Buenas buenas

Dear familia, 
 
I just realized that I wrote ``familia´´ instead of family. 
 
I know that I should only write positive things; however, I want to 
express all my feelings that I have been experiencing here on the 
mission. 
 
                                  My Woes 
Well, this week was terrible emotionally. Let´s just say that 
everything seemed to build up and it really took a toll on me. First 
of all, I´m sick of being sick! Every other week, I get some kind of 
sickness. This week, it´s just the common cold, but it affects my 
accent, spanish, breathing, and eating. The cold! It is freezing. My 
ears and nose gets burnt during the day, then when the sun goes down, 
they start peeling from the cold. My shower right now is barely 
sputting any water, and the power always seems to go out when I start 
my shower so it turns ice cold. The smoke from the cars, it is so 
pollutiony here. I blow my nose and it comes out black. The language 
still. I understand almost everything said. But I still cannot fully 
express the sentiments and desires of my heart with the people. The 
culture. Everytime I walk into a store or on the streets or really 
anywhere, all the heads turn my way. Then they try making fun of me 
(sometimes in Quechua) being white, mormon, or handsome. The food. 
This doesn´t bother me as much, but sometimes I wish I had normal 
food. 
However, the thing that had bothered me the most was other 
missionaries. I´m tired of being wasquiar, I forgot what it means in 
English. It´s like reprimanded, or ``they´re giving it to me´. 
Everytime I do one thing wrong, we talk about it. For the zone 
meeting, I was the reason why we talked about a subject. This also 
goes for every district meeting. We talk about what I lack because my 
compy is the district leader. Then for companionship study, we always 
talk about the things I do wrong. I swear he purposely looks for 
something I do wrong during the day just so he can ``teach me´´ or 
reallly tell me that I´m doing it wrong. I don´t know if you guys 
understand or not. So basically, I felt like crap. It´s terrible being 
humilliated publicly and in private. I realized I don´t work like 
that. I need compliments every now and then to build up my confidence. 
When my confidence is down, I will never teach my best. 
But I would like to say that I had hope. I like the word hope. In 
Spanish, to hope is esperar. However, it means more than to hope. It 
also means to wait. When we hope, we have to wait it out. Also, it 
means to expect. So, when we have hope, we wait patiently and humbly 
during our trials with an expectation that it will get better. This is 
what I did. I held my tongue when I wanted to strike back aggressively 
in my defense (james 3). I tried applying the things they said to me. 
And would say that my week ended great. My comp talked to me one night 
for 2 hours. He talked peacefully about many things that he held dear 
and what he learned on the mission and what he expects for me. He told 
me that I was one of the most humble people he knew, especially from 
the other gringos and also he said that I was his second best friend 
in his whole mission (next to an argentine elder). I also recieved a 
letter with a pack of snickers of my trainer. He told me that he 
learned many things from me and I was his best friend he had. 
Sometimes you can´t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But if you 
keep pushing farther, knowing that there will be light, you will 
eventually reach it. 
 
-Elder Walker 
 
Mom - I need a couple more spray n wash thingys for my clothes. My 
white shirts get black fast... 
 
Ryan - Basícament, estoy enseñandote en la forma de una chica. ¿Que es 
lo que te interes o te animo del evangelio?