Sphere of Control

Hello once again my beloved family!

I'm sorry I'm writing later than usual today. We had a long but very fun p-day. :) Today we went with the bishop to a beach. Originally we we're going to fish and eat there, but we ended up only eating at the beach. After that we went to a nearby pier and fished there. It was a ton of fun. :) Instead of normal fishing poles, we used little planks of wood with most of the fishing line wrapped around it. It was just the plank, the line, and a hook. The way you cast it was by whirling it around kind of like a sling and stones, then tossing it into the sea. We used pieces of fish as bait. All the fish we caught were just little ones, but I caught four. :) We threw a lot of them back and gave the others to some nearby fishermen. I got pretty toasted in the sun though. I forgot my sunscreen so... It'll probably fade to a nice tan at least. :)

I was still feeling a little down and troubled up until our drive over to the beach. I had a good conversation with Elders Rhodes and Soto (They're both American). They gave me some good advice about being a missionary. They said that we only have our own sphere of control. We can't control everything no matter how badly we want to. Therefore, we should simply focus on the things that we can control. Ourselves and our actions. After that, everything else will follow.

As for the week... we had one baptism named brother Regino. He's the father of a member that we've been working with for a while. The bishop baptized him and it was a nice service. I said a little about baptism during the service and afterwards we had some delicious tacos. :) I'm excited to see Regino progress in the church. Other than that, not too much has happened. Sunday was kind of a bummer because we invited six different people to attend church, but none of them showed. Oh well, that's one thing out of my sphere of control. People have their agency.

Thanks for answering my questions! I really appreciate it. :) Now I guess I'll answer the questions I got this week. The weather here is changing too, but not too much. It's generally cloudy or rainy more often which is nice because it's cooler. There are still some days where we sweat like dogs though. :P I'm pretty sure that my package wasn't opened and that I got everything you sent. I really like the little Halloween decorations and the treats. Thanks a million! :) Sorry, but I don't have any new pictures to upload on dropbox this week. I have more pictures for you to see, but the computer I'm using won't let me upload them today. Oh well... I took a couple pictures of the day fishing that I'll hopefully remember to send.

I got a random list of questions from someone who forgot to put their name in the e-mail, but I'll answer them anyway. The food is delicious for the most part. A lot of soups, tacos, and meats. A lot of the time they'll prepare chicken or pork in a plate with some sort of soupy sauce. It's different every time, but it's always good. :) As to what I'm doing: I'm basically just doing the average missionary stuff. A lot of studying, contacting and teaching. I'm pretty much used to the heat here, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I like it. :P Let's just say I miss not sweating all the time. ;) For the most part, I'm enjoying being a missionary. I have my challenges, and to be honest a lot of them seemed to have piled up these last couple weeks, but with the Lord's help I'm overcoming them. I'm trying to just calm down, take everything a piece at a time, and have fun. It's working out okay. :) The people here are generally very friendly though they don't really like to show emotion out on the street. A lot of people walk around with a scowl on their face until you say good afternoon to them or something. Then they usually smile and greet you in return. I can't really think of an instance where anybody has been intentionally rude or mean. It helps that my Spanish has been improving. I'm still far from perfect and my conversations are iffy at times, but I can generally communicate what I need to. Right now the thing I enjoy about the mission is teaching. I absolutely love it when I can teach someone and help them understand the importance of the Gospel. On the other hand, they only thing I don't really like his when I can't understand. It frustrates me to no end when I know what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. However, that's happening less and less.

I love every single one of you and I pray for you each night. I know this church is true and that the Gospel changes and blesses lives. I love you!

Elder Sean Horrocks