December?

So when I was arriving at the missionary training center, I remember thinking, ``man, I am gonna be super smart and cool when I call home at christmas because I will have changed so much in those 8 (actually about 7.65) months.创 The only difference that I am seeing that I can believe is the fact that I am writing 12 for the month and not 5... so... yeah. I don磘 think you磍l see or hear much of a difference.

But the good news is that I am having a good time here. I not going to lie, I can honestly use the word ``love创 about the work that I am doing. I am not one to be that missionary that uses a whole bunch of exclamation marks and tries to be overly excited to make up for something, but really, I love it here. One of the rules that our mission president put into practice recently that I am liking, is that it is against the rules to mark a kid without the parents, unless the kids goes 6 months without missing a commitment and the parents refuse to hear us. Our mission, not being the highest in sheer numbers, is however one of the highest in retention. And the concentrated effort we are putting on the family is only going to help that. It磗 cool because it allows me to even more so forget about numbers and think 100% about the welfare of the people we are teaching, and we have been able to see and feel a noticeable difference in the work we do.

The other thing that I feel like I am finally getting a little bit better at is talking. I can磘 even begin to count how many people in these months have busted up laughing in my face on the street or in houses because of how I talk. And I didn磘 want to make the situation worse by complaining so I just always joked about it with my companions and shrugged it off. But I am finally starting to talk a little better as far as vocabulary and grammer goes and my companion and I decided to start working on accents so that on day I can tell people that I am from different places in the country and get everyone to believe me. Let me just say, it is super weird to force your mouth to forget how it usually works and totally change the way you do everything with your tounge teeth and lips. Sometimes I think he磗 teaching me how to say stuff wrong, but the more I listen to people and recognize the differences in accents the more I recognize that some things they do with their tounges are just wacky. The only downfall of this plan will be if I go for too long without speaking english and forget how to speak english normally, because there is only one other american in my district and I only know of 3 more besides him in our zone. But the odds of forgetting how to speak normally are low I think.

And on the cooking front, it just gets better and better. The other day we made and ate a chicken strogonoff with rice and salad and homemade juice in around 50 minutes. And we ate slow. I think my plan after the mission will be as follows:

step 1) buy an apron

step 2) grow a mustache

step 3) get super fat from eating as a hobby

Some would question the necessity of a mustache, and I would tell them it serves the same purpose as the apron. You can interpret that one as you will.

But all in all, we are just kicking it here, sweating an incredible amount (I sweat almost all the way through my planner everyday and it磗 getting super warped), and trying to work hard.

One funny story about working hard. We went to eat lunch the other day and the kid was like ``hey do you wanna play playstion with me?创 and I responded ``no way broseph, I am a missionary创 and he came back with ``the last missionary played with me allllll the time... elder... elder... I can磘 remember his name.创 then I hit him with ``Elder SLACKER McDONESN碩 WORK AT ALL创. it turns out that kid already knew and loves to tempt the missionaries to get them in trouble as a joke. Also it turns out that this happens all the time. In every house the members are like ``oh elder, take a nap on our couch you look tired.创 because other missionaries already have. It磗 kind of a pain because you don磘 want to hurt their feelings, but also there is no way we are going to do stuff like that... meh.

but yeah. Lunch time (I am making sweet and sour chicken today). Love you all. byes.