Here is what Charlie has to say from New Mexico!

 

On Mon, Jan 7, 2013 at 12:40 PM

Hello my wonderful family!

So here I am, on my first P-day in the field! Pretty crazy. So yes P-days are Mondays. And with you all I'm just going to stick with the email, because it's easier and I have a lot more time :) First off, happy belated birthday Sophie! That's so exciting! I hope you had a wonderful day. I'm glad you found that dolphin ring too, that's good. So my first few days here in the field have been interesting to say the least. My companion is Elder Barney from Washington and he's about 6'2'' and probably 225.  A pretty big guy. He's kinda hard to read. Like I don't know when he's happy or sad or angry or pretty much anything, but he's a hard worker and that's what really counts. New Mexico is not at all what I expected. It's not bad, just different. Not quite Spain I suppose, but I'm happy to be out here doing the Lords work to the best of my abilities. We have I think 6 or 7 investigators we are working with right now. Most come from part member families. Many listen, but I'm not sure how much they are really picking up. I guess we will see in this next week if they have kept their committments and whatnot. We do have one investigator that is progressing very well. Her name is Gabi. She's a college student and is ready to get baptized. The only problem is that she's going off to college :/ Rats! But we are in touch with the missionaries up there on the campus and they will take good care of her. She does want to get baptized down here though and E. Barney says that I'll ge to do it if she does! So excited! Well we spend most of our days either going to appointments that we have set up earlier or checking up and sharing very brief messages with less-actives and investigators throughout the day. Sometimes we will go to a member's house too, just to share a message (kinda a practice thing our mission president suggests) and get referrals. For the most part everything is in Spanish. There are English missionaries in our area too (Tome South is our area) so if we ever run into somebody that doesn't speak spanish we hand them off. But often we come across people that speak both English and Spanish, so sometimes we teach with a mix of the two. It's good though. It's hard to tell if my Spanish is really improving that much, but I'm on the same level as Elder Barney and he's been out for about 14 months now, so that makes me feel pretty good. That gift of tongues thing is real, that's for sure. So things are going well. Sometimes it's hard, but that's the way it's supposed to be. We've just got to keep moving forward. The greatest help throughout this time is definitely prayer. I testify of the power of prayer. It can bring tremendous amounts of comfort into our lives and direction. I know that as we prayer we truly do come closer to our Heavenly Father. It's an amazing thing when you feel like your only friend is your Father in Heaven. You truly have amazing prayers when that happens. Well love you all, I hope you having a fantastic day and are all doing well. Good luck with basketball and UTA and everything else that you are doing. Love you all so much, and I miss you too.

Elder Flint

P.S. my apartment address is

Elder Charles Dale Flint

1020 West Aragon #D52

Belen, NM 87002

We only get the mail from the mission home once a month, and that one time for this month was this last Friday, so I didn't get any mail :( And if you sent any mail, I won't get it until February. So if you send anything, send it to my apartment. Love you all :)

P.P.S Just to let you know about the wierdest thing I ate so far. It's called Menudo. It's basically a soup made of tripe (I think) and a meat that is either the skin or intestines of a cow. It's actually not too bad :) Just thought you all would enjoy that. Love you lots and I'll talk to you again next monday. Or if you see this I could answer any questions you have right now, I'll be emailing Sarah. Love you lots and lots!

P.P.P.S: I did not get sick at the MTC and hopefully I do not. And we cover just one branch of about 35 people. It's super different. The chapel is the same layout as ours and we take up just a few rows. Pretty crazy stuff! But it's very cool and everyone is very friendly. I'm having a wonderful time, even if it is hard at times. The Lord is always with us, we just need to be able to reach out and receive his help. Love you!