Weekly Update!!! Finally.....

HOLAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!! So this has been the hardest thing I´ve ever done... I've missed you all so much! Sorry it took so long to respond but they pushed back our Pday this week from Wednesday to Friday. They chose our district to be guinea pigs for a new lesson that they are thinking of adding to the curriculum! I've been dying to email home all week, so lucky us... Anyways, I have so much to tell you all!!!! So I will start with the flight! The flight to Atlanta was super uneventful, I just slept the whole time, and when we landed in Atlanta I met up with 3 other missionaries - Elders Parsons, Reid, and Braza. They're all super awesome! Elder Parsons is in my district! He´s from Maryland and went to BYU for a year and lived at Heritage Building 25 so we were basically neighbors. Elder Reid lives in the same casa as me and he's way fun too. He´s super enthusiastic. Elder Braza is like the nicest kid ever. He´s from Georgia and his mom is a flight attendant so he got to fly sky priority while the rest of us had to scour for space for our carry ons. Regardless, he´s going to serve in Provo Utah while Elders Reid, Parsons, and I are all going to different parts of Mexico. So a fun story, while we were boarding the plane, one of the flight attendants stopped us and said, "Hi! I'm Paul's mom" so yeah apparently Elder Braza´s mom surprised him and was working our flight. He got a shout out from the pilot and everything. It was also funny to go through customs when we landed and to see just a horde of like 50+ missionaries just huddled up. After checking in, we went and met a few of the missionaries. I met one missionary named Elder Neilson from Sacramento and he´s hilarious! He talks a ton and he´s going to Tampico. He´s also in mi casa just right across the hall. He always comes in and tells me and my companions about his life and what not. It's crazy! There could be a reality TV series about him and his family and it would probably be more popular than the Kardashians

Anyways, so about my district and my companions. I'm in a trio and my companions are Elders Larson and Thorell. They're super fun. Elder Larsons is from Syracuse Utah. He is kinda intense but funny. He loves extreme sports so he likes snowboarding and rock climbing and such. Elder Thorell is super fun. He´s always smiling and laughing. I love it. He´s from Salt Lake Utah and he´s way into rugby! He´s amazing at it. He´s travelled the world for different competitions. In fact, if he hadn´t decided to serve, he´d be in Dubai right now training for some under 20 Olympic-type rugby team. So he´s way good. I also love my district! Basically all of them are from different parts of Utah except for Elder Parsons, myself, and the two Hermanas. The Hermanas are way fun too. Hermana Woodard (Flor) is a friend from BYU who was roommates with Maria. It was awesome to see a friend in my district. Hermana Perry is from Georgia and is hilarious. I´ve gotten the closest with Elder Barnum. He´s also going to Veracruz and he loves sports and movies. He played baseball all through high school and he can quote like any movie he´s seen. His companion, Elder Byrne is hilarious and he´s amazing at the piano! He can play like any song by ear. It´s super fun when there´s a piano nearby and we´re tired of studying all day. Elder Parsons companion is Elder Wallace, and he´s way funny. He loves soccer and he´s going to be studying biomedical engineering at the University of Utah after his mission, so he´s way smart. Our district leader is Elder Duffin and he's awesome. His dad is a Green Beret and he is a good leader. He´s like the youngest pilot in Vernal, Utah (?). He flies helicopters mostly, but he can fly a few regular planes as well, so that's awesome. Lastly, there´s Elder Sterzer who is way hilarious, he´s companions with Elder Duffin and he´s just an amazing athlete. He played football, volleyball, and basketball in high school and he´s committed to go play football at Utah State after his mission. He'll be playing either defensive end, outside linebacker, or tight end. He´s way fun. So that's my district! We all love our zone leaders too! They´re Elders Jacobson and Cook. I actually met Elder Jacobson at BYU. He was on the BYU track team and he´s super nice. Elder Cook is more quiet but he´s also super funny when he does talk.

This week and a half has been super hard but I love what I am doing and the people I am with. Learning a language is difficult, but I'm super grateful for taking it in high school because that knowledge has been extremely helpful! I can understand my teachers super well, but as soon as I try talking to the kitchen staff or the janitors, I can´t understand a thing because they talk so dang fast! Regardless, I love my teachers, Hermano Vazquez is hilarious. He´s always willing to answer our questions. We taught him how to dab and whip and he taught us how to say square up in spanish. He´s just hilarious. He loves Star Wars. He walked into class one day with a stormtrooper backpack. He´s just way fun. Hermana Velazquez is like the nicest woman ever. She does talk a little fast but it´s not too bad. Anyways, I want to have time to respond to you all individually so I'm going to end this here. I miss you all and I promise I'll have pictures next time! They only allow taking pictures on Pday and we were in the city all day doing visa stuff this morning so we didn't have time! Anyways, love you all!

Love,
Elder Gurney