April 5, 2010 letter

Dear Family,

Hey there! Man, I´ve got so much to write!!!! I´ll try to put it all in as fast as I can so I can chat with you guys easier :). Thanks for all your letters and all the pictures! I loved the Liam and Bailey and Brooklyn picture - you guys are so cute!!! So you know, Brian and Shelly (I hope I spelled it right), everyone LOVES the picture of your cute little kids!! I show them off to everyone and everyone always thinks they´re way cute. You guys are the best!!

Dad, your pictures rock! Looks like it´s really cloudy over there. I hope you guys are all doing great! It sounds like all is well from what I´ve gotten so far.

What a great General Conference, huh? Yeah, I loved it!!! And it was all in Spanish, and guess what´s cool? It was live too!! While you guys started at 10am, we started at 1pm. That means that our sessions on Saturday were 1-3pm, 5-7pm, and 9-11pm. Yeah, I was wasted at the end of the day because we were in that chapel for eleven hours...I was pretty tired. But it was awesome! It was great to have it all live. And guess what´s cooler? Several of the apostles, like Elder Richard G. Scott, wrote their talks in Spanish and even did the translation - WOW!!! Isn´t that awesome? We could still hear the voices of the prophets, speaking in a foreign tongue - I think that´s amazing if you ask me.

Yeah Mom, I loved President Monson´s talk too. I started to get sad as he talked about those kids and the one who died, and how the older one had his mission call there and everything. I also thought about Grandma Nuttall, and it was a pretty tough moment for me for a few minutes. I sure miss her, but I´m doing my best to work hard and bring her name honor as I serve the Lord. I want her to be proud of me :).

Lujan is beautiful!!! It is very pretty - there´s this HUGE church called the Basilica. IT IS GINORMOUS!!! We´re totally going to visit it this next p-day, because I want to get pictures and all taken in front of it and visit inside and all. I´m pretty excited.

My working area is partly city-like, with the other part with huge fields, some places with lots of crops, stuff like that. There are ridiculously large trees here that are very tall and very huge - that´s pretty tight. Basically this place is 100 times prettier than Libertad. Libertad was cool with the members, but the scenery was nothing. Just city stuff. So yeah! It is way more calm here as well, which is nice, with great members and great people.

The apartment is a MESS!!!!! Geez...but I´ve been cleaning it every morning for 30min each day (I´ll do my exercises this week but man I had to do it - it was disgusting), and today I´m going to put more hours into it to get it back into shape again. Thanks for your example Dad! I´ll send you guys a picture of my prowess here at the end :).

So we play soccer every Wednesday night with the kids of the branch here (this place isn´t a ward yet - just a branch, and we´re part of a district, not a stake - that´s the first time I´ve known church organization like this). It´s awesome to watch!!! Yeah, not to bash American kids, but like the worst soccer kid here basically blows away the kids I saw at Orem High by ten million miles. They are way great. There´s this really old guy who´s like 70 years old...and he is still playing!!! He was even showing up some of the youngsters, and knows some sweet tricks and was making goals. How cool is that? He´s a pretty rocking guy (huh huh) not a lot of 70-year-olds playing soccer here.

There are GINORMOUS spiders at the church - Mom, you know the spiders in Harry Potter? They look exactly the same, except their just the size of your hand as all. They were running around the church Wednesday night, and it was insane. They are everywhere! I´m going to try to catch one and take a picture...it´ll be rocking.

So what did Carson think about the talk in Priesthood who talked about missions and all that? I thought it was fantastic!! I sure hope he goes on a mission too, because that´s where he should be in a year or two, without a doubt. It´s such a great service. I´ll be honest, there have been days when I kind of wished I wasn´t out here. Days that are hard, people who aren´t nice, sometimes thinking about home more than I should, etc. But I´m sure glad I´m here. You guys should read D and C 72:2-5 together. They are very good verses.

I ate more fruit this week! Woohoo! And I ate more vegetables too - Mom, with vegetables, are they okay if they come from a can? Like corn and peas and stuff like that? It´s still legit right? If not, let me know :).

Unfortunately, I still haven´t received my Easter package :( man!!! I was waiting for it but it didn´t come this last Tuesday, so hopefully it comes this week. I want my little Easter bunny :) yay!! I´m sure glad you guys all enjoyed it, though! My companion and I talked together about what we did as families before the mission - he asked me if we did the egg stuff too, and I told him yeah and how we´d paint them, hide them, have fun times as a family, etc. It was great! I sure hope you all had a great Easter holiday and had fun as a family. And that we could all celebrate the Atonement and Resurrection of our Savior, and how because of Him we´ll all be able to live again and be able to be with Grandma Nuttall again :). Yay!!! For that, I am so grateful for my Savior and that He has given us that hope, and that this hope is available to all the world. It´s sure a privilege to be able to tell others about this great message.

A SWEET NOTE OF SWEETNESS!! There´s this lady in the ward from the United States!!! Her name is Judy, and she´ll be sending you guys a picture of my companion and I when we went to her house this last Wednesday. We have lunch with her every Wednesday. She is so cool! The note of sweetness is this - there is this awesome book that I was hoping that maybe would be a good Christmas gift this upcoming year? It´s called "Streetwise Spanish" by Mary McVey Gill and Brenda Wegman. She told me that you can buy it at Borders, so I thought that was cool. It´s got the stuff in it about Spanish that you don´t get from teachers, like how people "really" talk. I looked in it and it was awesome! It´s just an idea :) I think it´d be cool to have someday though for sure, whether it be on the mission or afterwards! Yay!

I will write a letter to my grandparents to thank them for the money they sent me - thank you guys so much!!! Man, you are the best grandparents in the world! Really, you are all helping me so much - the money will be well used, because I´m in desperate need of a back-pack, an iron to iron my shirts, and I´m looking into buying some exercise equipment to help me get in shape better haha. Thanks so much Grandpa Nuttall and Grandma and Grandpa Gammon! I love you all so much!!!

Well, that´s about it from Lujan - the report of Elder Gary Jordan Nuttall Hey guess what else? I´m going to have exactly 8 months in the mission when I write to you in a week! How awesome is that? The time is flying! I love you! Have a great week and I´ll write another huge email in a week!

Know that I love you all very much though, and that I hope you´re all doing great and that you´re all enjoying your day and, for Carson, that you´re enjoying your spring break as well. Yay! You are the best family in the world!!! I love you and I hope you all have an excellent day and an excellent week! I love you and we´ll talk to you in a week, when I´ll be 20 years old and have 8 months in the mission! Woohoo!

Love,
Elder Nuttall

P.S. And hopefully my Easter package comes this week - I´ll let you know if it does or not in a week.
P.P.S. Give the cats lots of pets for me!
P.P.P.S. I might buy a "smoking jacket" (bathrobe) here - they´ve got some in Walmart, and when it´s cold in the morning it´d be nice to have.