A Great Week, or The Modern Art Whisperer

(Painting by Basquiat)

This week rocked.

First things first, I got my package from y'all! Let's go! I am very impressed with how full the box was, and with how you fit everything in there. The ipod rocks, if anyone has talks they want to send me I am happy to listen to them, I will be looking up some talks today. The journal looks great, the pens rock, so many protein bars. It is funny because the huge nice grocery store here has 15 Nature Valley crunch bars (which stink) for $10. It is expensive but so close to being protein bars. But I love the protein bars.

I also got the postcard you sent in the package of the Basquiat. It immediately sparked a firestorm after district meeting. The classic criticisms of modern art. But what is really funny is right now my companion, Elder Lambson, is applying to BYU and he really wants his essays to be good so that he gets in. And he does not like art but he sees the merits of writing about art for a certain essay to sound intellectual and like someone who should be in BYU. So I have taken him under my wing and showed him the ways. Yesterday he even defended modern art in a meal with a member family. We will see if he actually changes his essay but it's at least interesting. 

So I was sick last week, but now I am 100% and we worked this entire week. Starting two Thursdays ago I got a pretty bad fever and had a iron taste in my mouth. I took some medicine and had to stay in the house because I felt weak. But what I did not tell y'all was I developed a rash starting that Saturday. It got really bad on my face and was all over my body. It was still pretty bad on Monday and my faced itched so bad. But by Wednesday it went away. Super weird and the mission nurses think it might have been an allergic reaction to Ibuprofen. But I am completely good now.

We had zone conference this week and interviews with President Barlow. They were great and went smoothly. The assistants came and capacitated (I know that is not the word in English but it's so close that I am going to just use it)(Shawn note: he probably means "training."). It was interesting seeing the different styles certain people have when teaching. Some people love macheting (Shawn note: I'm guessing this means teaching boldly). Just interesting. 

This week we really worked hard on setting goals and talking to more people. The mission standard is talking to 15 people and we saw many miracles this week hitting that goal. Twice our only good contact of the day was number 15 and our last contact. It was really cool and has shown me the importance of setting and following through on goals.

Also Elder Lambson had his penultimate p-day today. BTW penultimate is much more common in Spanish. So we went to a classic South American market and bought classic South American things. Ponchos, Art, and cool backpacks. It was really fun, pretty cheap stuff, and I felt like a tourist for an hour. There are a good amount of white people that come to Ecuador but almost all of them are from Europe and do not speak English so I want to talk to them but I can't. 

Other than that a great week. The work continues and goes well. It finally has begun to rain every day here and the sun is almost never out. That means the weather rocks. Love being a missionary and every day I feel like what I do really matters in the grand scheme of things.

Love y'all

Elder Tucker