August 6, 2007

Hey Everyone,

Well first week in Villa Celina is over... and wow... A whole different ball game! The problem before was we couldn’t ever get anyone to teach, and here the situation is it's tough to get people to progress and to find people after you teach them.

My companion is excellent, and he’s really helping me with my Spanish. He and teach tech 50 50 and its really helping my Spanish. I’ve taught more lessons this single week than the entire last transfer. We're 50 50 on contacts too. It's excellent. The apartment is very cool and I like the other 2 elders who are there with us.

In Caseros everyone was well off and Argentine and Italian. Here, everyone lives in much more humble conditions and are either Bolivian(50%) Paraguayan(20%) Peruvian(10%) or Argentine(20%). It's a smaller area but very difficult to find addresses because there is no organization or street names, just dirt paths.

It was VERY cold this last week and rainy and muddy! The problem is the humidity, the cold just goes right on through. I don’t use my big coat here but hopefully we´ll pull out of the cold pretty quick.

The ward is MUCH smaller and much less experienced too. Something very cool though is that people here are much more personable and will talk to you and my companion is very good with that too, it's helping me.

We always joke around with the little kids in the Villa (pronounced vee-sha... neighborhood of huts and such without paved streets) and teach them English words like "hello" and "pound it". I’m going to teach them "whattup thug" this week.

Well things are VERY different and it was a wakeup call this week but wow, what a blessing to be serving here. I know I’m going to love this area. I love actually teaching people and using my Spanish. Oh and the Bolivians are excellent people! So humble! Don’t worry about me, all is well here and I’m well taken care of... the area is seriously just fine. But yes so I'll keep you all updated and I thank you very much for your prayers and love. Love you All

Elder Kelly