Way to stay focused Elder Merrill :)

July 15, 2013 ~ It was fun at the end of my crazy 8- hour drive to CA day (with a starting time of 1:30am!) to read Elder Ethan Merrill’s weekly letter. I think his statement at the end of his letter is one of the best things I’ve heard him say. He is truly a treasure and a blessing!

How ya doing?   I´m good here. Sorry, nothing really new happened this week. This is the next-to-last week of the transfer, so I´ll know soon if I go to a new area or if I have a new companion, or if there will be new elders in our house, or if everything stays the same. But with transfers, I´ve never had a transfer where everything stays the same. My companion Elder Bernel is doing good. We haven´t had much different things happen here, but we are getting pretty close with some people to baptism. 

          I hope that things are good at home. Sorry about Kyle getting food poisoning. With all the crazy foods that we have here in Argentina, I´m surprised that I never got a case of something weird disagreeing with my stomach. Speaking of food, I found a recipe for no-bake cookies. It says, chocolate covered wheat balls, or something like that, but near the end of creating it, I realized, ´´Hey, these are no-bake-cookies. Just without the m&ms.´´ They weren´t as hard, and it´s not the same without M&M´s, but they were still good. 

         We had a little rain here, but not a lot. It gets a little colder with the rain, and A LOT muddier, but it´s all gone now. I just hope that it doesn´t rain for the rest of the week because it really makes it crazy walking around in it. But people here tell me that it´s not as cold as it usually gets. 

          I don´t know much about Brad´s family but it is interesting having in-laws for the first time I suppose. Let me know how it all goes. I´m used to talking with complete strangers now, so I hope that things go well if I ever meet them. 

        I realize that you probably won´t get this letter until tomorrow or something, what with taking Kyle to California and stuff. But just know that I ´m thinking of you guys always. Tell grandma I´m thinking of her too. I like the placement test for Spanish idea.

         I´m doing awesome here. I just turned 16 months in the mission yesterday. I can´t believe it! In just 7 short months, I go home!  I feel like Elder Herrera, my first companion in the mission, in South Carolina in fact. He´s going home July 24th, and he wrote me this last time. He tells me that he feels nervous and kinda scared, but happy and exited too. I guess I´ll feel like that when it´s my time to go too. For now, it´s the last quarter of the mission, so now I gotta focus even more, since it´s the time when I´ve got the best experience. I´ll write you more next week okay? I love you lots! Bye now!

                  -Elder Ethan Merrill