Dustin's Aug 18th Letter

August 18, 2010


Hello from Peru,

This week has been great! I´ve had so many new experiences every day. Let´s start with the day I wrote you last; Thursday. We didn´t have a lot of class. After I wrote you I got to play soccer under the lights because it gets dark here between 6 and 7. It is winter here and it has been both cold and hot. Only one day this week was there blue skies and that doesn´t happen very often in Lima. It’s mostly just cloudy and feels like fall. It is probably about 55 to 60 degrees here on average right now but it gets up to at least 75 in the middle of the day on occasion. The food is good but I am eating less now. I used to get every different type of food there was and now I eat just a little bit. I have eaten all different types of food though. I don´t even know how to explain it. I´ve now eaten guinea pig! On Friday during class there was a small earthquake! It was awesome. I believe it was the first one I’ve been in. My teacher says it happens quite often and much bigger but I still thought it was cool. It is kind of rough having everyone around me and everything around me be in Spanish. Me not understanding everything drives me to learn more, faster. I love it! I think I already told you my comp speaks only Spanish and same with me teachers. Surprisingly I can understand a lot but when there are words I don´t know I get lost in what the conversation is about. Twice every day I teach with my companion in Spanish. And when my companion gets nervous he talks faster and he is always nervous when we teach :) I get lost in the lessons sometime and wish I could say all I was thinking. Even when I know what everyone is saying I still have trouble saying what I want to so I have to revert back to very simple sentences and I feel like it wasn´t good enough. My companion says I’m doing well and we talk every night before bed and I am making tons of progress with Spanish. I love my companion. Within this past week I’ve learned that all the Spanish I learned in High was not only very little but all incorrect! So really I started at ground zero. Oh and guess what?! We get to go out in the city on Saturday and go tracting! It´s going to test my Spanish that’s for sure. The Spanish is going well and I hope I get another Latino companion when Elder Espinoza leaves, because he has taught me so much Spanish out side of class. I have even less free time here than we did in Provo. But that is good.

I love playing soccer and studying with my companion. Those are my two favorite things! My companion knows a decent amount about the gospel and if I could speak Spanish better I could teach him more. I share scriptures with him even though i don´t understand them fully in Spanish I know what they say in English. He is awesome and we went to the temple today. It was his first time!!! I´ll tell you more later today.

Con amor,

Elder Divis