June 3, 2013

Dear Family,

  So the picture was a funny story, we were tracting up a street and a truck rounds the corner and pulls over and talks to us. He was the english ward mission leader there and he told us that there was nobody spanish speaking in the neighborhood (bummer) and then he drove off. As he was leaving, another truck rounds the corner and pulls over to talk to us. This man then proceeds to get out of his car, and says he's gonna force us to take a picture and send it to our parents! So thats what we did and y'all got the text so thats good. Me being the genius that I am, I couldn't remember whose phone number was whose so I just hoped for the best and hoped I didn't send it to hilary's phone. That guy was aggressive and we were forced to comply, I wish all the members were that aggressive with sharing the gospel with others and giving us referrals!
  For inspirational this week, I was reading an email from my trainer back in Colombia and I was voicing that I felt that I was lacking a little bit as a missionary and following the spirit. He offered that I do what is called the 40 day fast! I'm starting it today and it's when you 'fast' from things that could potentially drive the spirit away for 40 days and as one tries his/her hardest to do it, at the end of the 40 days the character of the missionary will change and he'll be more in tune with the spirit. So I'm working on that right now!
  I'm working on finding the receipt for the shirts! I haven't thrown them away or anything but I can't find the receipt. I'll keep looking so that I can take them back to target.
  Don't worry mom, I was only in the rain for a little bit thanks to the use of a car. I must say, the weather here is weird. I was COLD on May 31st!! That shouldn't even be physically possible! But now it's warming up so it's all good.
  Things keep rolling along here in the area. Problems came up with the parents about us teaching those 2 teenagers. It's not like we went behind their back, they KNEW we were teaching them but now they've kinda frozen up on us and aren't cooperating with allowing us to teach their kids. We're trying to find more people to teach but we struggle at times. In reality there aren't many hispanics here and this is actually the hardest spanish area in the mission. We still work hard though. We're going to begin working more with the members starting this week so we'll see how that goes. Our President has said that spanish missionary work is not effective if we don't have the member support, so that's what we'll start doing.
  I'm staying happy! I'm working hard and keeping the faith, so no need to worry about me! The gospel is true and I love y'all and am grateful for the support!

Love,
Elder Parks