Letter from June 27

Here I am, sitting in the city of.... Pichanaki!  We had a change, my companion Elder Moreno left and went to Chosica. I am very glad to stay here.  My companion is the man too, I’m positive we are going to get along great.  He is from Colombia, and his name is Elder Parada.  A little note that I think is pretty cool. I have had 4 companions. All are from different countries: Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Colombia. My comps have been awesome and it has helped me a ton with my Spanish.  A TON!! Now when people are guessing where I am from it usually takes them a couple seconds, were as at first, they said North American before I could even finish asking them where they thought. Good times.  But my comp is a good guy. I am glad that I have had awesome comps so far.  Ha although his one challenge is a 6:30 in the morning, at times he doesn’t want to get up, I had to pull the mom and dad trying to wake up Tyger. haha no just kidding, he gets up, and gets going, just needs a little push!  He teaches very well though, I’m excited to learn a lot from the way he teaches.  He just finished his training and now has 3 months in the mission.

My pesionista and her family are the best ever.  I’m serious, they are starting to become more and more like my family.  We joke around and have a good time.

Also I want you all to know that I used to find hair in my food on a regular basis in my first area, haha but here I’m very excited to announce that the stakes are higher here in the jungle. I have had the pleasure just about every morning to find little ants in my drinks, (not in my pants)  haha.  Awesome huh? haha there are all sorts of little creepy crawly things here in the jungle.  Good times!!

As for the wonderful missionary work, it is going very well. The good news is we had a big family come to church yesterday, they are MARRIED!!!!  I am so grateful for that. They came and they loved it, the wife has come 3 times now, the husband the first time, we are helping them to understand that there is only one true church on the earth because they were baptized in another church and we are expressing the need of a baptism in the true church of Jesus Christ.

Elder Riggs