Thanksgiving has come and gone!

Dear family,

So this past week has been an adventure. I have ridden through rocky mountain shortcuts, almost crashed several times, gotten into bike battles with Elder Deaver, and much much more. Pirque is huge! Really we spend hours and hours riding bikes every day. We usually have to plan our appointments thirty minutes to an hour apart so that we can ride all the way over the the next house. The first few days I could really feel it in my legs and rear end, but now I am pretty much accustomed to it.

This whole last week the three of us have been low on money and mooching off the family we live with. It is going to be really difficult to manage money well here because we have to take the bus several times a week and each time costs a dollar. It doesn't sound like much but a bus ride to the store and back is two dollars, then a bus ride to zone classes and back is another two dollars. It just adds up quick.

Thanksgiving day was nothing special. We had to pick up lunch and bring it back to the house. Noodles with red sauce and some vegetables with mayonnaise. It tasted pretty good though. When we got home at night though we were starving and it hit us that we were about to end Thanksgiving day without celebrating. So we ran to the corner store by our house and bought some Cheetos, potato chips, ketchup, cookies, and soda to celebrate. Now that is what I call Thanksgiving... The next day, Friday, we ate lunch with the richest family in our branch who made us a Thanksgiving dinner with two giant roasted chickens, potato salad, vegetables, and apple pie with ice cream for dessert. That was pretty awesome.

We have been working a lot with three people, Veronica, Vicente, and Amparo. They will all be getting baptized next Sunday!! Last week we also put a baptismal date on a foreign exchanged student named Wes from Indiana. He has a bunch of friends who are members and he wants to go to BYU when he returns home. He should be getting baptized on Christmas day if his parents give him permission. The other day we also found an amazing older couple. We talked to the lady on the side of the road on Thursday, then passed by her house on Saturday. It turns out they are stinking rich and live on a giant beautiful property. We taught her and her husband. They had never heard of Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, living prophets. They said that they had never accepted to listen to anyone outside of the Catholic church and when we came in we shook the ground from under them. They loved the idea of a living prophet and twelve apostles. They immediately committed to coming to church.

Unfortunately they attended the wrong church on Sunday (even though we gave them a map), but they have a full desire to learn more about the gospel. I feel like I am almost back in time a little bit, preaching the gospel like the missionaries of old used to. It is very cool.
I still have not received my new companion. Tomorrow morning all of the trainers will be going to the temple in the morning and after we will be receiving our new companions. I am so excited to find out who he is. We spent all day today cleaning up the pension, killing spiders, cutting our bunk beds into four separate beds (it wasn't me), and trying to get everything nice for us and the new kid. I still think he will think the place is a mess though. At least that is how I felt when I first showed up.

Thank you for all the love and the letters. I loved the pictures as well. You are the best family ever.

Love you lots,
Elder Mooney