4 March 09

Well my first companion is gone now, he left this morning to go to Arequipa. It was a kind of sad good bye because we (the North Americans in our room) were finally getting close to all of the Latinos in our room. Anyways, we´ll all be getting new companions tonight, along with five new North Americans, two of them Sisters. I have exactly three more weeks before I´m out of the CCM (Centro de Capacitación Misional). Its kind of a weird time right now because all of the districts just got switched, we´re getting new companions because all of the Latinos left, getting new teachers, and more North Americans. At least this means that I´m out of being district leader. At least I think so considering I´m not even in the same district anymore.
Thanks for letting me know about Dallin, that's so awesome with him being in Ukraine already. I hope he´s ready for the language.
My Spanish is coming along, but its pretty tough. I can give a pretty basic first and second lesson, and i´m starting to understand a little bit more of what people are saying during the conversations, but it´s still difficult. I´m not too worried because I don´t really expect to know the language for a few months into the mission, but i´m glad i´m here learning instead of the Provo MTC because we learn a lot faster here. As to the food problem, I don´t think anything of it because its not a bad reaction, its just my body getting used to the food here. Pollo y arroz cada dia aquí en el CCM. Just how it is. But today was President Groberg´s present to us. He bought us Pizza Hut, which was about the best thing ever, and then after that we went on a tour of Lima. We went to an Olive Garden (not the restaurant) to see one of the oldest gardens still preserved. It was somewhere around 450 years old and it was pretty cool to see an olive press and things like that. Also very cool was having a little Peruvian kid shine my shoes (the Born´s). We went to the beach, shopping, downtown into the business district, and through a few parks too. Don´t worry, I got quite a few pictures to send you once I can, just wait for about 3 more weeks.
Also, while we were shopping, I bought a shirt that has the Nazca calender, which is pretty awesome, but I also committed the girl who sold me the shirt to go to church. Oh, and a bird pooped on me, which wasn´t so awesome... I´ve come to the conclusion that birds feel too safe here. When we walk through the middle of them they just walk out of the way of our feet instead of flying away. Honestly, they treat pigeons way too well, they don´t fear us at all.
These past three weeks have gone by ridiculously fast. The three weeks in the Provo MTC felt like roughly three months, and the past three weeks here have felt like three days. Its really just messing with my sense of time. I´ll probably be leaving on the 24th out of the MTC, which is a weird thought, but after having a little bit of proselyting experience I feel a lot more ready. And President Groberg gave a little update that my mission is going to have a March that will set records for the mission, so one more thing to be excited about. Thank you dad, I appreciated that sports update, however here only soccer is important. I love you both and give Calder & Ivy, Becca, Mayce & Ethan my love when you see them. Elder Huntington