" Thou Shalt Not Steal" :-)

November 2, 2009

Hey family how are you? Wow that was a lot of questions! Lol- ok first I did receive a letter from you guys in the mail last Tuesday. It was good to hear from you all and find out how things are going. Mom I talked to one of the English speaking guys about the picture thing, and they said there’s a lot of ways you can do it. They do have a place were I can put pictures on the CD’s, so I’ll definitely do that. I gotta say it's hard taking pictures though, because you’ve got be careful. If someone around you sees that you have a nice camera, that it not good. When we pull 20 dollars out of the bank for food and stuff we have to be really careful and make sure that we don’t draw attention to ourselves. So you just slip it into your pocket and walk off. We aren’t supposed to bring our cameras around with us because they will probably get jacked. I have gotten some pics though from the house and today we had p-day, so I got a lot of cool pics. Ok, so I’ll tell you about some of our investigators. I think I told you about Jose Madina and how we had a baptism date for him. Well, he didn’t come to church again, so we had to cancel that date. I’m really not too sure right now what’s going to happen with him. So I’ll tell you about Rafael Barre and his wife. Ok, so they are an older couple and super nice people, they really are awesome. Rafael works as a taxi driver, and I don’t think his wife works. This week we committed him to being baptized on the 21 of Nov. He said yes and his wife said no. It’s funny because his wife is Catholic and every time we have ask her to be baptized she always says, “No, I am Catholic.” But in the lessons she always sits there listening, and is always so involved. Every time we stop by she gets really excited, actually they both do. They always give us food and drinks, which makes it so nice. Lol I’m gonna get fat, no joke! Anyway, but ya I know that she has felt the Spirit in the lessons. I think is just a matter of time. I know that Rafael will be baptized and he seems pretty excited about it. We have a few others that we are teaching right know. We have asked three more people to be baptized, but they aren’t too sure about it. We had three investigators come to church with us on Sunday, so that was cool. Anyway, I’ll tell you how my first Zone Conference went. All the missionaries are way nice. I didn’t really know what was going on because it was in all Spanish. Me and three other missionaries had to share our testimonies in front of everyone, which was flippin scary. Mostly because it was in Spanish and everyone there spoke Spanish perfectly, except me. No joke, everyone else either has been out long enough to know Spanish or it’s their native language. Me, I am just lost always. Lol. No, it was great. They said by the next conference I’ll be able to understand most of everything. Anyway I’ll try to answer some of those questions now, oh and thanks mom so much sending the CD’s. I can’t wait to get them. Ok, my roommates are cool, and very nice. I think it’s going to take longer for us to be friends because it’s so hard to talk to one another. But things are going good. I’m starting to get to know them better day by day. The other day I took some of their cookies and ate them because I thought they were mine. I found out that they weren’t after I had ate all of them. I said sorry, and told him that I would buy another pack, which I did. Lol but it was funny the next day after I took them he bought another pack. When I got back to the casa I saw them sitting on the fridge. The funny thing was, in plain English it said, “thou shalt not steal”. I started laughing when I saw that. The other day Elder Santa Maria and Elder Sadan bought me a book that had 300 common use verbs in Spanish. The book is so helpful, so I was really thankful to them for doing that. Hey dad thanks for the sports updates- I love hearing about that stuff. Ok, so yes we have running water, we just can't drink it. The toilets work great except for the fact that you can’t flush the paper. I think I told you guys about that. How we put the paper in the can right next to the toilet. Well, I found one thing good about that. You never run out of toilet paper. If your roll is out there is a lot more right next to you. Just make sure you get the clean side. Lol no I’m jokin. Ok the homes of members are all different. I found out this last week that we actually have the richer part of town. I had my first companion exchange this week. I stayed in our sector and my companion went to another. My companion for the one night and day was an English speaker, so it was actually kind of nice. He told me about his sector and how it used to be the 3rd most dangerous place in the world. I have been there a few times because my comp is the district leader, so we have a meeting twice a week there. It's way ghetto, no cement road, just all dirt. When I met with my comp the next day, he and the other comp had been robbed earlier that day. I think everyone that I have talked to had been robbed once or twice since being here, and it’s always by gun. Nothing like that has happened to me yet. I have had a lot of people flip me off though. And the other day we were sitting in a member’s house when this guy came up to the window yelling a lot of stuff in English and Spanish. Hi was angry, and I thought he was going to kill someone. He ended up leaving, and it was all good. Anywho the member’s houses are nice or sometimes they are ghetto, it just depends. Like one of the member’s houses we were in the other day had maggots crawling on the ground. I was sitting there trying to understand what we were talking about when I looked down and saw that the floor was moving. There were a lot to little worms all over the place, it was kind of sick. Then we go into another member’s house and they have really nice stuff. Nice furniture and tile flours. So idk- every member’s house is different. I’ll get some videos of our house and of the outside and send them to you soon. Right now we don’t have any rain, but It’s still way humid. They say the rainy season comes in the next few weeks, and that’s when it gets really hot and humid. It’s supposed to be the worst part of the year. It’s crazy how much sun there is here. I already have a fat farmer’s tan, which I’m pretty proud of. lol but ya, its only rained once, and it was just a sprinkle. We do sleep on regular beds and they seem pretty comfortable. I don’t know because it seems like I have only spent 10 minutes on them. As soon as my head hits the pillow I’m out, and as soon as I am out, the alarm clock starts peepin. Oh ok, so I almost forgot to tell you this, I have gone through one whole bar of soap. Yup and my shoes actually look like someone has worn them. I think every day I look at the bottom of my shoes just waiting for the day when I’m not the new guy, and I don’t have new stuff and ACTUALLY KNOW THE LANGUAGE. Ok well I think that we have to go now. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to answer all of your questions. I have this little girl sitting next to me and she is staring me down and it's starting to freak me out. It’s funny, all the little kids here do that when I’m walking down the street. The older people too sometimes. A lot of the time when people see me and they know that I speak English, so they will say the only thing they know. Which most of the time is, “Hello mi friend , you want to buy?” But ya it’s pretty funny. I sent a letter home today and also to Lili. It was my first one because last week we didn’t have time. Mom if you could, would you let Lili know that I have sent her that letter. I feel bad because this was my first letter to her since being here. Also, I don’t know how often I’ll be able to send letters to Lili. It probably won’t be every week. The letters will be longer because I think I’ll write one every week and just add them up until I get to go to the post office. So if you could let her know that I sent a long one, and that I’ll be sending more and they should be long also. I am sorry if this letter doesn’t make so much sense. I always have so much to say and never enough time to say it. I’ll write you guys a big long regular letter and it should be better I promise. Mom in your last letter you asked if I could send letter to Taylor and also to Cody. I was wondering if maybe, because it cost so much, I could send all the letters to you in one envelope and you could send them or give them to my friends back at home. I sent 3 letters today and they cost 6 bucks. I don’t know how often I’ll be going to the post office, so I think I’ll write you guys, then I’ll write my friends over the week and put them all in one letter and send them. It’s so hard to send letters here because the closest post office is like 20 minutes away, which is way out of our sector. Anyway, I gotta run. I love you all and miss you all very much.
Con Amor,
Elder Keables