An excerpt from an extremely typical conversation in the life of a missionary:

Me, "Hey guy, how are you?"

Guy, "Oh hey, I'm good."

Me, "Awesome. So you're not at school/work today?"

Guy, "No, I'm just kickin it."

Me, "Well hey we're missionaries. Can we come in and teach you how to live a happier, more meaningful life?"

Guy, "Mmm I don't really know. I have to wash my pants..."

Me, "Well, pants are important. Is there anyway we could help you wash your pants and then teach you how you can live with your family forever?"

Guy, "Ooo I don't know. They´re really dirty. Besides, I need to make some rice."

Me, "Okay, well it sounds like you´re really busy with rice and pants right now. Maybe we could come back later to teach you how you can be freed from the long and short term effects of sin."

Guy, "Well, that sounds good. I'm almost not really here that much though(direct translation). Sometimes I leave my house."

Me, "Well, I bet we could plan a time in the future when we can both be here."

Guy, "I don't know, sometimes my door is closed (more exact words)."

Me, "Okay well ,what could we do to solve that one?"

Guy, "Well, I could leave it open if I knew when you were coming."

Me, "Sounds fantastic. Let's do that. So when should we come by."

Guy, "Wait, are you gonna come here?"

Me, "We were hoping."

Guy, "Oh well I have to go to Cajamarca for..forever so... it could be hard to find me... almost I'm not here very much."

Me, "I see. Well, good luck with your pants."

… I wrote you a letter forevs ago and never sent it. I’m gonna write in some excerpts from it right now.

                “Hey Seester,

It’s me. Elder Brian… Dude, today kinda sucks. I don’t feel super good and … (blah blah blah) … people bug me I want to go watch soccer and eat McDonalds or something. These are the days in the mission you don’t ever hear about. Probably because they pass and you don’t ever remember them (I´ve actually already forgotten this one). Anyways, I was thinking about how at home on such a day I would whine about it to you and then start being really overly cynical and laugh about it and move one. Little harder in letter form but I’mma give it a try. So in order to understand the situation you have to understand that my companion, thinks he’s a Navy SEAL. What does that mean? That means he gets hopped up on protein shakes every morning and does overly-aggressive exercises while grunting loudly, the purpose of which appears to be nothing more than learning how to grunt more loudly than the day before. Probably to frighten his enemies before he pounces upon them and gives them an old fashion eye gouging. Now the secondary problem to this is that he seems to mistake every Jehovah’s witness or Adventist we find in the street for a Soviet Terrorist whom he must defeat Jack Bower style with arbitrary biblical arguments while I just stand back and try and keep him from going for the eyes. It’s like I’m living in this ridiculous God’s Army pun gone much, much too far. So I don’t like that. I also don’t like when he burns helpless Hermanas or old ladies in the street for having the audacity of owning an opinion without checking with him first to be sure it coincided. What I´m saying is I miss my last companion and wish I could put on a few verses of “Where is the Love” and have Fergie’s dulcet tones soothe his angry heart. This is mainly all I have to whine about. …. 

 So there’s a letter you never got. Most of it anyway. Disfrútala.

Elder Brian