Stacking Hay

Hola familia,

This week has been really interesting. First, my new companion is not Trevor Jones. There was a last minute transfer change which I got on Tuesday night. Elder Jones is in Longview instead. I actually just met him the other day and he is really cool. But my companion who I was really excited about is Elder Becerra. I don't remember if I told you anything about him. But we flew into Washington together. He's from Oaxaca Mexico. So he speaks Spanish already and he grew up in Sandy Utah so he speaks English perfectly. He served in Connell for 9 months which is just 40 minutes north of Pasco. We saw each other a lot while I was over there and we were really good friends. So when I found out that he was going to be my new companion I was really excited. I'll send some pictures of him home in a little bit.

A few other interesting things that I found out. Elder Blomquist is training a kid from El Salvador this transfer. I'm really excited for him. Elder Tracy is also going to be learning a lot with his companion.

4th of July was pretty exciting here. It was a normal day for us. But at night there were a ton of fireworks in our neighborhood. I even got to see two trees catch on fire. Good thing there were policemen and firemen everywhere.

Weather has been really hot lately. About 100 degrees everyday with a little bit of humidity. I don't know why it's so hot. Just the last two days it dropped back down to 65. I think that's more normal for here. It's supposed to heat back up again here in a little bit.

District Leader isn't too much different. I just have to get number reports from the members of the district and then prepare district meeting. The last one that we had went pretty well. I think it got everybody excited about this upcoming transfer.

Nothing new on Marta and Ruben. We invited Marta to come to church about an 1 hour before it started and she said that she was getting everything ready to go. And then she didn't come. We haven't been able to talk to her since to find out what happened.

We are having some progress with Ricardo and his two sons, Sebastian and Daniel. Ricardo has been reading the Book of Mormon and some other books including Jesus the Christ. He's really excited for our next visit on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll have more good news to report on them for next Tuesday.

We loaded and stacked some more bales of hay this week. I had allergies really bad, especially when I was in the trailer. I would sneeze every 10 seconds for ever it felt like. And on top of that it was one of those 100 degree days. Elder Becerra and I both got a little heat exhaustion but we're over it now.

My birthday was fun. I don't think we really did anything too special. In fact I totally forgot it was my birthday until we got to the transfer site and Elder Garrett reminded me. It was really fun to meet up with Elder Montoya and Elder Becerra again. That was a great birthday present. Oh yeah, Somebody that is related to Brenda Hall brought me a cake. I wasn't able to be there because of a last minute dinner appointment change. But I'm going to give them a call this week and talk to them. Thanks Brenda!

Amy's Spanish is coming along really fast. She's writing me completely in Spanish now. It makes me even more excited for the time that I get to see her again. We taught a lady from Chile last night. She gave us some empanadas, which were delicious. We had a good lesson and I got to learn a lot of new words that I didn't know before. I'm thinking we're going to teach her a lot so I can get the Chile lingo down.

I've also tried Completos this last week with Sister Campos. Who is also from Chile. They really are delicious. They're called completos because they are totally full to the point where you can't put any more toppings onto the hotdog without it spilling over.

Love you lots,

Elder Ben Arnold