Week 4- Pensacola (Letter to Mom & Dad)

Dear Mom and Dad,
I forgot to tell you a lot of things in my email, but first. Mom, Cristina might not be interested, but I think she is meant to hear it. I think a mission is a really good thing for me because I am eating less junk food. I am flossing every day—well every night. I am drinking no pop. I mostly drink water. Buying food sucks because I am on a budget of $33 a week. So I will be using my Bank of America debit card more than I would like. Dad, I need you to stay on top of my balance so I don’t overdraw my account.
Guess what I did on Saturday? I went to Mass. It was so weird. For one, we thought we would show respect so we wore our pinstripe suits. Guest what, 90% of the other members were in polo shirts and shorts. This left me feeling out of place and weird. There was a lot of 'I say, you say'. There was a lot of standing. But the weirdest thing was there was this song which I didn’t know if it was a song or a prayer because the director would sing a solo, but then the congregation would join in for a verse every other chorus or something. What I thought was strange is that people from the congregation would come up, read a verse, then sit down. Nothing else. No back story, no set-up, no explanation. When the priest started to talk, it was weird also. He was a good public speaker, but he kept everything in the past and never brought it to the present or latter days. His talk had a first part about loving Jesus. The second was how priests molest small children. He spent 15 minutes talking about that.
When it was time to leave, the door was really heavy so we just stood there awkwardly until we finally got it opened and left. On Sunday we got Mike Gunn to go to church. It was not the best Sunday because it was ward conference. It was a little bit over his head.
I went on trade offs with Pine Forest and guess what—we found one new investigator and one less active, but it sucks because they were in Pine Forest area. I’m in Fox Run. After that I was suppose to go back to an investigators house. He wanted to pay us so we planned that he would feed us lunch. I didn’t eat before I left. Elder Thomas wanted to go so I had to stay with Elder Hamblin because he broke his knee. I had to cook myself lunch there at the missionary apartment. It sucks because they barely have any food. But, I miss you guys.
My trainer is the district leader, but he is only over our companionship and one other companionship. I went through my first trade off with Pine Forest on Wednesday, so I slept over at their apartment.
Love y’all,
Elder Forsberg