EVERY DAY IS A STRUGGLE BUT I KNOW ONE DAY I'LL BE ABLE TO BRING THIS MESSAGE TO THE PEOPLE.

Hola Familia!

Thanks again for waking up to talk to me.  It was awesome hearing all your voices. So after I hung up with you,  I had an hour an a half flight to Chiclayo, where President and Sister Risso picked us up with a bunch of office Elders. They took us to a capilla (chapel) and fed us breakfast: fruit , cereal and muffins.  After, we had a cambio meeting where our new group had to sit up on the stand and later introduce ourselves to everyone. We then had a meeting where the office elders went over the mission rules and what not after we were introduced to our new companeros. jaja 

I have two of  the rarest things for a new missionary. My trainer is a Gringo! Elder Hulet from Payson Utah. He only has  2 and a half months left in the mission so it looks like I am going to kill my father. He barely speaks English to me so I get a little of the Latino experience. but he can understand everything I say in English obviously. Our area is JAEN, which is very rare because there are only two areas of jungle in the mission and Jaen is one of them. It is one of the most coveted areas in the mission. It's not like deep Gutamela jungle; it's like a city that's very green.  I'll try to send some pics. 

President  Risso is very nice and his English is pretty darn good. So we had to take an 8 hour bus ride from Chiclayo to Jaen. Oswald is in my zone, Jaen, too so that's exciting! Elder  Hulet and I are both new to Jaen so it's been intresting. We were basically white washed. For the first few days we had no area map, no phone and no area book, so we just knocked doors all day. This area is very receptive though. Not everyone is enthusiastic about our message but almost everone gives us time to teach them a lesson. In our first week we already picked up 27 investiagors but that only means we taught them at least one lesson and they committed  to another. 

Spanish is so hard. I feel like a hopless wanderer haha. I don't understand or speak anything haha. My comp does the majority of the talking cuz he's 100 percent fluent. Lessons are very scary and hard cuz it's difficult for me to follow along and my comp turns to me several times each lesson and i just stutter and try to slowly and simply teach. It's very difficult and whenever there are kids they laugh at me cuz my Spanish sucks. But my comp is really cool, nice and supportive. He's patient and helps me learn every day. Every day is a struggle but I know one day I'll be able to bring this message to the people. 

We have a pinchanista who cooks all three meals. It's usually chicken, rice, sometimes fish and a whole lot of yuca Which is a root type thing.

Sunday was a broadcast conference to all of Peru from Salt Sake.  Bednar and Chrsitopherson spoke but I couldn't understand them and the whole stake was there so I didn't  meet very many members, but everyone is nice and laughs at my Spanish.

So I'm always very frustrated at night but I was reading in Alma 29. When Alma desired to preach like an angel but knew he had to be content with what the Lord had alottted him. So for now I've gotta be happy with my ability and sit back and have fun progressing. 

Well sounds like everything is going good at home, except for Pops! Wow, that was unexpected and I was freaking out as I read it. It's very scary but I know he's a strong man and will get through it. Papa, you're in my prayers always!!  and Elder Cook left the CCM with an apostolic blessing that our fams will be blessed and protected as we are away, so I'm very worried but know everything will be all right . Well I love all of you . Unti next week .

Elder Harper