Friday, January 7, 2011

January 3, 2011 - First email from Philly

Hey!
Sounds like your living the good life in good ol west weber. So this week has been crazy! I spent the first night in the mission home which is super nice, then in the morning we met our companions and then we were off! My area is called Darby, and its super Ghetto! I love it though, everyone is humble and its fun hearing gun shots at night when i'm prosyliting. Haha its all good, it was scary the first night but i just accept the fact that i'm in the ghetto and everything will be alright. The people here are nice to us. Darby is full of row homes that are super shady. There are no houses like the ones at home out here. The work here is going really well. We teach tons of lessons every day, so we are super busy. The area here, is just all african refugees from Liberia and they are nice. Their culture is funny, they have this funny handshake where you snap your fingers with theirs. I have it down good. When you go to their house they offer you food a lot and you have to eat it cuz its rude if you dont. Its like the only thing they have to offer us. It is gross!!! Oh man, they are all native african dishes. I've had something called Kasava leaf, which is this nasty leave paste that is super super spicy, and its over meat. It was gross! I've also had Ground up fish heads in pumpkin paste over rice that was also spicy. They have the most spiciest foods i've ever had. Sometimes we just get done with dinner and so we're full, then we go teach them and they offer us food, so we just have to pound it down so we're not rude. Man i've almost thrown up so many times. They speak a language called Kron. Its crazy! Some of them speak only cron, so its hard to teach. Their english is okay sometimes, it just depends who. They have tons of babies and kids running around, and they love us. The ward has a whole bunch of humble, nice, africans and they are so sweet! They are really receptive to the gospel. We have 7 up for baptism a week from next sunday. There is a really cool Haitian family that we ate at the other night. She made this squash soup that was so good! It was like a Haitian dish that they have a lot down there. My companions names are Elder Lake and Elder Kay. We are a trio companionships and they are ZL's, so i get to go with them to do fun exchanges and stuff. Something unique about our companionshiops is that Elder Kay speaks english, Elder Lake speaks spanish, and I speak portuguese. We all have different nametags ha its great. Something funny that happend this week is that on the first day in the field we donated blood at a hospital because we were supposed to give this person a blessing but they said to wait like and hour so we had nothing to do and we were just sitting at the hospital so we decided to give blood. It was funny. The weather here is pretty nice. Hopefully it stays like this. From what i hear it can get soooo cold. Every morning we go running and its pretty chilly, but we warm up quick. Scranton is an area in this mission which is sweet cuz thats where The Office is located and filmed. Good stuff... I'll have to check out the Liberty bell while i'm here too. The Philly Cheesestakes here are amazing! Beats the ones back home for sure. I can eat em all day. But yeah, the day and the life of a missionary is pretty crazy. Ghetto but awesome. I love the people here, and i'll be sad when i have to leave for brazil i'm sure. It sounds like things are going great at home, and how dare you turn my room into a man cave!! Jk, it sounds pretty legit... well take care and i'll hear from you next monday! I love you and keep up the good hard work! 
 
Love, Matt

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