October 7, 2013

I loved Conference. It goes so fast now. I felt like it was twenty minutes long. In our ward I have not taught one member who hasn't complained about the bishop yet (excepting recent converts), and every less active i have met so far has told me it was because of him, and chuch attendance is at 39 people (probabley less at conference), my old ward was got up to 280. My companions still don't understand spanish, so i am almost alone in the lessons to save them, even though i am trying to make them teach as independantly as possible. And we have a missionary in the district who wants to go home. Through that on top of several other things, and the new battle we've been waging against some bed bugs, and i was getting pretty weighed down again.Those were my constant thoughts. pure complaints again. I feel like yet again i fell into that, you'd think i'd learn by now to look for the good. That all being said, conference came at a great moment. I feel like i have a direction again, we mostly have the bed bug problem under control. Though we did have to ditch a couple super infested mattresses, i have a plan with my companions to work on the spanish, to help the ward (when you look at it this way, a ward with so many problems has a huge potential to grow if you get over them), and i have a much larger faith and hope again. I love General conference. These are men truly called of God himself. I am doing everything i knew i neeeded to before but i had stopped doing well, and more than anything we can say again we are 100% obedient. No more getting to bed at 10:31 pm. Down to the tee, 100% obedient. And working. What more can i ask for right? I really realized more than ever this talk that i am in this life to live for God and not for me. When Elder Oaks said "we may see invasions of our free excercise of religion. if so i think we should remember our first priority. to serve God. And like our pioneer predecesors, push our personal pioneer handcart forward with the same fortitude they exhibeted... courge not compromise brings the smile" i said, well if that's what it'll be, lets get at it. I really loved conference. Last conference i took 17 questions to conference. All 17 were answered. This conference there weren't quite as many, but every question for direction etc. was very clearly answered. It was cool. As i thought on each one, the talks seemed to center on those. And i loved how direct it was about the laws of God not changing, and the call to do our duty now, and almost the urgency of it. "man's laws cannot change the laws of God". It is our duty to build God's church now. I really liked that. Conference rocks. A lot. This is God's church. Love you all! Elder West

Here is a clip from Peter's companion's letter:
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I've had some new interesting foods this week. Let me just say that cow stomech is the worst tasting thing in the world... I don't know why anyone would ever think of feeding that to three young missionaries... Elder West had this one particular big chewy piece in his, when our host wasn't looking he quickly threw it on his napkin and put it in his pocket. As gross as it was we did get some pretty good laughs out of it. fortunately it isn't a very common dish, Elder West has only had it once before in his 21 months here. We did get all of our health food! I love starting the day off with some grains. We also started to run now that I'm starting to get over my caugh. 

This past week Elder Huefner and I started to have little itchy red spots pop up all over out legs and arms. Last night we discovered that we have bedbugs! yay! We discovered them right before we went to bed and we didn't really have ay choice but to sleep with them again... We both covered ourselves in bug spray, said a pleading prayer that we wouldn't get eaten alive, and squimeshly climbed onto the infested matress. This morning we pulled the two mattresses out and and deep cleaned so that they wouldn't have any places to hide. My bed was covered in eggs! it would have been a dissaster if they have hatched. But all is well and I'm just grateful that it wasn't worse."

Chicken feet anyone? The truck passes every day offering, "large feet, fat feet, delicious feet. Men, women, children, come! Try our delicious little feet!"     So we did. yum... the red and white stuff on top is chile with mayonaise.