The Real Mission

Well it's a new life here in the real mission field. The flight over here to to Puerto Rico was nice and i was releved when i finally met my mission President. He's a great guy and his wife is Awesome. The mission President and i have the same time left on our missions so we're preping the this mission to hand over to the next mission Pres.

My date to come home is Aug. 5th 2010. Yup you can start the count down....Actually it would probably be best if you didnt. Anyway my first day in Puerto Rico i stayed at the Mission Presidents house and had a real nice dinner over there. Their house was really nice and i could see myself living in one like it here Puerto Rico when i grow old. Its so beautiful here! The only down side is that its way humid here and you sweat no matter where you are. Anyway my one day at the Presidents house had to come to an end and then i got thrown around like a little child i felt like. We drove to one of the Chapels and all the Missionaries were there, except for the ones down in the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonier, and Curaco). I met my new companion there. His name is Elder Haskell from west Jordan Utah. He knows his spanish pretty good and he's a fun companion to be with at least so far. We'll see how it goes as time goes on. Once i got my new companion we got a new area too. When i say new I mean brand new. Elder Haskell and i have the job of opening a brand new area called "Ponce 5". There spliting one of the Areas here up so we get to go find a new house and start a new Area from nothing. Right now we're living with 2 othere Elders, Elder Martinez from the DR and Elder Powell from Oregon. Its a pretty big job for a brand new greeny to get to try and help his companion open a brand new area from scratch, but i think i'm up for it.

My 1st time "toking" was a good experience though. Toking is what they call tracking here in Puerto Rico. people usually have gates around their homes and i guess its rude to walk in so we stand out side and have to yell to get them to come out. Yeah i thought it was a little wierd too. Its not to bad though. As we were going we talked to this one man that was Catholic and he was interested in hearing our message but wouldnt really except anything we said. I know he could feel the spirit touch him because he was standing there moving around a lot and i just seemed like he was trying to find out what it was he was feeling. We started to talk about the trinity and my Companion shared some scriptures from the Bible and explained how God, Christ, and the HG are three different personages. We pretty much gave him the 1st lesson and i was able to recite the 1st vision to him. That was a great experience and felt so good. We eventualy had to leave and asked him to pray about the things we had talked about. I sure hope he does.

Saturday was a really special day because it was conference! How lucky am i to get out here in the field on conference weekend. Anyway we all went to the Chapel to watch Conference and unfortunitly the power to the Chapel wasn't working and we missed almost the entire first session. They finaly got it to work right before the last talk by Elder Utchdorf on Hope. I was sure glad i got to watch that talk because i felt like that talk was specificly for me. Learning a language isnt the easiest thing to do and i learned that i must have a hope in order to learn Spanish...After conference we had a BBQ with all the missionaries that are in our zone at our Apartment inbetween the conference sessions. It was good to get to know all the Missionaries. One of the Elders out here is playing Baseball at BYU when he gets back home. His name is Elder Wells. Small world huh? We talked for a while about baseball and just everything. He's a really cool guy and has been out here for a year about. He's an outfielder. After the afternoon session was over Elder Martinez had a Baptism for a boy named Ricardo. He's 14 and likes to play baseball. He's good kid and i was actually able to be the witness for his Baptizm! I felt way honord to be able to be one of his witness. Missionary work is great!The natives here speak really fast and are hard to understand but give me a couple of years and i'll get it. Well thats all thats coming to my mind that happend here in my first week on my mission thats worthy of telling. For the most part i felt out of place and didnt know a thing i was doing, but i'm still alive. And what doesnt kill you only makes you stronger right? So i guess you can just say that i'm a little more stronger now.

So whats going on Back home?

My address here is:
Puerto Rico San Juan West Mission
Urb. Jardines de Caparra
500 Calle Marginal Norte
Bayamón, PR 009559

All the letters are just sent to that address and then they bring them to us, so that will be my address for the rest of my mission. I'd love to read Your É-mails to so thank you all and God Bless!

Elder Lopez