Nov 12--Email From Matt

Hey!
Katrina,  I always hated doing detention, I never did
understand it, you just sit there in a room and read, which is actually
pretty cool now that I come to think about it, so maybe you should do it
more.... haha. Tell me about your play ok? tell me if anyone messes up and
the good parts and all that. You are going to get a little behind with the
school work I bet but I think you'll be able to handle it :)

Dad, They don't drink the water here. you have to buy Garafones, so they
don't ration in that way. Also everyone has these gigantic water dispenser
bucket that they put on the top of their house and they run all of the
water that goes to the house though that, so it fills up constantly and if
they turn off the water we don't even notice because we use water
dispenser. My companion was completely shocked when I told him that we just
drink out of the tap en los estados unidos. He was also weirded out when I
asked him about the water dispenseres. 

I have noticed what you said about
re''inventing'' yourself, it is possible to do here especially when I have
so little time in the mission and hardly know anyone. Later it will be hard
because I will start building up a good or bad reputation. You found that
old video? wow, I thought I had deleted that! well, that's cool, I wish I
would've been able to finish that before coming over here, oh well haha.
The branch thing does not sound fun at all, I'm glad that you were able to
do it all without hurting yourself and that's really cool how you did it
all before the family got there so you could go to Brick Oven. Thanks Dad!
hahaha

Miriam,  !t is great that you got into snow! That school is a nice
school even though it is very boring, I'd suggest that you look on-line for
some scholarships, it would be worth your time. There are so many people
that say that they want to do that and few that actually do it (like me! :)
It would rock because then you might not have to pay for housing or maybe
for food or something. Hey! don't worry about your presentation thing, You
can do it, you have the drive. That counts for a lot.

Thomas, I already wrote you but, here it goes again, you will have to send
me a picture of your web comic on here so that I can read it! Tell people
about your web site in school! see if you can announce it in a class or
something haha. How is the sports life doing? Are you playing anything?
Remember when we used to drive to your wrestling practice and I was always
a grumpy pants? Write me more you bumb!

Mom, I was surprised to not hear about the megaplex place haha, Thankyou
again for the nice long letter, it really helps me get a handle on what is
going on down there. I didn't know if it had snowed or not before that.
haha, Tell me when you guys decided about calling or skyping, I might say
calling but then again it would be nice to see you all so I don't know.
haha,

Ok, well this week has been very very interesting, it has been filled with
some trials and it has been filled with a lot of looking for people to
teach. The goals here are totally different, right now we are trying to
help the ward get up on its legs again, the size of our area is
gigantic... I don't know how big it is but it takes us about 1 hour in bus
to get from one side of the area to the other. The ward here has about 50

people that attend weekly and it has a lot of less active people that live
here, a lot of them have just slowly stopped going to church and have
wanted to come back but have needed a little push to get them started.

My companion is named Elder Trejo, he is a convert to the church, he was
baptized at the age of 18, and he left on the mission at age 19. There is
some real drive right there. His family are not members of the church, he
has been out here for about 15 months. 

Elder Trejo

Umm, la paz is very peaceful, and
lives up to it's name. There is a university and a lot of young people here
that go there. Actually the campus is part of our area. It is brown
here... and there is a lot of sand. You can't see the ocean but that's
because we are on the other side of the city.... ummmm what else... I'm
forgetting english at an astonishing rate. casi no hablo ingles, entonces
voy a regresar y ustedes no me van a entender, ¡jaja güeros! anyways... so
that's about it... haha