Handwritten letter Dec 18

Dear Family,

I’ve been here long enough to make general statements. The food here is a culture of it’s own. It is not American, but it looks like it. They make everything out of this terrible potato batter. They make tater tots, crapes, lasagna, pizza and other nameless contraptions. They try to make it American but they fail miserably. But I am use to it and kind of like it, other than the potato batter.

The CTM Barber is hilarious. He cuts your hair without looking at you. He doesn’t speak English. He is convinced that a 3 on the buzzer is the longest your sides should be. I am about due for my second hair cut. It will be interesting, now that I know mainly what he is saying maybe I will be able to get a haircut I like.

The CTM will be crazy on Christmas. It is a free day without anything scheduled except a talent show. I might be able to put something together for the show, but it not likely. The staff will have the day off so there will not be any prepared meals, just a table of goodies. But the bad news is, Christmas is on P-day. So we don’t get P day next week. I will be able to send off mail but not email. But I doubt this will get to you before Christmas.

My companions and I are getting along ok. Elder Karr and I still clash in several ways. We are working them out. It takes a little for me to get him to talk about it. He keeps saying that he has nothing to correct me on. Then I tell him what he needs to work on and than he remarkably has something to say. I try to go easy on him. He is a real emotion guy. It is all too easy to play with his emotions. Blake would appreciate that. But we are getting along fine.

We talk about all sorts of things and I learned that for the most part they have quite different outlooks on the world than I do. But that was not unexpected. Their view of the world is dry in my opinion. Like when I asked them what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives they both only talk about jobs and careers. They didn’t have any dreams. I explained to them some of my dreams and they seeded to think I am crazy. I am not sure that I’m not.

Well things are fine for the most part and the work moves on.

Elder Risenmay