Elder Finch: December 14th

Hey guys. It made me so happy to hear from you.

Life as a missionary is amazing. The food I usually buy for each week consists of bagels, spaghetti, milk, one box of cereal, peanut butter crackers, juice, wheat bread, and honey roasted peanut butter(tastes surprisingly good on toast.) The other day, I made some German Pancakes for breakfast. I have learned how to cook quickly. It only took me 20 minuets start to finish. 5 minuets to get it in the oven, then 15 in. I am up to 120lb and still gaining weight. When you eat at a members house, they give you so much food. They fill your plate completely up, then once you finally eat all of it; they fill it up again. It surprises me how much food I can fit in my stomach at one time. I have only been served three non Mexican meals so far, and all of those were by sister McKonkie. I am expecting another one on Wednesday. We are having a zone meeting.
Almost every meal, there will be some kind of pasta or soup, some sort of taco shells, usually soft 4" corn shells, and something to put in it.

My mission no longer does the 1 1/2 day bike thing for car missions, and there are no Spanish biking missions, but the other day, we had to let some other missionaries use our car, so we got to bike the whole day. I loved it, my companion hated it. He's fit, he just doesn't like biking. My bike is way nice. It goes very smoothly over bumps, takes little energy to ride, and can coast for a long time. I am happy I got it.

Contacting is way fun. I am deep in the Bible Belt, so we contact different than most other missions. I have only run in to one person that didn't believe in Jesus Christ. When we contact we usually say something along the lines of "we have a message for the pure in heart, who want to follow Christ. Are you one of these people?... Our message is that Christ has restored his church again on the earth. At this point they usually say, "O, I already go to church, I am (Catholic/Baptist/Jehovah’s Witness.)" At this point we say something like "That’s great, we believe in Jesus Christ to. If Jesus Christ called a prophet to the earth in these days, is this something you would like to know?" Then we take it on from there. Of course, the whole time we keep open to revelation.

Because I'm a Spanish elder, finding people is different. In stead of just going door to door, We look for signs of a Spanish house. These include looking for double bulbed satellites, stickers on the front door, a lot of toys in the yard, and cloths hanging out to dry on the front porch. Revelation still is the biggest sign.

Two days ago, we were walking back to our car and I started walking past this one trailer (we usually contact in trailer parks.) and I felt prompted to knock it. It didn't look like a Spanish house, but we knocked anyway. Sure enough, it was a Spanish house. The dad of the house is named Oscar. He was quick to let us in. The first lesson we had with him, his wife, and her sister, went great. We are coming by again today at 6:30.

Promptings usually come in the form of a random thought, that if you ask yourself if it is revelation, you feel the spirit. It surprises me how many promptings I have received as a missionary.

Samuel, I was excited to here from you. It makes me happy to know I have an awesome brother back at home. Unfortunately I could not see the pictures on this computer, so, I am going to send the emails to you so you can print them up and stick them in my next package. That would make me so happy:]. I hope your having fun at home.

Amber. I am excited to hear you applied to BYU. I hope it goes well. It sounds like school is going well to, or at lest well enough. I'm so excited you are eager to step into life. I think you will enjoy BYU, not that I would know.

Rebekah, Good luck with your mission call. I will be very excited to hear about it in an email when it comes if not before Christmas. It sounds like you are going to make a great missionary from how much you enjoy PMG. In the MTC you learn way quickly, but I know that preparing even before the MTC will allow God to give you many blessing.

I wish I could write to all of you specifically, but I am out of time. For Christmas, I want... I guess... a... Brightly colored tie would be cool, if not too expensive. Also a lot of pictures of you guys would be way cool. I'll write more next time.