"I ate chicken feet for the first time!"

Hi guyz!

 

Hmm. What happened this week... Welllll........ Uhh....

 

I can never think when I'm writing these things.

 

Let's see... On Tuesday our zone came down to Pacasmayo for our weekly zone meeting I got mail and I got that my Christmas banner from the ol' Eugene 3rd Ward! I forgot about those things! Way awesome!! Thanks ward! I especially appreciated the various Star Wars references it had. Got my usual letters from the fam too. I love your weekly letters! Thank you thank you! Even though I almost never write back anymore. Sorry! That's what these e-mails are for. Seriously I never have time to write letters anymore. But I'll at least make an effort to write people if its their first time writing me. Some of you I'd like to write whenever possible. Some of your letters have been direct answers to prayers I've had and I wanna keep in contact with you! You guys are the coolest. Like those people who sent me birthday letters through my mom, those were all awesome but I don't have any of your addresses so I can't respond. But I want to! It might just take me like seven months to do it.

 

After our zone meeting our zone leaders Elder Ruiz and Elder Burton had to come with us to our room to pick something up from us. The day before I had told Elder Burton that there's a store in Pacasmayo that sells Dr. Pepper and so he really wanted to go buy some because Dr. Pepper is not found anywhere in Peru. So on the way to the room we picked up some DP's. Mmm... He said he'd been looking for DP his whole mission, which is like 18 or 19 months or something, and he was so excited to drink it! Basically he was almost as excited as I would be to drink Mountain Dew. Almost. So that was delish. Some other day they came back to pick something else up and I was talking to Elder Burton about music and all the instruments we wish we could play and all the music we miss and how badly we miss going to concerts. Haha. He's a cool guy. And he's gonna go to BYUI after the mish so that's pretty sickawesome!

 

Speaking of music, I played a Mario song on the piano (Dire Dire Docks from Super Mario 64 for those who really care that much) in our chapel after church one day and Elder Choc thought it was way cool so he wanted me to teach it to him. I'm a really bad teacher but he sort of has the beginning down now. Haha. Way cool. Except we hardly ever get to play the piano. Somehow I am automatically way better friends with someone if they appreciate the joys of Nintendo 64. I'm also helping him with English a lil' bit. Teaching English is hard because English doesn't make sense.

 

Oh yeah, speaking of music some more, and Nintendo 64, this week I finished writing a new song made up of Star Fox 64 quotes. Haha. I am so dumb. Well the chorus and bridge are Star Fox quotes and the rest I made up. The weird thing is its not even really a joke song, other than the fact that it's a funny idea. I've finished writing three songs since being out here. Hopefully I can come home with a bunch of new ones to record. That would be kewl.

 

Uhh, the other day we woke up to water leaking from our ceiling again! So that was kind of fun. And by "fun" I mean "really really stupid. Idiot." I get nervous when that happens because the water leaks right next to my desk, so I moved my desk right next to my bed, so now my desk chair is my bed. And it's kind of comfortable for like ten minutes and then it starts to get really uncomfortable because there is no back rest. But I'm leaving it there for now partially because I'm lazy.

 

On Saturday we ate with a member and I finally got to eat something kind of weird! Kind of. I ate chicken feet for the first time! You feel really awesome when you eat them because you just bite the toes off, bones and all, and eat all the meat and then spit the bones back out. It's kind of creepy how easy it is to bite a toe off. Haha. It tasted good though. The other other thing I've had that could really be considered kind of weird was that we ate bunny one day. It tasted like chicken... for realz it did. Eating with members is a lot of fun even if I still can't talk with them all that much. But I'm getting way better.

 

Drunk people still talk to us all the time. Kinda very annoying. Get sober please. Yesterday as we were walking to church these two guys who were drinking called us over to talk to us and asked us for our help to help them with their drinking problem because it was ruining their lives and distancing them from their families. Well, at least they recognized that. But also they were drunk so they don't really know what they're saying. Every drunk guy in the street wants us to help them change their lives. But only when they're drunk. When they're sober they don't care, and then they go get drunk again. So anyway we decided to make an appointment with one of them (which we never do with drunk people, but I dunno, maybe there's hope this time... Probably not.) and he was super thankful about it, and then Elder Choc was like "and how about today you make it a goal to go without drinking for the rest of the day?" And the guy was like "look, I'm not going to lie, I'm going to keep drinking today. But thanks for everything." Haha. Okay. Thanks for being honest. Bye. I'm just so grateful I've never had to deal with any of that crap in my life growing up in the church. And I'm especially thankful to all my friends who've always respected my decisions not to be a part of that stuff. I've never felt pressured by any of you to do something I didn't want to do or didn't feel was right, and I love and respect the heck outta all you guys for that. I picked some good friends. I know lots of members of the church who haven't been so lucky with their friends respecting their standards and beliefs. You guys have always been so awesome.

 

Then we went to church and we gave talks again. This time my talk went better and I didn't pee my pants, so that's good. I actually like speaking in church, I just hate preparing talks. So once again I pulled out a really crappy talk I wrote in the Lima MTC on enduring to the end and used that as my outline and made up the rest on the spot. It went pretty well considering I'm only a level 3 Spanish speaker (out of 999 levels). So that was kind of fun. Wilson also spoke and he's the coolest guy ever. Pretty sure I've said that about him a few times before. He's the coolest.

 

Hmm... that's pretty much been my week I think... Tomorrow I'm going to Chepén again to spend the day with Elder Ruiz as Elder Burton comes to Pacasmayo to work with Elder Choc. Every week I'm in Chepén! I'm stoked though. Chepén´s cool and Elder Ruiz is a great guy. Also I get to take a shower in Chepén so I'm more than a little excited about that. I've almost gone two months without running water!! I figure it's good practice for the rest of my life as I'm living as a super poor musician. Now that I know that I can survive without running water or a good ceiling, I'm set for life! Sorry future wife.

 

Did Bryn get her patriarchal blessing yet?? I wanna hear about it! My patriarchal blessing is one of the most precious things I have. It's the coolest thing in the world! So many things I was told in my blessing have already come to pass or are currently happening in my life. It's such a huge source of comfort and guidance for me. I liked how in General Conference Elder Russell M. Nelson said something about how our patriarchal blessings are visions of our future. It's so so so cool. I love mine so much!! Patriarchal blessings are seriously like the coolest part of the church. Okay fine there are a lot of cool parts. Like my nametag. That's pretty cool.

 

Well, yeah that's pretty much it. I dunno. All I really have left to say is that everyone should take the chance to serve a mission if they can. If it's ever crossed your mind to serve, just do it!! There are a million reasons not to go, but you can't even imagine the amazing blessings you'll receive and how much you'll learn and grow spiritually for serving. It's the most incredible thing in the world. Fer realz. Everyone should serve a mission. Let's get Elder Hunter, Elder James, and Elder Tyler their mission calls to Peru Chiclayo so I can be their trainers! That would be the funnest.

 

Anyway, gotta go. Maybe I'll e-mail again next week. We'll see...

 

-Elder H

 

Oh yeah and I miss you.