We got another email from Elder Thomas today! He even sent pictures--hooray!!

Lima, Peru MTC (July 11)

"Peru is AWESOME. They have their own private chef here, and the meals are all (for the most part) absolutely delicious. Lots of rice and beef, and on the fourth they even made us giant cheeseburgers to celebrate... It is still definitely a new culture, but I´m slowly getting introduced to it. I´ve been speaking tons of Spanish and am progressing well. My native companion is great, as is my district companion. I´m going to be in a class with all Latinos for the last three weeks here (most likely) because all the teachers are super impressed with my Spanish. I´ve been working hard." 

"There are three water temperatures in the shower. Morder, the Misty Mountains, and the Shire. In an average 7 minute shower, about 5 are spent in Morder, a minute and a half in the Misty Mountains, and a glorious 30 seconds in the Shire. With time, I hope I can figure out how to spend more time there, because I´ve almost melted my skin off many times. The food, as I said, is great. We have to eat everything we take, or else the Latinos may get offended. Some of these people have never seen this much food on their plate before, and throwing it away would be a huge offense. Most of the time, I´m totally fine stuffing myself, but occasionally there will be something I eat and I´ll think, "Dear me, what have I done?" But I push through and make it out okay." 

"I´ve adjusted well to the heavy fruit, vegetable, rice, beans, and meat diet. It´s really great though, some of the food is better than anything I´ve ever had at any restaurant. They have cereal here, I usually eat the Frosted Flakes, but here most people don´t have cereal with milk, they put it in yogurt. It´s actually pretty good. Lunch is usually the biggest meal, and at 8:45 every night we have fruit time, and just hang out an eat fruit. There are some weird, new fruits, but they all taste fresh and delicious."

"We´ve had great teaching experiences here. Most the day I´m with my district companion, Elder Stanley, who is from Missouri and is really fun to be around. He´s really big, he was a wrestler in high school, and all the Latinos call him Goliath. We´ve had some powerful teaching moments together, especially on night where we felt the Spirit so strongly, and by following its promptings, we were able to help an investigator who didn´t believe in God gain a testimony that God is real and loves him. I´m sure our teachings will get better and better as we spend more time together. My native companion and I have only taught together one time, but it went well. It was after that lesson that the teacher told me I should be moved up to a class with only Latinos because my Spanish was well developed."

"Elder Manríquez is my native companion, and he comes from Chile. Great guy. I´ll get to know him a lot better this Saturday--we spend almost all day in Lima together teaching inactive members. I´m super excited for that, it´ll be great to practice teaching real people, not just teachers acting as investigators. I can´t wait."

"This morning we got to go to the temple, which was a great experience. It´s amazing how I can be half a world away from all that I know, and yet the Church operates the exact same way here as it does back home. It´s awesome to see. We got to go to a store, TORTUSS, which is like a mall, Sam´s Club, Wal-mart, and a grocery store all in one. They have a lot of American products which is great."

"The bus ride to the temple was hilarious. That bus was so full of people. I have no idea how that bus could move. Four of us are really tall, and we barely fit in that bus. It was very funny, I´ll  try to take a picture of it next week. Very funny, great experience."

"Yours,

Elder Thomas"

~Picture Time~

I believe this is Josh and his district--the group of missionaries he spent most of his time with. This was taken in Provo, Utah right by the temple there..also, Josh got his whole district to do Ab Ripper (from P90X) with him a couple times a week...          

This is Josh with Elder Lee, his companion while at the Provo MTC

Josh with Elder Lee and a teacher at the MTC

Josh with Elder Lee and another teacher at the MTC

Josh with his college roommates Nick (in the middle) and Phil..(this was taken on a P-day)..Amazingly enough, Nick pulled up right behind us when we dropped Josh off at the MTC, and they were just a couple rooms away from each other at the MTC...I didn't know Nick liked puppies so much. Right on.

 The temple in Peru..so beautiful!

 Josh with some buddies at the MTC (in Peru I believe)

The awesome fountain at the MTC in Lima, Peru..Josh LOVES awesome fountains