Email 3/16/2009

I’m here again with Elder Fraga writing about the week. It’s definitely not the same having a new companion, but it’s still the Lord’s work and who I serve with isn’t that important. But anyway, like I said, he’s from Mexico, Mexico City. He is helping me with Spanish and I’m helping him with English. He went to a year at BYU-Hawaii before his mission so he has over a year of speaking English so he’s pretty good—except for his accent :) One time he asked me if I had a pet and I swore he said bed—Not sure how that works lol it’s a fun new adventure though. He’s very smart and I love teaching with him. Even though Elder Swenson was amazing at Spanish, Elder Fraga is perfect at Spanish, so I guess you can’t get any better than that. It’s nice to have someone who can relate to the people we teach.

This week has been really good! Elder Fraga likes to work really hard and make good use of time. We are getting everything in this area more organized and getting the area book all up to date. We’ve found some good people to teach this week so I’m excited about that. We knocked a lot of doors, visited a lot of former investigators and taught a lot of current investigators/less actives.

This week I finally figured out our area. It helps that I’m the one driving that has to figure out where everything is. I found out that the small area we are assigned to is only the area we knock doors in. We also have another large area that we can go to to teach. It’s covered by English elders, but if they find anyone Spanish, we are the ones to teach them since they are in our ward. That’s how it is for the other two elders in our ward, except now they have two areas to cover and a ton of area they teach in since the third pair got moved out. It’s all going good though and I enjoy the work.

Transfers are basically you drive to the office, pick up mail, say hello to other missionaries, put your stuff in a new car (if you’re being transferred) then drive off. Too bad we don’t have a moves meeting Ross, but I guess they kind of do testimonies and stuff at Zone Conference.

Speaking of Ross, Elder Swenson told me a funny story the other week. They were coming out of a grocery store or something and were walking in the park when all of a sudden they saw a guy with a BYU sweater. One of the Tongan missionaries that was with them said “hey, are you a member?” He said “Member of what?” “Member of the church.” “Yes, I’m catholic.” So Elder Swenson said “Where did you get that sweater?” and he said “La Rose” which, being interpreted is “La Ross” or in other words, Ross dress for less. I thought that was such a funny story! A random guy wearing a byu sweater that he got from Ross lol.

Another funny story I wanted to tell was about how cold Mexicans get (including my companion!) They are always complaining about how cold it is when it hardly ever gets below 60 lol. We went to this member’s house one day of 67 degrees. It was a little rainy, but to me it was hardly cold. Anyway, we went inside and the grandma was all dressed warm and to protect the baby from the “cold” had her completely smothered in clothing. Like two or three layers plus one of the older daughter’s sweat shirts! I felt so bad for the poor little thing lol. It made me laugh though.

Someone asked about Elder Swenson’s plans. He is probably going to work this summer except for when they go to Pennsylvania after his sister has a baby, and then he’s going to BYU in the fall. He got accepted before his mission, but automatically deferred for a mission.

Last Sunday was kind of sad. It was daylight savings so Julia and Alvero our investigators woke up late and weren’t able to come to church :( Julia was able to come Yesterday though so that was good. We also taught Erasmo yesterday who lives in Anaheim and comes to a member’s house in our ward so we can teach him. We’ve taught him the first three lessons, but right now he doesn’t want to set a baptism date. He says that would be too much of a commitment and would be too hard for him. He’s really smart though and understands and remembers everything we teach him so hopefully some day :) We had to cancel the baptism date of Julia and Alvero (march 15th). They aren’t ready yet (especially Alvero) and still need to be married, but they are making progress, at least Julia is, so hopefully one of these days.

I thought I knew what Mexican food was before my mission, but there’s a lot more to it than you would guess. They eat a lot more parts of the cow than we do and there are a lot of fruits they like that we don’t eat up here. For example, I ate Jimaca and Buche this week. A funny potato-like white fruit and a part of the cow we don’t use here :) It’s fun to have a companion from another country. It’s definitely something new to get used to, but he’s a great guy. Guess I’d better be done so hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love you,
Elder Curtis