Elder Dallin Beck California Long Beach Mission: 65 degrees with ocean breezes and breakfast

Beck Family!

My goodness, i feel like i was just at this computer sending you my last letter. Time is really going by so fast out here, I hear that is what starts happening once you get in the swing of things. I have just been getting my butt kicked by the language for the last few days, but i am trying my best to get on top of it. I had a great Easter, but outside of church, I wouldnt have known that it was a holiday at all. Cause all we did for the whole day was go out and work as hard as we do any other day. Cause that is just how we role. Me and another comp of elders have gotten into the great tradition of having a community breakfast every p day. That means that we make up some great food, pancakes, bacon, sausage, hashbrowns, eggs, bisquits and gravy, and just go crazy on it all. But I am still working so hard that I am dropping weight out here. My mouth hasnt really cooled down for the last 3 days, cause three days ago I had a blistering hot dinner. It was full of chilis and peppers, that were flippin spicy, but the food was just so good that I had to keep eating it. I think it was called a warachi, basically it is a mess of deep fried everything with spicy guacamole and chili salsa. Really. Good. I am working on getting some people baptized right now, and should hopefully be getting them in the water very soon. The thing that seems to hold everyone back from that here is that they arent married. So many couples live together, have a family, call each other husband and wife, but they just arent legally married. So after we teach them about the gospel we have to convince them to go get their marriage liscence, which you can only get if you are a legal citizen.

So there are tons of people who are very ready and willing to come into the church, but they just have things that are holding them back. Its terribly sad, but we are teaching a couple of people who we think we can get past all of these obstacles. It is still near paradise here, it is a beautiful

65 degrees all day with the ocean breeze blowing in fog in the morning and night. It is a lot hotter in other parts of the mission, but here with the ocean breeze, it keeps it nice and cool. Running in the morning through the fog and palm trees, its just darn near perfect. And i still love riding my bike, that is one of the things that is helping me keep my sanity out here.

But i am scared to take it off any sweet jumps cause my companion just told me that he has spent over 1000 bucks repairing his since he has been out here, and that is just cause he has taken his off of a lot of sweet jumps.

But, at somepoint i am gonna have to find out how fast it goes and how far it flys, just maybe not right now. I actually have my camera, so i am gonna send some pics of my life here. I miss ya'll, and hope you all had a great easter weekend. My comp is just speaking to me in spanish all of the time, so hopefully that helps me pick up this language a little quicker. I really need to figure this out, cause i am not sure how long i can get by on dumb luck and the gift of tongues, i really need to learn this fast. If you look at these pictures you will see we are taking the classic mtc picture of everyone pointing to where they are going on their mission. This is back from the mtc. And i decided to be funny and just point out to the middle of nowhere of the pacific ocean. Photo bomb expert. That was my district from back at the mtc, and i have seen all of the elders since I have been here.

It has been awesome to see them all, elder lund is pretty much a stud.

Beck out,

Elder Beck