I Touched a Monkey yesterday!

Hey everybody!

How is everyone doing?  Ugh, we are at a different internet place than we usually go to, and on this one you cant change the keyboard to English.  Drats.

Its December already, holy smokes.  Time goes crazy fast, Ive been here for over a month already.  Sheesh!  And what else is cool that I figured out is that by the time my birthday comes around, Ill have 6 months of my mission under my belt!  How cool is that?

So I got 2 sets of Dear Elders since the last email.  How it works is that we get our mail once a week through a service called the encomienda - basically mail goes to the mission office, and they get it to us every week.  Usually we get our mail during district meeting on Tuesdays.  Thats what happened last week.  But this week, because Elder Ganga is the district leader, sometimes he gets to pick it up a day or 2 earlier, so we got the mail yesterday.  I have Dear Elders from about November 17/18th - 20th and About the 24th or so - 29th.  The first ones dont have the date, so I cant be sure how early it was written.  But thank you all sooo much for keeping them coming.  I really love getting them, thank you thank you thank you!  Ill do my best to answer as much of them as I can here, but theres like 7 pages so...hah.

Christina - ¡Gracias por sus palabras para mi!  Me gustó su carta.  Además, yo entendí todo!  ¿Qué cosa, eh?  Buena suerte en la escuela estas meces.  Pero usted no la necesita, sé que usted es muy inteligente.  No va a tener ninguna problema.  Váyase a la iglesia también :) realmente, este Evangelio puede cambiar las vidas de los que viven de acuerdo de sus principios.  Estoy seguro de ésto. Le extraño mucho y le quiero también.

Bryce - Felicitaciones mí amigo!  You sent in your papers, how sweet is that?  I bet you are stoked now - I remember it was more real for me once I sent in my papers and got my call.  Make sure somebody tells me where youre going as soon as you find out, in an email too so I dont have to wait for the Dear Elder to arrive to find out!  You are going to love it, Im telling you.  It will be hard, that I can promise you.  But once you get acclimated and accustomed to missionary life, and have in perspective that youre here to serve the Lord, you will be hard-pressed to find a time in your life when you were truly happier.  Youre going to love it.  Im so proud of you buddy!

Ok, so.  I touched a monkey yesterday!  Hah!  Elder Ganga and I were walking to an appointment, and in front of one of the houses this guy had 2 monkeys, so of COURSE we had to stop and talk to him.  We were holding the monkeys and they were climbing on our arms (which is a big mission no-no, but we couldnt pass up the opportunity lol), it was sweet.  Elder Ganga was like were gonna come back another day and take a picture with them and the guy was like oh for sure of course, no problem!  So we will try to do that this week haha.  But it was sweet.

Happy birthday (un poco belated haha) to Opa!  21, must feel great!  Ill be the same age as you in a year and just a few months!

Tuesday of next week is changes (transfers, theyre called changes here), they are every 6 weeks.  Im pretty sure that Elder Ganga is going to be transferred.  He opened up this area 2 changes before I got here.  His first change here, he opened up the area and trained a new missionary.  The next change, that companion left and he trained another missionary.  Also, he became district leader that change.  Now hes training me and has been here 4 and a half months.  Im pretty sure he is going to be transferred.  Bummer.

Oh, so I had my first dream in Spanish last night haha.  Really freaks you out the first time you have one.  I was in some crowded hotel lobby and ordered food from the bar there.  I got 2 plates but walked away with only 1, and when I went back to get the other one they had eaten my food.  Jerks.  And then I got in some car with somebody I dont know and we were driving around some city.  This was all in Spanish lol.  Pretty neat.

WHOA whoa whoa.  You got a CAT?!  We have never been able to have animals or pets (fish dont count), and after all these years, you get a CAT?!  I leave for 3 months...sheesh!  As long as it stays under Bryans bed, I guess its alright.  What is her name?  If its in one of the Dear Elders, I forgot haha.  The names for the dogs here are so weird.  Shusha (pronounced shoo-shuh), Michi, weird stuff like that.

So last Thursday, we had our zone conference with all the districts in the zone and the mission president with his wife.  It was so awesome.  It was about the Book of Mormon.  Wow, seriously, that was some good stuff we learned there haha.  And I had my first interview with President Callan.  The guy is super smart and really spiritual.  Im not in trouble quite yet, and he said Im doing well lol.  But this next part youre going to like the most (mom will, at least, for sure).

At the conference, the mission médico (doctor) was there and talked to us about how to avoid the area-specific problems and stuff.  After, I helped his wife take her stuff to their car.  She took a picture of Elder Ganga and I and said she was going to put it up on her blog haha.  Heres the website to check it out:  www.walterandeileen.blogspot.com

There should be a picture of Elder Ganga and I on there somewhere haha.  Pretty neat.  That was really nice of her.  Check it out, you can see a current picture of me and also what Elder Ganga looks like.

Anyway, no more time for this week.  At some point, Ill run out of stories to tell from the week and actually start telling you about the people we are teaching haha.  One of them we went to visit last night and he was really drunk.  That was interesting.  But yeah, anyway.  Until next week!  Love and miss you all lots.

¡Ciáo!

-Elder Moore