Email from April 30, 2012

Dear Family,

  Well to answer questions, the area I'm covering right now is only
one spanish ward (we don't attend to any english wards or
investigators). It is difficult to go on exchanges and have yet to do
so. I'm serving in a relatively poor area. Most of the members of the
ward are working a lot just to pay rent. Therefore, we always come up
a little short on our 'lesson with a member present,' nevertheless,
we're working very hard. Our total lessons each week keep building and
building.
  As for ward councils, I participate very little. The language is
still very hard to grasp from native speakers. In spanish, there are
many different words for one meaning in english, and to go along with
that, the ward I'm in has many different dialects from nearly all the
South American countries and they all seem to have their own meanings
for other words. It's like english in Britain compared to english in
America.
  I am recieving those mass emails that Hilary sends out. Did y'all
get my email last week?
  We haven't recieved any news on calling home yet but I've copied the
numbers you sent dad and I'll update y'all as soon as I can.
  Other news about my mission, I forgot to mention this last week but
a few days after recieving my bike, I rode through some grass that
aparently has thorns in it! So I had 3 holes in my front tire. It's
all better now though! Thanks for the tips on the bandaids. The tire
has been holding for almost 3 weeks now. Don't worry I'll get a new
tire soon.
  All of our investigators are moving forward in the lessons. We
gained 3 more this week so hopefully they're the elect we are looking
for. While April was hard and we didn't have any baptisms, May is
going to be very busy if everything works out.
  Had my first two Bible bashing lessons with a Jehovah's Witness!
What a waste of time. Despite proving her wrong about adding stuff to
the scriptures, prophets, and revelation she refused to thing she was
wrong. She kept going on to new topics and she lost the previous one.
We walked out of the lesson when she kept going. While it may have
been a waste of time, I did learn that I do have a very strong
testimony of this Gospel and I learned that when my back is against a
wall, and can still stand up for what I believe. It was a good
learning experience!
  Another story, while contacting referrals, a lady who answered the
door told her daughter to "send us to hell" hahaha it was funny!
  One of our investigators came to church yesterday! We also met with
him and his family yesterday after church and he said that while he
was at church he felt that baptism is a great thing to do and that it
brings great blessings too! He's gonna get baptized. I think that's
all the news now.
  Ok so I attached some more pictures. Dad I found bucket of bolts.
The one where I'm right behind a chain-link fence, I'm on a very TALL
walkway over the highway and biking over it is scary. Oh yeah, on the
walkway I can also see downtown Salt Lake so hi Taylor and Matt! The
rest of the pictures are just where I serve and one picture with a
Texas edition F-150.
  Hope y'all are doing great! Take care.

Elder Parks

(Trenton took this picture because it most likely reminded him
of our Subaru my dad used to have for a very long time! They look identical!)