Hola de Peur!

Hola Familia!!!

I can hardly believe that I am here in PERU. P E R U. It is simply delightful. I wish I could have each of you experience it. We finally got to the MTC at 1am last night and when our bus pulled in, there
were missionaries waiting outside in cute hats and sweaters to greet us! Already we could tell this was going to be very different from the Provo MTC.

My last thoughts before I fell asleep last night were of how wonderful it was to be finally in a bed and to have a nice pillow and starchy sheets! I woke up sometime early morning to the sounds of a JUNGLE outside of my window. We slept with the window open and I seriously thought it sounded like one of those amazon soundtracks when I woke up. The animals or birds or whatever they were, made so much
noise. I could not stop smiling and I wanted to wake the other Hmas up in my room to say HELLO!!! We are IN Peru!!!!

The CCM-which is the spanish abbreviation of the MTC, is incredibly nice. I was prepping myself to be as Catniss (in the Hunger Games) when she leaves the capital and goes to the arena. I had this a bit
wrong. The Provo MTC was Distric 12 and now I´m at the Capital. So I´m thinking that Guayaquil may be the arena. We will see.

The grounds here are absolutely beautiful. I heard it does not usually rain here in Peru so they have special dirt and fertilizer for the grass to grow nice and green. The flowers are beautiful and the only types I
recognize are marigolds and roses. There are about 137 missionaries here right now and half are native and half are from North America.  The cafeteria is small, but the food has been excellent so far! Today
for lunch I had a salad that had avocado and beets on it! They want us to eat all of our food...this will be interesting. The key is asking for a small amount. The food is different but I liked what I had for
breakfast and lunch. The eggs were the best at breakfast and the yogurt was more milky but good. The juice here is squeezed fresh- I am planning on trying some for dinner. For lunch I had rice with some kind of meat (pork maybe) with a gravy over it. Oh Amanda-- remember how you signed your letter *Candied yams* Well, I have had yams twice since then. Maybe you could sign your next letter stuffed zucchini and we will see what happens.

There is a huge nice soccer field with turf, sand volleyball, and even fuse ball (I think that´s what it is called.) This morning I exchanged my money for Peru currency--soles. This made me smile. I am officially in Peru.

Hna Salmon and I are in the same room but we have native companions.  We get the best of both worlds! I´m not exactly sure how to spell my companion´s name but it is something like Hermana Catu. She is from
Guatemala. I spoke to her a little this morning and I am not sure what she said about where she lives... I´m sure I will figure this out eventually. She does not speak English so it took a while for us to communicate that we are companions. Its like solving little mysteries all the time.

Hna Salmon was friends with Drew G in Mesa! She has told me about some of the funny things they did together. She was on a date with him and they were in the grocery store and he got on the loud speaker and started singing, *When you need somebody to love.* Another time he gave them some kind of fluffing gas in gum. She said it was awful. :) Hna Salmon went to his wedding reception too.  Small world. I love hearing stories about Drew--- they all make me laugh.

It is so different to be surrounded by spanish. I love it because it forces me to speak it.´The administration gets on the loud speaker to make announcements and sometimes they do not say the english translation. The sisters who are from here are so nice. There are about 20 sisters here, but Hna Salmon and I are the only ones going to our mission. The weather today is beautiful. We heard it is almost always overcast, but today it is sunny! It is warm and humid, but still pleasant.

I am so sorry I did not get to talk to you for very long yesterday. The Elders ran over and found us and said that they had been saying our names on the sound speakers for final boarding. Yes. I don´t want to admit it but we almost missed our flight to Peru. It was bad news bears. Hence, the frustration on Elder Applegate and Elder Storm´s faces in the picture I sent. They would have had to have waited behind with us as well. We almost gave them heartaches three times yesterday. I won´t go into details, but I believe those elders have aged. They are now prepared for future travel with their families. Nothing will seem too stressful to them after yesterday.

The plane ride yesterday was not too bad! It actually went by quickly and Hna Salmon and I blew kisses as we flew over Ecuador. (We could tell we were flying over Ecuador by the little screens on our seats).
I sat by a young man from Belgium who was going to Peru for 6 weeks to do humanitarian work. It was so neat. Thankfully, he spoke Flemmish, Spanish, French, and English so we were able to talk with ease. He
shared with me about his family, his goals, and his beliefs about God. He does not believe in God, but he wanted to look into different religions. I could see how the gospel of Jesus Christ would really bless his life. I shared with him about The Book of Mormon and my testimony of God´s love for us. I also gave him a pass along card and he said he would go to mormon.org. It was a wonderful experience!
Oh last thought! Elder Ballard´s talk was amazing. It was all about becoming a master communicator and teacher. It was extremely helpful. I feel so blessed to have heard three apostles at the MTC. Also, Hna
Salmon and I have seat angels, because miraculously every week two seats in the front and center open up 10 minutes before the devotional begins and we get to sit in them!

I am soooo happy to be here in Peru. The just started sending missionaries who are going to Ecuador to this MTC this past summer. It is a blessing to be here.

I love you! Thank you for your love, support, prayers, emails, letters, and all you do for me.
Love,
Hermana Garlock