Hola from Elder West

The weather here has started to warm up. For the most part it was pretty mild for the first couple of weeks I was here (ignoring a couple days of rain), but since summer "officially" started (June 22nd or something) the weather has started being more like what I'd expect from summer here (read: hot). Still, I don't think it's been above 90 degrees yet, but I could be wrong. The worst part of the weather is when we have to wear our suit coats when going up to the temple. Speaking of the Provo Temple, I find it to be surprisingly similar to the Seattle temple in some ways, though I guess that's kind of a given since they're close to the same age.

Oh, and just so you know, I usually write my e-mails during laundry time, which starts at 10 o'clock for our district. However, that's entirely dependent on whether there's a computer available when I start my loads. I don't want to change loads mid e-mail, since that leaves the computer open and also because logging off takes 5 minutes off our 30 minute time limit (enforced by the web browser they use here). If I'm not able to e-mail during that time, I usually do it during the free time after lunch then.

The Spanish is going pretty well, though I think we could be doing better. Like, yesterday in class the teacher said that we (and they themselves) are not speaking Spanish as often as we should right now. Granted, the teachers say we've learned the grammar pretty fast, but we just need to speak the language more. I'll admit that I should have put in more effort than I should. I mean, finally bought supplies for flashcards, and right now I feel like I should have done it like 2 weeks ago. Regardless, I've found the language pretty easy to learn compared to Japanese, thanks to it being grammatically similar to English and having quite a lot of cognates. Granted, that kind of gets in the way when we run into false cognates. For instance, "embarasado" means "pregnant", whilst the word that actually means "embarrassed" is "avergonzado" or something like that. There are a couple people in the class that like to purpose make mistakes like this.

- Elder Alex West