Elder Payton Thorpe : Still here in mission Rio Zarco!

Hey Guys!!

We had changes this past week! But lucky me, I am still here in Rio Zarco! Everyone thought I would leave, but I think president has forgotten about me here! haha! It's more like my mission is "Mission Rio Zarco" instead of Santa Ana. Haha, but its alright, I just keep trying to work. Yes, J got baptized and was confirmed yesterday! It was great, she is an angel. She has so much faith, its amazing. She is a bit crazy too, haha she tells us a new dream that she has had just about everyday we go visit and asks us what it means. We just look at eachother like, what is this lady talking about? HAha but we love her to death. I'll send a picture of her baptism!

Yeah, all of the people here are TINY. I feel like a giant haha its a cool feeling!

Our new guy in the house is elder Peru. But no, he isn't from Peru. He is from Arizona and is such a funny kid, I love him! He goes home in July. But it's been weird and fun having 3 gringos in the house!

I'm glad you got my letters! That took forever! No I haven't gotten your package yet, but maybe this week! We had a pretty decent week this past week. I received 5 more missionaries en my district. 2 elders and 3 sisters. That has been pretty interesting, but I'm kind of getting the hang of it.

Yeah, R is so close!! We are going to visit him tomorrow with one of the assistants so hopefully we can put a date with him. We have also been teaching the husband of J, M. A. He is a nice guy, but his job is kind of difficult to work with. He assists another iglesia so that has been an issue with him, but he really liked J's baptism and confirmation, so I bet he will progress a lot! Especially with the strong impact from J. We also had a pretty sweet experience with one other family. We were walking to eat dinner one night and a lady came up to us and said that her husband is a big alcoholic and she knew that we could help him change and she wants to learn more about the church. I was in shock that someone came up to us and asked to learn more! It was awesome, but they didn't come to church yesterday and it has been hard to find them. Hopefully we can get talking to them this next week.

Haha for Pdays, we sometimes play some ball with some kids at our chapel, like we did today, and then we head into town to write our families, then we go shop and kinda look around downtown.

No, it hasn't rained like at all since October. Maybe once or twice, but its supposed to start raining in May, so just about a month more. It has gotten sooo hot lately. I've been baking like a toasted cheese! Everyone keeps tellling us that we should go to the beach with them and we're like, oh yeah, that would be sweet, but no, sorry we can't. They then freak out and say you guys really can't go to the beach for the whole 2 years that you're here? That's the best part of this country! We were like, yeah, thanks we know. Haha maybe I'll come here in a couple years! They say the surfing here is incredible!

Yeah, I feel like I can communicate basically completely with everyone. There are still a lot of words that I need to learn, but that will just come with more time I think. I am finally able to talk a little more in english cuz we have almost all english elders in the house haha, but I have to keep up the spanish to keep my comp involved in the conversations!

Wel, I am so glad that everyone is doing well and that baseball is now started! Man, I love that sport. Hope the weather has gotten warmer for it! Dang dad, you've been in the bishopric for a long time haha. I don't remember what it was like to sit with you in the congregation during sacrament mtg! We had our ward council mtg yesterday and good gravy, I was really missing the nice organized wards that we have in the states. Haha it was like having a mtg with a bunch of kids! Everyone was talking the whole time and the people running the meeting were basically the elders haha it was funny. But we managed to get some good stuff planned.

Well, I love you all tons and will talk to yall next week! Much love from the Zarc!

Elder Thorpe