November 10 2008, Elder Milner

rio de basura‏

hey everyone, it is once again my great priviledge to sit hear and hear from all of you what is happening in your ever busy lives. My life is pretty busy as well.
So i get the impression that you all want to hear some more about what my regular daily life is like as a missionary in Ica. First of all I must talk of the river of garbage. I probably told you about it last week, but if that is the case, too bad. So the mayor here told the people they can just dump their garbage in this gigantic river bed that runs through central ica. so there are gigantic mounds of Garbage, and Imean mounds of garbage in this dry river. My companion and I have the wonderful opportunity to cross this river everyday, about six times a day. Apparently in the Summer here, so in about a month or so, this river fills up and takes all the garbage to the ocean. ¡How is that for toxic waste!
so my companion is from Ecuador, Elder Velasquez. He is about five foot 2 maybe, and so we make for quite the companionship. he is one of the most diligent and driven people I have ever met, so it is quite a blessing for me to have him as my companion. He wants me to teach him english, so we have been practicing some different things, and it is pretty funny to hear some of the things that come out of his mouth.
We have six missionaries living in our cuarto, and there is one other norteamericano from Utah living here, Elder Thurgood. He has about twenty one and a half months in the mission, so he is pretty much just one of the Latinos. It really helps having him there, as he remembers much of the frustration of having to learn a new language. So my companion and Ifigured that on average we walk close to ten kilometers each day. We also get to ride these little mototaxi things, that are really funny looking. I will send pictures of these things soon, as soon as I can figure out the whole mail system here.
The people here are really great. Most of these people are really humble, and are quite poor. They listen to our message, and we can tell that they feel it. A regular problem that we run into is that they work on Sunday. It is really tough to convince them to trust enough in the Lord to act on their faith, but this is where the Spirit steps in. We are never alone in this work.
Well, I don´t have a whole lot of time to say much more. I am so glad to be here, and to have received so many blessings of the Lord in this work. It is tough, as you all know, but that is why it is so amazing. Jesus Christ is our Savior, and His Gospel is once again on the earth, never to be taken away again. I love you all, and and I am so glad to be apart of this family, and friends.

Elder Milner