¡Hola!

Quiero pedir perdon por mis cartas cortas en mis cartas pasadas. Esta carta va a ser un poco más larga...jaja

I want to apologize for my short letters these past few weeks. This letter is going to be a little longer...haha

Housekeeping...

Congratulations to Paige for finally making it through the craziest week of one´s teenage life. I remember my graduation. I went to the party with Adam, and I couldn´t make it all the way home. I slept at Adam´s house and forgot to tell Mom about it. I did, although, play poker and lost everything. I remember how I felt, making such a big step in the path of life. I was ending an era in my story by graduating. It was really scary, but I was ready to take on whatever came.

Congratulations to Gavin as well, for looking like such a stud at graduation. You could totally be an Abercrombie and Fitch model. I am so proud to have a brother such as you. I hope that you do all that you want in life, and better than I could do it. I remember when I was really angry that you were better at soccer at the age when I played. But now, I am proud to have a brother that can do all that I did, and then excel. I thank God everyday for my amazing family, that he has blessed me to be born into.

That really breaks my heart about Lucy. I got really close to that creature over the last year, before the mission of course. I hope that she´ll be okay in the house of Coughenhour.

Gavin, I know it´s really hard to keep going in Scouts. Trust me, I let my Eagle Project sit for nine months before I got it done. If you don´t want to keep going in scouts, that´s your decision. But, know that the benifits in scouts, especially from receiving your Eagle, will carry over for the rest of your life. Plus, we´re brothers, and we´re going to be the two only scouts of the family, and the two Eagle Scouts. I know it´s hard and a little discouraging. But...keep going. Never give up. Only 1% of all Boy Scouts in the entire world earn their Eagle Scout Award, don´t be part of the 99%. We are the few and the proud...

By the way, I did receive the package you sent...thank you. I can already tell you that all of the candy that you sent survived only a few hours after its removal from the bag. Thanks for the music, although the Prince of Egypt soundtrack is missing like the best songs of the movie. But, it´s okay... :-( The the other songs are really sweet too...

Letter...

Okay, about the area. Our area is called Laferrere 2. Our boundaries are gigantic, but we´re only a branch. Our ward records show 560 members of our branch, but less than 70 are active. The leadership here is amazing, but other than that, we don´t receive a lot of support from the members. Our branch President is a convert of 2 years. He is the only man in the world who was sustained as an Elder before he was baptized. He went to Stake Conference the Sunday that he was going to be baptized. He never held the Aaronic Priesthood, he went straight to Elder. There is a total of 30 buses in our area, but all of them go out of the area. So, we don´t have any form of transportation, except for our feet. I have walked more in this area, than I have in my entire life. There are a few little cars that run around and take people places. They are called "druchitos". They drive on a route, and pick people up as they go. It costs like $1.50 ARG per trip. But, they only go to limited places, like to and from the station, so that doesn´t help us a lot.

My companion, Elder Unker, is from South Jordan, Utah and has been here in the mission for a total of 23 months. I am his last companion of the mission before he goes home. It has been a really good experience so far. He really wants to work to finish off his mission well. It is really nice to finally have a companion speak English after 8 months. I like it a lot.

This transfer is the last transfer of our beloved President Benton. He´s going home after a long 3-year mission. We had interviews this last week, and he told me some interesting things of which I will write:

The first thing is that I might be training this next transfer. I am so excited to be training! I would try to be the best trainer ever! But, I guess the new President is going to have a lot of say into who goes where. But, he´s going to put in a good word for me.

I hope you don´t cry when I say this, Mom...but...I was talking to President Benton and he asked me where I wanted to go to school after the mission. I told him either University of Idaho or Southern Virginia University. He strachted his head and said "Well, Elder...that doesn´t sound like such a great idea to me. Because there aren´t a lot of members in either of those areas. And, where are you going to find a wife in an area with not a lot of members? God can raise up a wife for you anywhere, but it would be a lot easier to find her in BYU..." :-/ Thanks President haha So, he got me thinking. He also said that he would write a recomendation letter for me if I ever wanted to teach at the MTC. But, I don´t know what´s going to happen. Although, everytime I think about BYU, I do get a really good feeling. So, just for your information, when you start my college apps, you can start one for BYU. Remember your son who didn´t want to go to a church school? Where did he go? Haha President Benton is a great man, and I have no doubt that what he recieves for his missionaries is pure revelation. Plus, I was talking to a missionary from Virginia, my District Leader, about SVU and he said that he would never go there. He said it´s almost like a community college. So, just thought I would throw that in there.

Well, I´ve got to go. I included some pictures from my travels. I went to Capital with my comp this week to do some government stuff and that´s where some of the pictures are from (like the cathedral, the flags, and the pic by the ocean). The other ones are all from my area.

I love you guys so much! I look forward to the day when we will again be reunited. 15 months is nothing :-)

Con amor,

Elder Garrett Brighton Rook

Laferrere 2