Chance's Email 10/20/08

hey fam!
how are you guys doin? thanks for you letters i love them every single week. so ya i've got my new comp, ha ha he is an uber dork but he is a stud. he is so ready to work and is obedient with exactness which is all i could ask for. he has 9 mo. in the mission and in our mission we aren't assigned as senior or junior companions. i think it's better that way cause we feel like equals. i'm still in the same area and im running things now cause he knows nothing about the area so it's been a lot of pressure but i have learned so stinkin much! he understands everything of what the people say but his pronunciation is a little "gringo" but thats ok. he never complain he just follows me and we teach and work and it's all good. as for my spanish it has improved a ton this week cause im FORCED to listen more carefully and speak more. i can understand almost everything and i'm expanding my vocab each day. i could live on my own if i had to. but don't think im braggin cause i could do so much better. heavenly father has really blessed me with the gift of tongues and i dont thank him enough.

i haven't recieve the package yet but i'm way stoked. i hope it doesn't make me fatter than i already am. in our apartment we run up the stairs for excercise (all 20 floors twice) and i can feel my gut bouncin up and down, it's sad. it's not huge but it's not pretty. i hope there are some slim fast bars inside the package. jk haha i will lose all of this in the summer i'm almost positive. taylor is still in my zone and eric recieved a new comp on the island so he should be there for like 3 more mo. some good news about taylor, we had our conf with the pres and taylor said the opening prayer and when he ended pres. got up and was like isn't that amazing? how much time do you have in the mission elder toone? 6 weeks. look at that, he said, it's incredible how well elder toone can speak in so little time, how blessed you have been. he really gave props to him and really taylor speaks so well! a little later the pres shared some stories of basketball. he is like the chuck cutler of stories in church talks but with basketball. he was a coach and tells us tons of inspiring stories about his team and how they had success as a team. he has really emphasized teamwork as a mission and we set goals as a mission. it's awesome. i really love our president and i feel like we have a lot in common. just how he talks and stuff. he is really sensitive and i really feel close to him when he talks.
i can't believe the news about kenz. i will miss her if she gets married but hey that's life i guess. i wanna hear from her. one thing we did yesterday was visit a lot of inactive members and commit them to come to the church. one thing our president says about the work is " there is no difference between a baptism and reactivating someone" i really love that he has said this because i feel the same way. why baptize someone if they aren't going to go to church and keep their covenants? this is something i want to focus on all my mission along with baptisms. it's something that doesn't show our success with numbers, but heavenly father wants. i don't care if i come home with less baptisms and more members active if that's what the Lord wants. i just want to feel like i strengthened the church and the wards where i served. ok for some more "light" stuff. we ate at a house for lunch this week and they brought out a soup for us and it contained a really thin watery broth with a big hip bone or something in it. it was called "sopa de hueso" which translates to "bone soup". it had like a sliver of beef on it and the rest was just there to flavor the soup with bone flavor haha. i was sad that mom and london missed out. also, soccer is HUGE here and whenever chile scores a goal the whole city knows it cause the streets erupt with cheers. also they beat argentina for the first time ever and cars were whizzin down the street and horns were blaring and it was insane! well gotta go. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SISSY AND GRANDMA WINDA! I hope your birthdays are awesome. i love you fam and everyone else!
elder peterson