A New Companion

As the end of October 2012 rolls around, we get our next letter from Elder Merrill.  I had asked him if he made a protective cover for his scriptures out of duct tape, that is sort of like an unofficial missonary sort of thing to do, to protect the scriptures as they travel by backpack for 2 years.  Here is his reply:

     How´s it going! Things are good. It's heating up, but it's also raining AGAIN today. Not hard like last week though. 

     As a matter of fact, I have made a duct tape protective case. It's silver, so it´s all good, but the other Elders tell me that it looks like a bomb, so that may or may not be a problem in the airport when I go back. Can you believe that this is almost 8 months for me completed? How crazy is that? I can remember thinking how it would be when I hit 8 months back when I had 3 months in South Carolina!

I told Elder Merrill about the trunk-or-treating we did here for Halloween at the church and how there were hotdogs and chili and cornbread and also about some of the fun costumes.

 

      I´m gonna miss going to activities; the branch I´m in here is so small that there´s very little that we can do together.  So it´s not exactly a close group of friends that meet every week for sacrament meeting. I wish I could have normal food like cornbread again.  It´s not that I mind the food here, but it´s the same thing. day. after. day. after. day. But I like it, so it´s all good I suppose. We´ll see how I feel at 16 months though. We have a primary of about 7 kids here I think, so it´s all more or less the same class for all the kids. Like I say. we´re not very big at all.

Elder Merrill also let us know that he had a new companion after transfers this week:

     I got a new companion and another elder left, so we have 2 new elders in the apartment. My companion is called Elder Formhals. They are both fun guys, so I think that Bolivar will be good this transfer. I´ll let you know more next week on how we do. I´ve known him for only 12 hours or so. But I´m here in Bolivar for another 6 weeks.

     That´s such a great goal for you to read the Pearl of Great Price! I´ve already gone through it, but I plan to go through it again in Spanish. Right now I´m going through the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I understand most of it, but there are a couple of words that I need help with sometimes. But my Spanish is loads better now.

         I had no idea about that boombox that Kyle was building! That´ll be something to see. I miss the day to day life back at home, but I try not to think on it in my off hours, I tend to get a little trunky when I do that.

        Well, I´ll see you all next week, we hope to have a baptism in Bolivar for the first time in 7 months here! I´ll let you know how it goes. see ya around!

Thank you Elder Merrill for another great update on your mission! We pray for you always and love you very much!