October 7th 2013 Email

Dear Mom and Dad,

          Thank you for the emails and the pictures! Mom, hopefully I  got the prayer in before you took your test. I said it around 11:30 your time. It is kind of weird being 3 hours ahead. There is a world clock on the iPad, it shows where it is day and where it is night, and when I am just about ready to go to bed and I see that the sun is still up over there, I feel a little funny about that and I have no idea why. 

Mom I read your email first so when I saw that my car was sold I was very depressed for about 5 seconds. That was when I saw the next sentence which did make me feel much better. Let me know how Ian likes the car. I also hope you got the oil changed on it because it needed that since before I left. 

It is interesting to think that I am now 2 months out. 2 months since I have seen any of you or Arizona, only 22 months to go. I think it was my first week here my companion pointed to the sky and asked me how far away the plane was. I said probably around 30,000 ft. He the replied "No, 23 months". From what I have heard it takes about 4 to 6 months before the home sickness goes away and before you start to really get into it, after that the time fly's by. But I have been doing well out here so far, there are no desires to go home until the work is done.

One thing I found out, is that there are a few people in the ward that are from Mesa! I think it was last week, we were at a members house, and I found out that the whole family lived off of Stapley and the 60. When they found out I was from Gilbert we spent most of the time talking about the valley. A couple of people here graduated from Mesa High in 93 as well. It was nice to talk to people that knew the same streets I know. I have noticed that the one problem we all face going from Arizona to NC, is the fact that it is hard to find a GOOD Mexican food restaurant.

One last funny story is that the bishops son whose name is also Matthew served in Tuscon! Anyway, in regards to the work we found 2 potentials and one of our investigators came to 2 sessions of General Conference. He seemed to enjoy it and could even tell us in detail his favorite talk and why. I also got the chance to run the area for a day when my companion went to an 8 hour meeting. Everything went fine, only a few people went inactive and stopped seeing us because of it (haha). But everything is going well and I hope to hear from ya'll soon.

Love,

Elder Matthew Pena