November 26, 2012
This week was kinda rough but it was good. We have few investigators these days, just a family that recently moved from the inland, and they're kinda hard to teach because they are mostly illiterate, but we're going slow with them and they are going to church, so that's good.
Oh yeah, and this week I saw Wildnelly, Jessica, and Gizeli (3 girls from my area five months ago) at a bus stop in my area. We were walking home at about 9 o'clock and I saw three people running down the sidewalk yelling SWINNEY!!! It was really fun and really bizarre to see someone from an old area, but we just chatted for a moment. They said they were thinking about me the other day and it felt so good to know that people remember me from other areas. Sometimes as a missionary it feels like you just pass through and get replaced by the other Elders and no one even notices, but it was great to know that I had an impact on a family I didn't even baptize.
The house I'm living in here is kind of a shack. It's a small apartment that has TONS of mosquitos, but at least I'm sharing it with someone that speaks English. I was thinking of drinking mosquito repellent before I sleep each night so that my sweat is repellent and it keeps the mosquitos away all night. Not really...I'm just aftraid of getting some kind of gnarly disease from all these mosquitos. But I do ok, I just sleep with repellent on the floor next to me (I don't have a bed yet, just a mat on the floor, but the secretaries are working on that).
Anywho, me and my comp are looking at moving houses. We want to live closer to the church and our investigators. I hope it doesn't take too long, plus our neighbor said we'll get robbed on that side of town, but we are always over there at night time and no one tries to steal our scriptures. So, I'm not too worried about it. It mostly depends on whether the President will let us move.
Plus, we will be ushering in the most depressing month for a missionary. December is the most backwards month there is. It's supposed to be cold, we're supposed to be with family, the food should taste good and I should be singing at old people. But here it's none of those things. They just wrap lights around the palm trees and hope that it distracts from the open sewer smell!
I love you all!!!
Elder Swinney
