The Shire's That Way...

Dear Family,

I'm using an American keyboard for the first time in 7 months, so if my punctuation is a little weird in this letter, you know why.

Also, I'm in Fogo! I got here this morning. I'll be the Zone Leader here with Elder Tom. He goes home in 2 transfers. But today is P-day so that's chill. I still have to buy food and stuff since I don't have any. Also, my new house doesn't have hot water. Lame. The house is a little smaller but that's ok. Elder Tom seems pretty cool. He lived in the same apartment as Elder Shelhamer, my recent excompanion, for a few transfers. So that's cool.

My new area is Sao Filipe. It's the biggest city on Fogo, but isn't as big as Praia. Also, living in Fogo is more expensive than Praia. And the shopping selection isn't as good. It will be interesting to see how I eat here. I don't want to revert to just rice, but we'll see what's available. I'm still not a huge fan of fish so we'll see how that goes.

One cool thing is that Elder Tom said that he likes to go running on the beach in the morning for his exercises. So that sounds really cool. We'll probably do that a few times a week. I'm also super psyched to have my full array of studies every day once again. Nor will I have the responsibility of the mission's finances. Woot! However, I'll still receive my fair share of phone calls being a Zone Leader. But this is also an opportunity to help the other missionaries in a way that isn't possible in other positions. I know that Grant was at one time a Zone Leader, but I don't know if Neal or Dad ever were. If so, how did your experience as Zone Leader differ from that of a regular missionary? Or did it?

Fogo is considered the hottest island, so we'll see how I stand up to it. I will probably be drinking a lot more water. But even though I've only been here for a few hours, I already like it. We'll see if I have the same opinion next week.

This past week, Elder Shelhamer and I received a bunch of calls from other missionaries trying to get us to divulge what we new about the transfers. But we kept or mouths shut. There is a lot going on this next week. And even this next transfer. For example, this transfer there will be a companionship of "Training Sisters." Right now Sisters really don't do divisions, but the training sisters will be going to all the islands and doing divisions with and training all the other sisters in the mission. Also, President Neves is opening the island of Brava once more for missionary work. One of the other office elders, Elder Coleman, is opening Brava and he's training a Cape Verdean there. I'm pretty pumped because as Zone Leader, I'll be going over there for divisions.

The Creole here is a little different from the Creole in Praia. It's more similar than other islands, but they use some different words and the accent is different. Elder Tom said that it is kind of like the Souther accent for Cape Verde because they draw there words out more here and I've noticed that that's true.

Freak though, my eyes have been itchy and irritated for the past week or so. It really stinks. I guess I should probably talk to the mission nurse about it.

But yea, I'm in Mordor. Mount Doom is on the other side of the island, and in a baby and 2/3 I will take the white ship to the west. and by ship I mean plane. Don't worry about it.

Loves all, Keep writing!

~Frodo (i.e. Elder Peterson)