November 28 2010
¡hola amado familia mio!

It sounds like everything is going great for you guys at home. It's great to get to hear from you. Sounds like you had a good thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving for me wasn't quite the same with out a huge turkey and mashed potato dinner, it was just a normal day here. It was weird, it just sipped by with out me knowing.

It was really cold here yesterday, like 2 Celsius, I think which is like 36 Fahrenheit. The only difference here is first, none of the houses have insulation and its the coldest its raining. The cold rain doesn't help us stay any warmer. So I am extremely grateful that we got that big coat for me it was a great help. Normally 36 isn't a problem but when you don't have any where to go for heat, its nice to have a sweater.

I'm learning a lot about how to work with drunks here. We have been helping a man named Luis, he's 40 years old, has a messed up passed and wants to get baptized in the church. He was all set and ready to go but after the interview we were told he was going to have to go to church for 3 months before he can get baptized. Which sucks. So we told him that and the next day we were going to visit someone who lives on the same street, and we ran into Luis, who was drunk, and his ¨wife/girlfriend¨ had left him. We had hopped that he would be sober the next day, but no he wasn't. It was kind of sad. He is an alcoholic and had stopped drinking for almost 2 weeks or more, and his life was starting to get back together.

Here you can buy a 250ml bottle of 100% alcohol for about 5 pesos or less than 50 cent's. So he would buy that and mix it with water and drink it to get (and stay) drunk. Hes drinking only to get drunk really, and for hardly no mony either.

So we visited him Sunday. That was a really interesting lesson, considering that I could understand him a ton better than the first few lessons we had with him. He invited us in and we went into his room and sat down and were as firm as possible with him. It took a little while to admit that he'd been drinking (I dont know why you would lie and say that you werent drinking - it was obvious). After that we explained to him that we were here to help him change his life.... and that we would help him but he can't be drunk when we help him. So I hope he got the message, well see today if he actually stopped drinking or not.

Drunks are weird, I'm so glad that none of my friends have ever drunk. The mission is the best plase to learn how to help people with this kind of stuff, smoking, alcohol, drugs (i haven't taught any druggies yet, but I've seen tons). Mainly because missionaries are protected if we are obedient and have the spirit with us really strong all the time.

The other day, Thursday, we had interchanges so we could have some interviews done in our area. When all was said and done we went to the area of the ZLs to end the the inter changes. But at the same time my comp and the other ZL went to our area. So we called and found out that there weren't any buses to take me back to my area. So we went to the house of the ZLs to sleep, but we didn't have the keys. So we tried to break in (with permission) and my temp comp couldnt do it, so I did it. It was cool.

Love you forever
Elder Sorensen