"Well, I feel like I'm making it a weekly tradition of saying this, but I just have to say it again: This week was the busiest week ever!!!!! And the most stressful."

Family!!!!!!!!

I was just thinking about how I missed you guys.

Well, I feel like I'm making it a weekly tradition of saying this, but I just have to say it again: This week was the busiest week ever!!!!! And the most stressful. Oh boy, was I stressed this week. Lots of office. Minimal missionary work. And when I say "minimal" I mean it was the least productive week missionary work wise of my entire mission by far. Record lows in every category! Hmm, let's just turn to my journal for a minute to get a glimpse of my week:

11/26/12

Wow! Really busy day!! It’s like midnight so I don’t wanna write much, but today was hectic. Elder Karl and Elder Allred were supposed to go home today, but due to a mix-up with their passports, they have to stick around till tomorrow. Kinda lame for them.

Well, tomorrow’s gonna be nuts too. I’m gonna go to bed.

11/27/12

Wow! Really busy day!! Again!!! Transfers. Monthly payments. Other stuff. So glad that monthly pay and transfers are now officially over! Until missionaries go to withdraw their money and start calling me about all the problems they’re having. Bleh.

Apart from the transfer meeting, spent the day in the office getting payments ready. I haven’t proselyted in so long!!! Tomorrow looks busy too. I need a rest!

11/28/12

It’s ridiculous how tired I am. I've never felt this worn out in the mission before. But it’s not so much of a physical tiredness as a mental one. Today was another day of pure office. I am totally overwhelmed with the amount of things that somehow got piled on me all at the same time. My brain is shot. I desperately need a rest. I need a break. We’re talking about taking a half P-day on Saturday to make up for the P-day we never had on Monday, but I don’t know if I can make it ‘til Saturday, because I’m beat. I feel like I won’t be able to be a good missionary until I make up for my loss of sleep and give my mind and body a moment to rest and not have to worry about anything…

11/29/12

Bah. I’m upset with how unorganized I've been these past few days, and how much I've been in the office. I really don’t feel very much like a missionary right now. I need to get out and teach tomorrow. I have to teach.

11/30/12

Well, today we finally taught some lessons. Three. So, that felt good.

12/01/12

Today was sort of weird. Supposedly it was P-day, because we didn't have P-day on Monday so we switched it to today. However, apparently to Elder Perea “P-day” means work just as hard, if not harder, than usual in the office, taking me to a million places to do his office chores that weren't even urgent, completely canceling out our P-day and making it just another boring work-filled day at the office. Yeah, so much for that rest I've been waiting all week to get. 

12/02/12

Today was nice because we got to proselyte a little more and watched the Christmas devotional. In Spanish though. Gotta re-watch it in English.

Anyway, that's sort of what my week went like. Without a lot of the boring details. I am very glad that last week is over.

That's seriously all that happened this week, so... bye!

Err, I guess I can think of some other things to tell you about too...

Well, for one, that Christmas devotional. I enjoyed it sort of. I just can't really enjoy it very much if it’s not in English. I'm just watching President Eyring speak and I can tell by his expression and the little bit of his real voice that leaks in between the breaks in the Spanish voice, that he's getting really emotional, but the dumb Spanish voice is just speaking without any emotion whatsoever and I'm just like "oh, come on!! This is such a rip-off!!" Haha. Seriously, I don't enjoy the translated conferences. But I've gone over that before and don't need to explain it again. I'll watch it again in English if I find any free moments this week. Benefits of 24/7 internet access. Why do I even have 24/7 internet access?? I'm a missionary! I'm supposed to have only 1/1 internet access. I feel like this is one super gigantic temptation that's sitting right in front of me every day.

Really, my favorite part of a week full of very few teaching experiences happened yesterday. Yesterday was one of the few days that we got to go out and do a good amount of proselyting. At one point all of our appointments had fallen through and we didn't really have anywhere to go, but I remembered this one old man that we met a few weeks ago who's a member of the church and I thought it'd be nice to stop by and give him a visit. We went to his apartment and knocked on his window. Eventually he came out. He's very old and fragile and he can barely see anymore. He walked right up to us and couldn't recognize who we were, until I said "good afternoon" at which point he stopped for a moment and was like "... los élderes?" and his face just lit up and he was so happy that the elders decided to come visit him! That moment was my favorite part of the week. Just that happy expression on his face made me feel like I was really doing something good.

Yesterday was also fast Sunday. Piter got up and shared his testimony with the congregation for the third time! Haha. He's always nervous too, but for some reason he still always wants to do it. Because he's so awesome! Testimony meeting was pretty great this time, if I do say so myself. It was a nice spiritual recharge after a non-spiritual week.

