastic piece that covers where the metal tip meets the

plastic ink tube. If y’all can send me a few of these pens, I will be

able to refill them with the perfectly fine ink cartridges from all

those pens I got! I miss food like lasagna and pizza a lot... but that

won´t work.

All letters from now on should go to the mission home, I don’t know the

address, or the pouch mail address, but could you add both to the page

please?

SO the pictures come from our tour of Lima central that went down last

Wednesday (after I emailed). It was AWESOME. We got onto a tour bus

which took us around town to the center, while Hermana Slingerland

(our favorite..ok Hermana Whetten is the best too but in a different

way) was on the mic telling us about all the cool things we were

passing.

[.....all the cool stuff we were passing.]

We arrived at...some plaza square thing where the bishop and president

live and the Pope speaks at when he comes. It was super super super

bueno. I got a Peru jersey for 15 sols and a free little dongle

everyone has in some form or another. Necklaces, keychain things, lots

have this native human sacrifice knife replica...pretty intense.

We went and tried to get a hamburger, but they don’t exist down here...

it was some other form of meat. Tasted alright tho, and was big for

about 3.5 dollars. It is really fun to get out there.

Also on the trip we stopped by the beach to watch the surfers slash/

torture those of us who surf (a surprising number). Apparently the

beach is rather famous world-wide among surfers... There were

parasailers (those are the ones with the parachutes not the gliders

right?) getting lift off these imposing cliffs behind us. I wished I

had had a sailplane, but then again a crash would make it almost

impossible to get your plane back. The cliffs were about 80 feet near

straight up. Everyone was super happy to be out and about!

Oh and have the answers to my past questions been found? I’m still

curious! The lack of ability to cruise the web looking for answers is

killer.

Elder Weaver is the bomb. I was just thinking the other day how glad I

am he´s been in all of my districts so far and same room 2 out of the

three tri-week periods. We all joke that because of his mannerisms, he

is headed straight to the White House. He does seem quite

presidential. The phrase around here is presidential potential.

Oh and the Elder Falk character I´ve come to realize is hilarious.

Also, the way he is reminds me a lot of James [Hancock].

Teaching has gotten a lot better. We are figuring out Spanish a lot

more, we know how to do the lessons a lot better, and everything is

just going so great. The other day we got through basically everything

in the ridiculously short 15 minute time period for mas o menos [more or less] the

first time. We have finished before but not in as elegant a manner as

that day. Also the Latino companion we were teaching said I have a

good accent! Aw shucks. His companion was so funny the other day tho.

We were the "investigators" and they were teaching us. I told them my

friends had laughed at me when I told them I was talking to the

missionaries, so I didn’t really think I should take any more lessons.

He so didn’t understand tho cuz he responded: Bueno bueno, Cree en

profetas? Haha that means good, good...do you believe in prophets? We

just went with it.

Love,

Elder Johnson