Don´t throw up on your friends.

Hello Familia, 
 
You wanna know something. Cows are funny animals. We were teaching a 
lesson outside, and the person´s cow came up and started eating my 
companion´s hair and tie. Medio funny! Just like Marissa uses 
``super´´ alot in her letter´s, I use ``medio´´. I´m pretty sure it 
means pretty as an adjective, or at least I´m medio sure.... 
 
Mom asked me what I do as District Leader. Well, it really means 
nothing. Just that I have more responsibility and I get the blame for 
things. I teach a class every Tuesday for 90 min. which I love to do. 
It´s great because although I´m medio new in the mission, I have the 
second most time. My district is green as the grass! Everyone´s new. 
Well, I call for everyone´s numbers and then report them to the zone 
leaders. Fun. I also go pay everyone´s rent, lunch, and dinner (or the 
pensionista) each month. When I took out the money for this month, I 
realized that I had 6000 bolivianos or $1000 extra. I felt rich for a 
moment, but then I gave it all back to the mission. But I had to 
travel on the other side of Cochabamba to pay the person who owns the 
house of these elders in my group. That was frustrating. Let´s see, 
what else do I do.. nothing more. 
 
We worked medio hard this week. Saturday night, I was sooo tired. At 
8:30, we were teaching a less active family about the Restauration 
again. We taught all the points well and I was about to end the 
lesson; when all of the sudden, my companion went off on a rant. He 
got up on his soap box for about 20 min. I wasn´t even paying 
attention, and my eyes were dropping. After about 25 min, I heard him 
start talking about thefootnotes and the guide to the scriptures (or 
the index and bible dictionary in English)  My face was like 
``seriously?´´. I looked over at the family.... and they looked at me 
- then we both burst out laughing. We were thinking the same thing. It 
was so funny. Just like in Dad´s letter about your party, I couldn´t 
help myself because of my tiredness. My companion started laughing too 
like he knew what was going on and that just made it funnier. 
 
My lesson for this week for you guys is don´t throw up on your 
friends. This week, about 4 times, people threw up on me. No not 
physically, but emotionally. It seemed like it happened every day. I 
would make a contact and say we´re missionaries and the whole jazz, 
then they would lose it emotionally. I felt less like a missionary and 
more like a shoulder to cry on. They also made me sad by telling me 
their whole sad life story. So what I´m trying to say is that you 
wouldn´t throw up  on people when you´re sick. So when we´re down and 
feeling low, we let loose of all our bearings. Instead of keeping our 
distance, we infect others with our woes and it´s usually the people 
closest to us. The women reading this are probably saying, we don´t do 
that. Yes you do, they were all women! Well you´re a man, you don´t 
have feelings. Or you´re just not sensitive to other people´s 
feelings. Look, I don´t want to argue with this hypothetical women 
that I created, but what I´m saying is that everyone has low moods. 
These feelings are a temporary experience. They will lift up and go 
away and when they do, everything will look different; less hostile 
and less frightening. The trick to treat this infectious emotional 
plague is to see it as only temporarily. Like a sickness, just wait it 
out! And then confront people when you´re feeing better. Our judgement 
is more precise and our thoughts clear when our energy is higher. I´m 
not saying that asking for help is bad. It´s okay to ask for help, 
support, or share with others your feelings if that seems necessary. 
But don´t throw up on them. 
 
Dad, when we all get home, we can talk spanish. And Marissa, your 
letter was pretty good in Spanish. You just had a couple spelling 
errors and a little subjunctive problem. I didn´t have time to write 
my letter in spanish, but I´m going to ``one-up´´ you. Testimony in 
Quechua, Boom! 
Mana atinichu parlana quechua kaulallia imamanta mana yachunichu. 
Pero, ari tian testimoniomanta. noga yachani igleciamanta Jesucristoj 
chegan kasganta. Noga yachani Josè Smith carga uk profeta y Thomas S. 
Monson Diospac profeta kay tiempomanta. Yachallanitac mormonmampa 
libromanta Diospac palabrallantac. Jesucristoj su timpi, amen.