im still a mcCain man but i dont have any news and i am not realy informed right now. yea get me a bumper sticker. ill save it. oh the pouch has new rules. they only accept letters that are on one peice of paper and folded in thirds, taped on the long side and with the adress on the outside. but im 6 hours from the mission home so i only can get letters at zone confrences.
so i just realised that i have been on my mission for 3 months. that is incredible. i cannot beleive it. can you? i bet your lesson went better then mine usualy go. my comp is a great missionary, but my spanish is not very good. though i can understand almost everything, many times i dont have the vocabulary to say what i want to and somtimes i try saying things that are to hard and i just confuse people. but i have not yet said that "i know these houses are true" yet so im doing great. we have 2 baptismal dates and we are realy close with alot of others. i love teaching progressing investigators that want to grow spiritualy and are willing to lear from us. its way exciting. i decided to to be optomistic always and im it makes things way better. sufficient is the evil unto the day there of. complaining and being negative just makes it worse. try sending pictures. i think i could even print them off here. i think dad should run for govenor too. i cant beleive that sam did a 101 fly. its incredible. i wish i had started realy swimming and training sooner. oh well. we walk tons and tons. the other day i said to my companion that it was getting hot and i was sweating alot. he looked at me and reminded me that it is only january. i almost cried. its buitiful though.
there is a realy rich member that lives in our zone, and the whole zone was invited over for the p day. we played socar with the mexicans. im not bad. i should have played that too. it was way fun. he had a realy nice house with gaurd dogs and cheffs and stuff. and an awsome out door grill. it was odd going from the poorest houses in the world, filthy dirty tiny and dark. 10 ft by 15 ft shacks with leaky roofs and held together with wire to that. i wouldnt be happy living like that but it was cool playing pool and socar there today. he had a nice pool that was realy tempting in the hot sun but we resisted.
im the only one in my house that works out every morning. thenthey all complain they are getting fat. i might actualy be gaining more muscule because ive never realy just worked out muscules. its always been swiming and biking and stuff. and i jump rope witch is a good work out.
yesterday we ate at this sisters house. she gave us this realy good mexican style spageti. i finished, and i was thinking, i had enough food but it might be a good idea to ask for another pate so i wouldnt have to eat that night. i finished that plate and she started brining out even bigger plates of rice chicken, salad and home made torillas. i almost cried. then when i was about half way though with that, she started bringing out the ice cream. most meals arent like that but it still would be easy to gain weight.
hey i heard the stock market crashed real bad? do i have a mutual fund yet?
im realy happy. things are going well. we are helping a guy named hector quit smoking. then we are going to baptise him. hes a realy cool guy i like him alot. hes got potential. keep me updated. adios. love you mom ben

im near puertovillarta. a town called ixtapa. it way cool. we have a baptism tonight. i´m pumped. the erea is realy poor and every one works in villarta in hotels. its realy pretty and gets kind of hot. rummer has it that it gets 110 and way humid in the summer.
we don´t have a bishiop right now and the ward is kind of falling apart. but we are workong hard. my companion is a good guy. he´s from salt lake and is a good hard working missionary. he wants to go to new york and ´´make it´ acting. he does most of the teaching because i can´t understand much of what the mexicanos say. but i think i´m getting a little better. we live with two other missionaries. one mexicano and one 23 year old kid from salt lake area. i think letters will take a ridiculously long time to get to me. i have to wait for zone confrences to get my mail im pouch and i don´t know if i trust the mexican mail.
we walk everywere and our erea is kind of big. some of the sisters in the ward cook us great food. we had a 3 course meal the other day. but the day before we got beans and tortias. i was just as thankful for that meal though. hows pop doing? life at home? well can´t wait to read your next email. love
ben

so im in gadalajara typing on a spanish keyboard. either me or my companion is going to peurto viarta tonight. its a 5 hour bus ride but we dont know who is going where. the elders ive meet are pretty cool. one from boston. and the mission presidents son in lay is from maine. he dad was a stake president and patriarch in farmington. i forget his name. would you or dad know who he is. ill let you know wher im going when i know. its been a crazy day. we ate at a mexican stake house. it was delicious. should get going though. love you. elder lariviere

hey mom. how are you? don't forget i can call home monday at around 8 or 9 my time so 10 or 11 your time? it would be nice if dad could take and earlyt lunch or something? make sure your home. i've nebver used a calling card before so i hope it's not to hard to figure out. we went to the mexacan consulate to get our fingerprints taken. it was in salt lake. it was nice to go on a little feild trip. they told us to singthe thing exactly like our signature on the passport, but my signature is not consistant so i hope they still let me in the country. i sent sam a late birthday gift. i hope it comes. i put the return adress 25 dean drive because i'll be gone by the time it comes back if there is a mess up so i hope it gets there some time soon. love you can't wait to talk to you! love elder ben