Email from 12.21.09

Ya it has rained a lot, more than I have ever seen I think in my life lol. No problems though. My comp and I are in a car so everything is good.

My new place is an apartment. It is a small place with only one bathroom and four people in the house. It's definitely interesting.

My wrist is hurting more and I think I messed it up playing basketball, but the swelling has gone down. And, I have a brace I just don’t use it. Plus I’m in car so not much that can hurt it. My bike is still busted and I did bring it when I transferred.

Elder Sepulveda, my new comp, is from Puerto Rico, and speaks pretty good English for only learning it 9 months ago. He is a hard worker, and cares for the people, there is a language barrier sometimes, but we get through it usually. He is about 9 months in the mission. The other people in our apartment: Elder Barrett, used to be my comp’s comp, pretty good in the language and has about 7 months in the mission. Elder Orton, if you remember he used to live with me in the MTC but got moved because he already knew a lot of Spanish, he is comp with elder Barrett.

I’m in a branch and there are about 150 people in it. We have a lot of people we are teaching here in El Portal, around 15 people, and some of them have big families.

Where we teach there are only Hispanic and black people around. I’m definitely a minority around here, and yes we only teach Spanish except for some youth, and my Spanish is so bad, I realized that I have only been teaching in English basically for 2 transfers and now I’m really paying for it. My Spanish is really bad lol. Well, if I don’t learn Spanish here I’m not going to learn it anywhere lol. (That was a very nervous lol over here)

Well I got to go I love you all so much and the gospel is still very much true. Thank you again dad and mom for the gifts, I really appreciate them.

------------------

He is emailing from a Library and his computer has a timer on it so he can’t write as much. He said that he has sent some more pictures, so we are looking forward to that. Sterling is now in the Miami Beach area in the city of El Portal. Here is a picture of him and his comp: