It's a Small World

April 28, 2009

Hola familia,

It was exciting to hear about all of your adventures with scuba diving and caving. It makes me anxious to join you. I had already heard about that lady on Britain's got talent. It was pretty interesting to hear about.

I still haven't gotten to play tennis and on top of that it's raining pretty hard today. Which means I won't be playing today. Ni modo. It sounds like Matthew and Jonathan are doing pretty well. Are you guys getting tan? I'm really, really white right now. I don't see the sun very much here in Vancouver. Although our last pday was really hot and I got a little sunburned.

Good job on your talk in sacrament meeting Jonathan. You might be surprised but I haven't spoken in a single sacrament meeting since I've been in Washington. Weird huh? Thanks for your amazing letters, Jonathan. I'm always lifted every time I get them. I love seeing the return address with Mom and Dad's names crossed out with "Jonathan" handwritten above. haha.

Spanish Conference was amazing! I got to see all of the Spanish missionaries from the entire mission. So I got to see all my friends who are still in Pasco. Besides that though there was some really good training. First we heard from President Alder. His topic was faith unto repentance. He gave us lots of good ideas on how to help people act on their faith and do something about it. The thing that was great about it was that he focused a lot on the culture of the Spanish people and gave us suggestions on how to be more polite and have a greater influence. The other speaker was President Piñon. He was so sincere during his role-play examples that he even began to cry. You could feel how much he loved those who were acting as the investigators. He was also the one who translated at the Mexico temple rededication. Which was really cool because I got to watch that. It's funny how small of a world this is.

Which reminds me... Dad. I met a guy named Jacob who went to BYU and got a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. And he was so excited that I knew Mike Jensen. He just couldn't get over it. And what's more he is not a member of the Church. He was born in Jerusalem and his native tongue is Arabic. But he speaks English perfectly. He's going to be going back for this fall semester to get a degree in law. He's already been accepted into the program. He'll be going at the same time as Elder Dudoich. I'll try and get them to meet each other.

Raquel is doing great. She came to sacrament meeting this last Sunday. We were so excited about that. She's even been changing her work schedule so that she would have more time to meet with us. Isn't that so cool?

We haven't been able to meet with the other group of people that I talked about last time. So, no update with them.

I've been meaning to tell you for a long time. That picture where I was wearing a shrunken sweater; it wasn't mine. It was Elder Blomquist's. So you don't need to worry. I still have all of my sweaters intact and wearable.

I've been looking for the smartsensors here dad but haven't found any. I've found lots of products from competition. I'll keep my eyes open though. Our area covers pretty much everything north and west of road 500. Maybe you could find out where they are installed so I could go find them. I think Elder Tracy would love to see them almost as much as me. I've already told him all about that stuff.

Amy, you're going to be out of the MTC before you know it. Don't worry about not being ready for Spanish when you get to Chile. Because you won't be. Two months is just almost no time at all to become fluent in a language. The harder you work though, the quicker it will come. Just don't get frustrated and keep grinding away. It took me about six months to finally feel comfortable with it. I'm glad you've noticed the power of teaching with the spirit though. That is MORE important than speaking Spanish well. Just a quick example. We were teaching Raquel the other day and having a hard time helping her understand a specific principle. Elder Tracy and I were both praying that she would understand what we were teaching and then just out of nowhere we hear this, "Ohhhhh, I get it now". The spirit just, boom, put it into her brain. What we couldn't explain to her the spirit could. As long as we give it all we’ve got, the rest will be made up.

Matthew my Homie G. What's going on with you besides being busy with school, tennis, scuba diving, and caving? Tell me about Washington D.C. too. Do you still wear some of my clothes? How tall are you and Jonathan?

I love you so much my dear family,

Elder Benjamin Arnold