Dear Family,

Even though nothing has happened, thanks for your letter (Mom). Everything is the same here. We were happy because our important investigators came to church, plus a 17 year old got permission to get baptized, plus we got a really good reference. It was a tough week because a lot of our appointments fell through, but after the trials come the blessings, or so they say. We have two baptisms scheduled for this week, Yolanda and Karen, two sisters. It's been fun teaching them.

For pday we went to torre torre, and it was pretty cool. I have some pictures, but I didn't bring my camera. But I'll send you them some time. We also ate at a seafood restaurant. Here they just throw in all sorts of critters and things, so we find things in our rice that we can't identify, but we just eat everything. The best was sucking something out of a shell. But they always give us leche de tigre, which is gross. It is raw fish juice, onion juice and lemon with chunks of fish and squid. Anyone who says they actually like it must be lying.

Tomorrow we have zone conference. So that will help liven things up and help us keep working hard.

So the members fed us lunch and supper yesterday, and they gave us so much food that we were in pain. But you have to eat it all or they get offended. So maybe I'll end up gaining weight at the end of my mission.

Hna Garner and I get along really well. We are a lot the same, which probably means we are both weird. But I'm hoping I can end with her.

Oh, I thought of something cool. It was Hna Clariza's mom's birthday, so they brought out the classic party food--cui. I've eaten it before, but it isn't that great. They are always bragging about how Peru exports cui because it's so healthy. Anyway, they brought the cuis live and butchered them there with us. And I was privileged to help peel the hair off. I was disgusted though because someone gave me a kiss with the cui and I got blood and cui juice all over my cheek. Hna Clariza offered us cui for breakfast the next morning, but I declined.

Mom, if you want to give me money for souvenirs, that would be fine :) You can just put it in my USbank account, and tell me how much. But what kind of souvenirs do you want? A cui? I have bought a few things, but I'll keep my eye out for good stuff. I don't want to bring home a bunch of stuff that no one wants. Everyone wants me to give them my clothes, so I'll have pleny of room, but I don't want to have to pay customs fees.

So you want to know about the weather? The rainy season ended, and now we are in ¨winter.¨ Because it is so high up, the sun is really strong, and I burn everywhere, even if I use sunblock. The worst is in my hair part. It hurts, then it peels so it looks gross. So when the sun is out it is burning hot, and when you walk in the shade or when the sun goes down, it is cold. They are always complaining about the cold, but I don't see why, because it isn't that cold. And then they blame whatever malady on the weather. By the way, I saw in a newspaper this morning that the swine flu made it to Junín. It will probably run rampantly since there is little to no hygiene.

That's about it. I love you lots,
Sarah