Teaching Spanish to the Peruvian

[Email dated March 14, 2011]

Hello family,

Thank you for the emails and all of the support. Glad to hear that you survived the talk mom...as well as me emailing 2 days late...I was afraid you were going to freak out a little. But its ok I know its because you love me haha. Thanks for the sports update Dad...Go Cougars!!! Man, it seems like just the other day that all the guys and I were up at BYU during March Madness...the time really does go fast.

Muy bien...entonces, this week went great. Its a different feeling being a trainer. Elder Diaz looks to me to lead him and to help him know what to do. It´s really my time to show that I know how to work as a missionary. It really is great having a companion that is ready to work hard, be obedient, and do whatever it takes to have success in the work of the Lord. And I know that because we worked hard this week and were obedient the Lord blessed us with great success and helped us out in our efforts. Because lets be honest, I don’t have that much experience... so I know that the Lord really helped us out this week. We were able to help 2 children of our Heavenly Father enter the waters of baptism this week. Hector and Veronica. They are great, humble and faithful people who are ready to follow Jesus Christ. We were also able to bring 6 people to church (which is as much as we had ALL of last change) and teach 22 lessons. I truly found myself loving the work this week because I knew that my companion, Elder Diaz, and I were doing it the right way...the way the Lord wants. It really was a testimony to me that obedience, diligence and desire are going to bring you success because the Lord will help you out if you demonstrate your faith and effort first.

Elder Diaz is having a fun time adjusting to life here in Mexico. I had to teach him a lot of the expressions and slang words here because they are different than a lot of the words they use in Peru. For example ¨No Manches¨ is just an expression that means...”Oh, no way!” or “yeah, right”. But, the literal meaning is ¨Don’t stain¨ ...so that was a little confusing for him haha. Also, this morning he told me that he had to go buy ¨zapatillas¨ which here means women’s shoes....It confused me a little bit and I was a little bit worried about my companion until I found out that zapatillas mean athletic shoes in Peru..here they are called ¨tenis¨ Those are just a few examples...but there are a lot more. ¨Concha¨ is actually a bad word in Peru and means something pretty bad....here it is a type of bread.hahaha. I´m still adjusting to having a companion that knows NO English at all. I´ve caught myself at least once a day starting to talk in English to him...and he responds ¨Como?¨ or “what the heck are you saying to me, gringo?” haha.

Anyway, this week went really good and I´m excited about this upcoming change. Its gonna be great. I love the work and I love helping our brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, find true happiness in their lives through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that Christ lives and that he is our Savior and Redeemer, and He loves each and every one of us. I know that the church which I have the opportunity to represent is His church, and if we follow his Gospel we will be able to return and live with Him again someday.

Love you all and miss you.

And this is my Joy (Alma 29:9)

Elder Peacock