December 19, 2012

Family! Hi! 

First of all thank you for your birthday wishes and especially for your card, Dad! I never knew that you got out of an exam because of me. You're welcome :)

It turned out to be a pretty good birthday, but busy. It just happened to be transfer day as well. And so my biggest present this year was a new companion! Elder Berthon is my companion for the next 7 weeks (this transfer is long). He is from Bolivia but he has lived in Spain for the last 12 years, in Barcelona. He is a super good missionary. He works crazy hard. Elder Rigtrup and I worked, but Elder Berthon really understands how to give himself to the work. We are going to be a lot busier and hopefully see a lot more success. I´m super excited. I am going to learn and grow a ton this transfer, I can tell. Hopefully I can start becoming the missionary God wants me to be as well. And who I want to be.

That´s not to say it´s going to be easy. The language is already giving me a headache. There is a big difference between speaking Spanish in lessons and speaking Spanish all the time. I speak pretty well for the time I have, but I am seeing how much more I have to learn. A lot. The hardest part is just how much it costs me to speak. In English you don´t have to think about what you say, but it takes so much thought (and time) just to chat in Spanish, because I´m still learning. It´s different to not be able to switch back to English to talk about a lesson or just make conversation. It´s a relief to get home at night and be able to talk to Elder Levorson and Elder Fisher.

The other hard part is just realizing how much more I have to learn about the work and how much better I need to be. I don´t think Elder Berthon has ever had a companion as young as me before, so it´s hard for him to adjust to the fact that I´m still figuring things out. But we haven´t had any problems so far. He is actually always happy which is super nice.

So yeah, my birthday was pretty good. I didn´t get my cake until yesterday because we were so busy, but it was delicious! I didn´t open any presents yet. It´ll be cooler to open them Christmas day. We even have a tiny little Christmas tree to put them under :)

No worries about the video, it probably wouldn´t have fit anyway. They limit our attachments to something ridiculously small. The cake and letter and package were plenty. Thank you!

I don´t really have any requests on the family pictures. One from the family photo shoot would be great and any other good ones you can find. And they don´t all have to be the whole family together. Some of us hiking would be good too.

It hasn´t snowed yet here. The people say it only snows once or twice a year, so we´ll see. So far I am staying plenty warm, it´s not nearly as cold here as at home. And certainly not as bad as Logan.

Wow, I´m jealous of your Christmas break. Just chilling and watching movies sounds amazing right now! Though I would probably fall asleep during all of them. Así es la vida de un misionero. (Google translate that and see it says. I want to see how accurate Google is). X-men is awesome but make sure and get the Wolverine one as well. Haha, I´m not surprised that Bekah has been to see the Hobbit already! There are posters for it all over the place here and it´s killing me! It looks way good. I´m super mad that it´s a trilogy though. The Hobbit is about a third of any of the other books and those only got one movie each. Oh well. Hopefully they will all be out when I get home and we can have a super marathon of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings together. Oh, and don´t worry about talking about home and that kind of stuff. That´s what I want to hear about. It´s refreshing to hear about something outside of life in the mission.

So, ¨bastante fuerte¨ means very or really strong. Unfortunately we haven´t had a chance to go back since, so I don´t know if they are going to act or not. I'll let you know though. Right now Elder Berthon and I are mostly focusing on finding new people and developing a relationship with the members so we can work with their help. If the missionaries ever ask to come to over and eat, don´t say no. It´ll make their day. Actually the elders in Utah probably don´t even have to buy food.

Well, that´s the news for the week. If I think of anything else important, well I´ll tell you to your face on Tuesday. I´m super excited to see and talk with you all. Oh, speaking of which we are scheduled for 6:00. I believe that should be about 10 in the morning your time. So be ready! Haha, I can´t wait to talk to you! I love you all! See you next week!

Elder Cousins