¿como estas?

¿como estas? yes, im in the field! i am in a city called San Cristobal, in a barrio called...well, dunno what its called actually, but its right next to one called 5 d abril, (barrio is like....can't explain. its kinda like what sugarhouse is to salt lake, but on a much smaller scale). our house is one of the nicer ones. but, we don't have any like pots and pans, no desks or tables. also, luckily water is always available but light...aye aye aye we have electricity, from when we wake up until about 730am. we get it back again sometime during the afternoon, but we are outside at that time. it then leaves again at around 8pm, so when we get home and are wet from sweat, no fans! it comes on again at around 11pm and is on most the night. aye its so hot here. SO HOT! nothing is air conditioned, because lets be honest....im tracking tin-roofed lean-to´s...haha ill send you some pictures.

but man alive it is crazy! i like my comp alot. we get along well. he isnt what we call "flecha" (means arrow, for like the walking white handbook missionaries) and he isn't "tigre" which means tiger, we use if for the not so obedient missionaries. he is just an average guy, and love it. he makes me do just a little bit more and more during the lessons everyday. and have we been tracking?! yes!!! alot! hahah we were white washed into this area. meaning, the missionaries here before were here like a month ago cuz they were being naughty, so we are new to the area and don't know the members or anything. they left us nothing. so we have been doing alot of tracking! we tract for hours, set up appointments for the next day, and teach! its crazy though, nothing really has street names and there are SO many little houses. just little alleyways that lead to more and more and more. remember the slums of slum-dog millionaire? its kinda like that in a few places here. but its sorta nice in other places.

i wish i could really explain to you what it is like here....its unreal how different it is. there is garbage EVERYWHERE and there are huge piles of it that they just burn every night. so ya, it does smell like roses here...its SO humid and hot. i don't sleep well at all at night, i just sit and sweat and stick to my sheets. its miserable. im exhausted to the core. and my feet hurt. walking maybe a total of like 5 miles for 2 months in the MTC, and then all the sudden walking like 10-15 miles a day on dirt roads (while avoiding dead animals, garbage, some of the "cutest" dogs you have ever seen (there are 36357 of them) and the 5343 cars and motorcycles (yes, EVERYONE drives motorcycles, but they are all 100cc bikes. ive seen 645646646 motorcycles, but probably only 3 different kinds of bikes haha)

so i have like 10 blisters right now. booo. not fun. and my back really hurts-
good news though, i know that i have lost weight here! from sweating so so so so so much, and not much food. we eat like a roll for breakfast, then like plantains and salami, rice and salami, rice and eggs, or eggs and salami. or mac and cheese or ramen for lunch. come home at 9 and then MAYBE eat a roll or something (its so stinkin hot its hard to force myself to eat at night) and then go to bed. to im going to come home skinny skinny skinny.

i wont lie though, all this week i ave been super trunky. seeing how many things we take for granted in the states and how i miss them. and just not sleeping and my body being so tired and all has been really hard. and not really knowing what im doing, and on top of all of that i cant understand a single word people are saying to me. nothing. and i can barely say anything. i feel like Spanish will never come. i know it will, but its so hard. mostly im just really really sick of the heat and being sweaty and sticky all the time. and i mean always. the cold shower in the morning is the best part of my day. and its not cold, its just not as hot. im doing ok, but just having a hard time getting used to everything and realizing that its going to be like this for 2 years. its hard...

so let me tell you about my week. Tuesday we got on a bus and left for a chapel like 10 min away. met our trainer (his name is Elder Jones, is from riverton, and is almost exactly 3 weeks younger than me haha) had a little meeting, and then left for our area. its was like a 30 min bus drive. sat at another church for a few hours, then went to our apartment with the zone leaders. but, the people gave us the wrong keys. so, we had to call the AP´s and get keys. so we are in the sunshine waiting with the zone leaders (they don't live there with us, just waited with use since we both dont know the area) and sat for hours waiting to keys.

finally get some, go inside and its nice, but all the dishes are dirty, and there is old food in the fridge. my comp opens the fridge and starts to down some chocolate milk in there, and then imidiatly starts to pretty much ralph in the sink since it was all curdled. the milk here is weird, it like never goes bad and doesnt have to be refrigerated until its opened---so he didnt think it would be bad. but it was! oh man that was funny. and then we find out we have no power. and that the bill hadnt been paid so we wouldn't have power. but, we got our stuff put down and went out tracking! just started to nearly wander into peoples houses. but everyone here is so super friendly, my comp has only had one time where a person told him they couldnt visit them. but then came home, planned in candle light, went to bed without fans. longest night of my life. wendsday, kinda the same. woke up, studied, went to work! cleaned the apmt in the morning and then went out to our appointments and then tracketed more for thurday. thats pretty much how everyday has been! but all of that while i am literally dripping with sweat.

so people here, when they are young, look way older than they are. and alot of them are super attractive ahahah. but one girl, we set up an appt with her and then found out she is 15. totally thought she was 20. but she is an active member in her church, but is apparently looking for something more. gave her a restoration pamphlet and she pretty much studied it. we came back for a return appt but she wasn't there, but gave us a note that was a full on like...essay about the pamphlet. she looked up and studied every single scripture in the bible that was in it. so we will see how that goes! we are going to see her again tonight.

we have one baptized set up for the 21st! her name is Margarita and she is 9. her dad is a super happy evangelical dude and doesn't care what church she goes to, as long as she goes. her aunt is a member (BTW, the sisters that taught her live on 21st s across from highland!) and she goes to church alot with her aunt so we are teaching her and gonna baptize her! stoked. have a few other investigators but none came to church.

other random note. being a north American here is like...gold. constantly as we are walking there are girls screaming out, making kissy sounds, and everyone asks if we can or do have girlfriends. its crazy! they loooooove white boys! super funny. i don't really know what else to say!

oh, during a lesson with margarita yesterday it was about 8 pm and it started to POUR!! and that hard of rain on little tin roofs is SO loud. you have no idea! so so so so loud! and then my comp said that was nothing, that often times you are positive that the house is going to fall down!
speaking of loud, no noise ordinance here. aye....everyone plays crazy loud merengue!! want hear a super good Dominican band that i love and here everywhere? his name is Omega. also a band called Adventurea i think...super cool. ok well im gonna try and send some pics now....
-Elder MacArthur