Ryan's first email from the field and a photo

First off, my sister's youngest, Jake, flies to the Philippines on Wednesday to start his mission. It's such an exciting time in our lives. Wow. My parents will have 3 grandsons out as missionaries at the same time! (they have 9 grandsons and 1 granddaughter, by the way)

Today is p-day for Ryan, so we received an email and got a few details from him. We also got some snail mail--a letter from Pres. Wall, Ryan's mission president. Besides President Wall's letter, there was a photo of Ryan with Pres. and Sis. Wall and a hand-written letter from Ryan.

The gist of the email:

He is in Amite (which is pronounced ay-meet) with Elder Michael Silva, the district leader, who is from Ogden, Utah. Amite is a relatively small town, yet besides the 2 Elders, there is also now a pair of sister missionaries there. Their church building is a renovated bank and the branch only has about 20 old people in it. Ryan and his companion have a car. He says most areas there do have a car, but a few are for bikes. When they run out of miles on their cars, they have to use their bikes. It hasn't rained in a week (since Ryan has been there), so they are calling it a drought.

And, he's seen his first fireflies! I love fireflies. When we were in Iowa 2 summers ago we tried to find some because the kids have never seen any. We weren't really successful. It's silly, but I'm glad he's seen some already.

I will post his first email. If you are going to read it, you might need an explanation like I did--a grandpa is your trainer's trainer. A cousin is someone with whom you share your grandpa. I had never heard such terms before, but Glen knew what they meant.

The email:

I'm having a good time here.

My trip over went well. The humidity isn't killing me yet, but I've been told that lately it has been dry. It hasn't rained since I got here and according to everyone if it doesn't rain within the span of a week it means we're in a drought. So I guess we're in a drought.

Elder Silva is my trainer. He has been out for about 10 months. He is the district leader. He is from Ogden, Utah. He is pretty cool. He is definitely quiet when compared to Elder Barker. Elder Bailey is my grandpa. Elder Barker is serving in Hammond, which is pretty close. I got to see him on Saturday when we went to Hammond to play volleyball. I think Elder Barker is my cousin. His trainer is Elder Murray, who is a District Leader. Elder Steele was assigned to the Alexandria Zone. I've heard it's a black hole, so I'm never going to see him again unless I go there too. Elder Steele's companion is also a District Leader. Elder Castro is in Slaughter. So Elder Barker, Elder Castro and I are all in the Denham Zone. I don't know if I told you before but Elder Castro and Elder Steele were MTC companions that were in our district and roomed with us.

Again I'm serving in Amite. It's pronounced "ay-meet." It's a pretty small town. We have Sister missionaries in Amite now, which we didn't have before. There is a train that goes through this town quite often. It goes right by the church. It has a branch with about 20 people in it. Almost everyone is really old. Our church that we meet in used to be a bank. It's really small and you can tell that the Kitchen and the primary rooms used to be vaults. The people here are friendly and Elder Silva and I are going to go fishing later. The apartment we live in is really nice. We have a car. There are a lot of cars in this mission, but there are a few areas that are biking areas. We're running out of miles for the month so we're going to have to bike for a few days. There's not too many people here with a thick accent. That's a relief.

My favorite people by far right now is the Gerrety family. The mom and dad are Catholic and they have two kids, Shannon and Bryan. Bryan is 17 and I'm assuming that Shannon is around 15. The parents aren't taking lessons from us, but they are really friendly. Bryan and Shannon are interested in learning about the church, but not too much the spiritual side of things. Bryan is really smart and the way his mind works is a lot like mine. They both came to church yesterday and they enjoyed the most part of it. They said they definitely liked it more than the Catholic church even though it is a couple hours longer.

After volleyball the other day, Shannon and Bryan invited us over to watch a movie. We watched Finding Faith in Christ. The Sister missionaries were there too. We ate a lot of snacks. It was a lot of fun.

I saw a couple fireflies the other day. It was cool.

I met an Elder Wolfe. He grew up in Susanville and said that He's played football against Fallon. Or something like that. He said that he is related to a Cameron Mills. I don't know him, but he lives in Fallon.

Sister Bahe said she is also related to people in Fallon. I think she said Kelly Andrews, but I'm not entirely sure. Sister Bahe is 98. Her and her daughter and sister Berch are moving to Colorado.

It sounds like all is going well. Thanks for telling me about Skye's mission call that's so cool [Skye is going to Guatemala]. Make sure you tell me where Scott Darington gets his call to. I hope Dad's arm feels better by now. I found a jar of unopened jelly in our fridge that expired ten years ago. We are allowed to listen to any music that invites the spirit. If you want you can send the Prince of Eygpt CD, but I don't care. We already have some good music, like songs from the children's songbook and a few Owl City songs.

Well, my time on the computer is just about up, so I'll email you next week.

Love,

Elder R Perazzo