Mondays are great!

I am going to throw some pictures up here later on today, just for reference.

Today was another great day. I don´t know if I have talked about it, but I decided that I am going to run a marathon in September, which gives me eight months to train for it. I don´t even know how you do that, but while I am down here I am focusing on building stamina and endurance. There is a huge hill that we hiked up on Thursday, and on Friday I went running up it. This morning I did it again and it was amazing. I can already feel that I am building strength and it just feels really good. I ran about 3k uphill, stretched out a bit, and then turned around and ran back down. It was easier today than it was on Friday, so that was good and I made it all the way to the 3k mark without stopping, so that was also good. Now I am not running fast mind you, but I am not stopping. At some points I do what I call the survival shuffle. Its almost like walking but you keep moving your feet so that it is still running. Ha ha, that is probably more information than you needed to know, but oh well.

I did homework most of the day, reading and what not, and then Sarah, Juanjo and I went to Family Home Evening with the senior missionaries. It was a farewell for a senior couple that has been reassigned. They are the Rice´s and they have to leave Santiago because Elder Rice has had really bad breathing problems since he got here a year ago. (There is A LOT of smog here) It was bitter sweet for them, they were serving in the temple, and they have been reassigned to the temple in Uruaguay, but it was fun. We sat with the MTC President and his wife for the MTC here in Santiago. They are amazing people! They served as mission presidents in Ecuador 30 years ago and had 5 children under the age of 14 (Sister Farrel even HAD a baby while in Ecuador). Every single one of their children served missions because of that experience. It was really amazing to see their faith and hear about their time there.

After FHE we headed back to our house and Juanjo and I jammed on guitar for a while. I think if he lived in the U.S. he would be my best friend. He is the coolest guy on the planet. We gave him his birthday present (His birthday was yesterday) and he was so stoked! Birthday presents here are funny. They sometimes just find something random and buy it, like a small mirror or a change purse. We wanted to get Juanjo something cool and useful so we bought him some paddles and a ball for beach tennis. He was so stoked w hen he opened it! We bought him that because of the Young Single Adult conference that starts tomorrow. It is going to be held in Vina on the beach. We aren´t going to make it for most of it, but we are going to get to the big dance on Friday and then hit the beach with some friends on Saturday so we are excited about that.