Much grax

     Hola! Qué pasa casa? I hope everyone has been doing well this past week. This has been the first week in the field! There's been a ton of things that have gone down so let me try to recap some of the highlights. I arrived from the MTC to Baltimore on Tuesday and we've just been cruising through this week. First, I was assigned to labor in Frederick, a decent sized suburb city in the middle of Maryland. One of the other greenies, Elder Starr, was assigned to labor in Frederick as well. Being here has been an absolute blast. My trainer's name is Elder Benson and he is from Holiday, Utah. Real stud. We've been able to get along and grind out some work this past week. In our Spanish District there are two Hermanas and four Elders. The six of us are over the Spanish branch in the area. The Spanish branch here is super strong. The missionary work here in the Latino community has been moving. Let me tell you about Kevin. Kevin is an absolute stud. His testimony has exploded over the last couple of weeks and the previous Elders have done a lot of work with him. On Thursday we committed him to a baptismal date. But it's tough because he actually lives outside of our area so we will have to pass him off to other Elders to be baptized. But we got him on a date! Which is super excited. Other than that we were able to commit and have four people show up to church on Sunday! 

     As far as the Spanish goes, it feels hit or miss. Some days the words just flow and other days they don't. But since I can't say a ton I've just been working on perfecting my pronunciation and accent. Oh and for the vast majority of latinos we meet, most are from El Salvador  

     Okay let's talk weather for a second. I have never been colder in my entire life. For reference, let me describe my closet selection. I had on thermals, white shirt, sweater, my blue puffer jacket, boots, and my bigger gray jacket over all of that and I was still getting the chills. On Friday we checked the weather and with the wind chill it had dropped to 9 degrees. As the worst part is this: when my whole face goes numb, it is literally impossible to speak Spanish. Trying to speak Spanish when you can't feel your face is a huge struggle. 

     Anyway, I wish you all the best this next week! I'll add a couple pics down at the bottom