Another week in Chorrera

Hey Fam,

I dunno if you got those pictures I tried to send to you last week, but if I need to do it again, let me know!

Things here in Chorrera are very different from Arraijan. The members still insist on feeding us mountains of food at each meal and I´m pretty sure they´re going to kill me. I made the mistake of offering some of my fries to my companion (in what I thought was a loving and thoughtless gesture) and her response was to glare at me and tell me that I need to eat all of the food the members gave us because this food was sacred. So every morning I am running laps in our small backyard to work off the sacred food. There´s a finely trodden path in the grass which I run while repeating, ¨I won´t get fat! I won´t get fat!``` It´s funny. I promise.

I don´t have much to report in the way of investigators because this area is mostly less actives or inactives, so we´re doing a lot of reactivating. But the people are good and I feel lucky to serve in this area.

Many of you have asked me if my companion has smiled yet and I am happy to say that yes, in fact, she seems to like me somewhat. It sort of depends on the day. One day she´s telling me that she´ll name her future daughter allison and she´s sharing her latina secrets for washing clothes and other things (which I´ve sworn not to divulge, sorry) and then the next day she´s thoroughly annoyed with me for not understanding something she said or for trying to be exactly obedient. In fact, if you ask hna. Chevez to describe her companion, she´ll say ¨Tall and obedient.¨ I´ll take it, I guess. Oh what an adventure every day is here...still collecting material for that novel I´m going to write :).

Most of all, though, I hope you all know that even though things might get rough and I still feel like I don´t know what´s going on half of the time, one thing never changes and that´s my testimony. I´m grateful to have that rock in my life. The church is true! Nothing will ever change that. what a comfort, eh?

Gotta go write my letter to the president now. It´s his last transfer! Pobrecito.

Love you all very much.

Al