"Attacking the Spanish Language!"

Hey.
Transfers came... and went... and they left me and Elder Draper here. Soooo, that is Grand!!! We are doing well and had our first FULL week of work without crazy things happening. It was great. We found a few new people and they are looking really good! Jeff (from last week) is doing incredible! He is seriously probably the smartest person that I have taught on my mission. We teach him a principle then he says "let me see if I am understanding this right" then explains the principle back to us usually with some sort of analogy. So cool! He looks exactly like George Castanza with a cul de sac hair cut! He is a mainstay at one of the biker bars around here because he sings Karaoke (however you spell it). Apparently he goes there ever Saturday day night and drinks soda and sings country music (7-15 songs). He told us he wants to sing some karaoke with us this week so that should be awesome! He is seriously one of the most good- hearted people I have met out here. He works at Shell and goes in 15 minutes early and always stays late to make sure everything runs smoothly. He couldn’t go to church because he was giving a ride to a lady who came into his work and asked for help with a ride to downtown. (she paid for his gas so he said it was a fair deal). But anyways he is coming along great and he is one of those people that the gospel will really bless his life. He doesn’t have much family so I think he will be happy to make friends in the ward. The English ward is supposedly very good here. The Spanish branch has some challenges but we are trying to work them out.

My old companion Elder Calzadillas just got transferred and he is now in my ward with me. I am happy about that because I think alot of the problems we had were my fault and I want to make things right with him. Our investigator Belen went to church this week and seemed to like it. She is 18 and really cool and has a testimony she just does not want to change. So we will see what happens with her. We are teaching mostly Spanish but we have found lots of good English people lately so we will see what happens with them. We are gonna teach them till they go to church then give them to the English missionaries who have more contact with the English ward.

OK Funny Story; I had my talk this week. So I prepared more then usual cause it was in a language that is not my own. I got a talk ready for about 10 minutes about the resurrection. I was all ready to go and I got up on the stand and the High Council member who was speaking with me asked me to make it a 5 minute talk if possible. He said ten would be fine but 5 would be better... so I brought my notes with scriptures to quote and everything. I decided that I was going to try to just use a few of the scriptures that I had marked and let things fall as they may but going to try to make it 5 minutes. I went up there and talked. I had the same sort of feeling as last week. Everyone was smiling from the congregation and kind of nodding their heads. I knew I was either absolutely nailing it or my Spanish was terrible....... In stark contrast I babbled with no real point. After about the second minute in I realized how bad the talk was going... I read my scriptures talked about them a little bit and I was done... HAHAHA even my companion said it was pretty bad and our investigator Belen told me that "I attacked the Spanish language" Haha so apparently I babbled for 6 minutes, funny stuff!

But yeah, things are good! I love you all and will talk to you later!!!
Love Elder Stiles