This is part seven of a ten part series chronicling Paul’s Mission. It is told mostly in his own words using excerpts from his letters and photographs sent home.
August 2005
There are about 110 to 200 people that come every week to the branch here. They all are Spanish speaking although some of the kids don’t speak Spanish very well. Si me amáis, guardad mis mandamientos.
You might want to consider picking up the institute Book of Mormon manual. I like it. Today we had a big barbecue and ate all of the food left over from the stake’s youth conference. The library’s Internet is hardly working today. It took the whole hour to look at the pictures. The pictures normally download quickly, but we had to use the computers later in the day when they run very slowly.
I am getting transferred to concord. It will probably be faster to wait until next week for my address than to send them to the mission home but it’s up to you. Dad’s [conversion] story came though. I spoke yesterday in church about missionary work—twenty minutes. Send me some socks, not the green striped ones they don’t last. The ones with the gold toe are good.
September 2005
If someone asks for my address you are supposed to give them the mission home address so they don’t send mail to my old apartments. Have Steven send the camera TV cable with the socks if you could. Tell Jake C that they have been holding all the mail because of transfers so if he was expecting a reply from a letter he might have sent I still haven’t got it. My new companion is Elder Bodily from Pittsburg Pennsylvania. My room mates are Elders De Olivera and Gionet from Brazil and New Brunswick so I am learning a little Portuguese and French.
This computer doesn’t have spell check so no complaints. Oh I almost forgot, I have ringworm on my forearm. Isn’t that exciting? I thought you would like that part about ringworm. It’s almost better. Concord is nice. The package came except the cookies opened up and disintegrated all over the socks and pictures. We have been eating the crumbs. They are tasty. The picture downloaded fine. I got the cook book and don’t need a different one.
The mission president asked us to refer two people during the temple pageant so I referred the only three people I know that aren’t members of the church: Ray, Mick, and some friend at school. The kid from school accepted the invitation to have the missionaries over but they said Mick’s phone number didn’t work so maybe you can send it to me. We listened to the entire Book of Mormon in Spanish in the car. It took us about two weeks.
The ring worm got better a couple weeks ago. Jake C and Brian sent me letters from the MTC but they both only had a return address to the mission so they won’t get one until they make it to the field. The pictures are fine and we ate all the cookie crumbs. Everyone really likes them. One of the elders here, Elder Shefield, used to work at Bowman’s and I tell everyone that I used to buy those cookies and dough nuts from him.
Last week I was on a expedition up a mountain on a bike. Elder Checkets and I rode 12 miles up Mount Diablo ascending 3,800 feet then 12 miles back down. It was fun. We caught a tarantula on the way up and brought it home.
Every branch has a primary program. The city is nice. We haven’t done any service projects yet but we are going to help someone move this week. We drive a 2005 Toyota Corolla now. The ocean is far away, the Sacramento river is close then the San Fransisco bay is next. I’ll talk to you more next week. Thanks for the socks.
Ringworm is actually fairly common and extremely easy to pass to others (as I’m sure your doctor told you). When I first began working at a local animal shelter, I was appalled at how many animals had ringworm and how many staff caught it. But knowing that it’s not *really* a worm, but a fungus, helped ease my mind a bit. Glad it’s getting better =)