We also announced at church that we're now only going to eat lunch with members on Saturdays and not on Sundays. Because Sundays are like our only days to be able to go out and teach without having to worry about being in the office and we always spend so long in the members homes that it really kills our teaching time. Mostly because we show up, and instead of having everything all ready, they start cooking when we get there, and then we have to wait for them to cook the food, and then eat it, and talk, and it just takes a real long time. But honestly, the main reason for the change is my health. I wanted to cut members lunches all together, but we settled with eating only once a week instead of twice. Now I will get sick only once a week instead of twice. :)

This week I got double mail! Because I got zero mail last week. So that was fun. Double letters from home. Double Porter updates. I forgot that it was even Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving was always so fun for me before. To me, Thanksgiving and video games and soda go hand in hand in hand. And cousins. However I'm hearing crazy rumors that Thanksgiving break isn't even a thing anymore at Ricks College which is a huge bummer. Wait, I'm not even actually on Fall term, am I? Whatever. But it sounds like you had a fun time. Thanksgiving is the best. But I liked what Mom told me: "I know that you won't be celebrating Thanksgiving there, but if I recall you don't even like Thanksgiving because you don't even like Turkey, stuffing, etc. You'd prefer to just have hamburgers, isn't that right?"... Yes. That is right. Well, the hamburgers part is right. Not the I "don't even like Thanksgiving" part. But you're totally right. If it were up to me, on Thanksgiving we'd eat cheeseburgers and pizza, and drink a ton of Voltage. No, wait... Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. OH MY GOSH I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT CRANBERRY SPLASH I NEED SOME SO BADLY RIGHT NOW. Cranberry Splash is one of the best holiday traditions there is!

Anyway, Dad told me about speaking in the singles ward and it made me jealous because I never even noticed how much more reverent the singles ward is than any other ward. No babies screaming. No rowdy kids. That's something I never even appreciated about the singles ward until I read your letter. Now I miss it a ton. I'd kill to have a reverent meeting here. I'd kill a large giraffe.

Tons of people I know are getting mission calls! And they're all girls!! That's the coolest thing ever!! I'm so happy that more people are going to experience the blessings of serving a mission. Thanks for keeping me updated on the random "I got my mission call!" Facebook updates that you happen to see whenever you use my Facebook. Haha. Keep updating me! (Speaking of Facebook, I remember right about when I was leaving for my mission that Google+ was just starting out, and since Google usually dominates everything I assumed it might get a lot bigger than Facebook eventually. Did that ever happen? I thought Google+ was kind of stupid. And then I made an account anyway to try to video chat with Mark Hoppus.)

I got the Christmas packages too! I don't remember if I told you that last week. I haven't opened them though. I don't really know why, since you told me everything inside is wrapped. I'll probably open them sometime soon.

Jacqueline, normally I should be sleeping from 10:30 until 6:30 every night. So... eight hours of sleep. Lots of nights I get less though. Nine hours would be nice.

Sam, the reason you couldn't find my Halo games is because I brought them with me and I play them every night with the other missionaries!!... Just kidding. The real reason is because I don't own and Halo games. For realz. The only Xbox games I ever bought were Star Wars games and Resident Evil. I don't own Halo. And my alien game for Wii doesn't suck!! Speaking of Wii, is the new Wii out yet? Speaking of Wii again, do you have the new Zelda yet which isn't even new anymore?

Keegan! I got your letter! Well, not your physical letter. Only the Dear Elder. I am seriously mega bummed that some Peruvian banditos got away with stealing such a precious piece of mail, and such an important part of T-Rex Planet history. Maybe there is still hope that it will get here... probably not. Really lame. It got me wondering how many other letters people have sent me that never arrived... Anyway I'll try to find time to actually write you back, just wanted to let you know that I did (and didn't) get your mail, because who knows when the heck I'll ever be able to write.

Well... there is just not a lot of stuff to tell you about my week this week. It was busy and stressful. Hoping for a better week this week. We're gonna have multi-zone conferences with a seventy (I can't remember who), so that's gonna be fun!

I hope you're enjoying your precious few weeks left before the end of the world! What a rip-off, there isn't even going to be Christmas this year. :(

Talk to you next week! Bye!

-Elder Hemsley

Oh wait! I almost forgot to tell you one more thing I did this week! This is super ridiculous. This morning as a zone we all went paintballing! For realz! That is something I never expected to do as a missionary. But Prez Risso gave us permission so it's all good. That was fun! Basically my first real P-day activity I've had in a long time!! I think I killed a guy! Hahaha. Okay, bye for real!

-Victor

Victor sent a bunch of new pictures that you can see by clicking on the slideshow at the top of this blog.  Here are just a few of them:

"Piter's baptism!"

"The zone."

"Hey, I'm a missionary."