I Am White And Don't Know Spanish

October 27, 2014

So when we were getting talked to about travel to Cuzco at the end of last week, before we left the CCM (Lima's MTC) they assigned me to be the group leader!  That meant I was in charge of making sure all the Elders were packed and ready to go that night.  I was up really late myself packing and up even later making sure everybody else was packed.  We had to board the bus the next morning at 4.  The meant that I needed to be up extra early to make sure everybody was awake and on the bus.  I got only 2.5 hours of sleep that night and flew into Cuzco the next morning.  I was soo exhausted.  And that flight was actually really hard for me...I thought about so much stuff.  My family, friends, and maybe most of all my terrible Spanish!  We made it safely and President and Hermana Harbertson were so good to us.  They were just like grandparents to us.  I was really sad for some reason in my interview and he could definitely tell.  He asked me about it and we just talked for a solid 20 minutes.  He was really comforting and knew exactly what to say.

We got to find out who our companions were the next day and I was really excited to get a new companion.  My new companion is Elder Cueto.  Latino.  He speaks NO English at all.  It make things really hard.  I can tell he really does try to be patient will me but he does a really really bad job of that.  He has never trained and has never had a companion that is not fluent in Spanish.  To be honest, he and the other Latinos are kind of rude to me.  They do not understand how hard it is to learn a different language.  He told me that I should know more from the CCM.  It is really discouraging and I work as hard as I can all the time but he just doesn't understand.  I have been studying constantly and trying to get better.  He doesn't really want to take me to lessons or contacting because  I don`t know Spanish that well.  Today was the first day that he helped me in companionship language study.

Peru is so awesome.  I love the people here to the moon and back.  Seriously!  They Bishop of the word that we serve in is partially inactive and to we have to work with him and get him coming to all his meetings and stuff.  So the President of the stake here pretty much runs everything.   He is the nicest man in Peru I am honestly convinced of that.  We were over at his house trying to figure something out, I don`t really know what because I am white and don`t know Spanish, when he made us hamburgers!  He made us HAMBURGERS!!!!!  I felt like a king!  It kind of felt like Christmas.  Sooo delicious!

We live in this house with some members.  They two younger boys and mom are members but the dad is not.  She is our Pentionista.  Cooks, washes our clothes and so forth.  They are the nicest family but the dad, Marko is a drunk.  I can hear him every night screaming and yelling!!  We ask him every morning when he is going to get baptized and he always says, "Maybe tomorrow!"  Hopefully one day tomorrow will come!!  They have two younger boys who love us.  They are always hovering around us and talking to us!  They love English and so I teach them something in English every day at breakfast and they teach me something every day in Spanish.  It is a pretty good system actually!!  I only had to take a cold shower 3 out of the 5 days here, not too bad!  I haven`t been sick and continue to try to be better every day!

So yesterday in church I reached into my suit pocket and pulled out the letter you  wrote me, thanks for wrecking me in the middle of sacrament!  But really thank you for the letter it makes all the conflicts with my companion worth it!!!

I love you with all of my heart!!!

Love Elder George