Jason's Christmas call

By Jason's mom:

Early on Christmas morning, the phone rang and on the other side of the phone was that wonderful voice that we missed so much: Jason!

Everybody else in the house was still in bed but, as soon as they heard the phone, quickly came to the master bedroom to talk to Jason. That call wasn't long, just a short time to let us know that he was going to call later when everybody was in the house.

When his next call came, Pam, Meli and their families were there, everybody talking to Jason at the same time from different phones. It was crazy but this is what we learned from his call:

• Jason's spanish is pretty good, he even has a Peruvian accent.
• he has not been mugged (at least he says he hasn't)
• he ate horse and guinea pig - Jason says they Don't taste like chicken. But so far that's the worse he has eaten but he knows one area of his mission where they feed the missionaries cats.
• jason still buys star wars toys if he finds them and can afford them
• he doesn't play as much soccer since his knee is still swollen and hurts. But he does play.
• he misses ice cream the most since it's very expensive and not widely available.

Otherwise, he is doing great, he loves the work and Peru. He loves being a trainer.

Jason is not sure if he will stay in Peru or will go to Bolivia - they expect the relationship between the US and Bolivia will get better once we have the new president in office.

He sounded great and happy. But somehow his voice was most animated when he was talking to Amanda...I wonder why. He said he could not watch the Star Wars movies without her or fall asleep during General Conference without her (but I think that last part is a good thing)

Next phone call: 5 months away, on Mothers Day

Earthquakes are like blending smoothies

ok so wat is up everybody.

so this week was a good week. we got some good investigators last week and are working with them. we want to put the baptism date for one the 29th whcih would give us two for that date. were excited to have soem people progressing again. however we have one guy who has a lot of problems with drugs and watever, but he really wants to change. its cool to see that he is leaving all that stuff behind and starting to change his life. his grandma is the one we want to put a fecha for the 29th and if all goes well, he can be baptized in december. but well see.

i looked at and saw the jtdiegom.blogspot.com thing and it is amazingly sweet. whoever is working on that or started it or helped with it at all, thank u and its really great. on that note, i really liked the countdown thing. it was funny to see exactly how much time, to the second, i have left in the mission. the time passes quick thouhg.

about the earthquakes here, not quite earthquakes. more 5 sec shakes. like blending a smoothie. some places are a lot worse than others but where i am we barely feel them. so no needs to worry bout any of those. but we have had like 5 since ive been in surco, kinda cool.

o ya obama. the people here really liked him till i explained a little bit about how hes for abortion and all that. it was funny that all they ever hear is good things about him, but everyone asked why utah was for mccain and i explained y and they all changed their mind. but i like obama and hope things go good with him as pres. and if they dont i wont be there anyways so i dont need to worry bout it.

ya i think thats about all. just something else real quick. luke i heard bout ur soccer goal. really cool beans buddy. keep playing soccer so that when u get called on a mission u can start out a little better than me. o which reminds me. ma ur gonnna love this. this sat we had a activity with the young men. officially it counted as a missionary activity so they let us go. soccer obviously. well me being me, played with my heart as always. welll me and one other kid crashed like pretty hard. his knee got the inside of mine and we both went down. poor kid though didnt get any help cause everyone was worried bout the missionary who was hurt. but it ended up not being something to bad. sorta just hit my knee to sleep. it was funny cause i couldnt move it for like 3 min, everyone was really scared. but ya it got better real quick. like always. and ma u know me, i kept playing. never give up, ya know. and we can apply that to more than sports.

well thats all. bye and thanks for everything

Peru MTC - July 29, 2008

ok hi everyone again. so a lot to get through today cause i got my first work out in the field.

first of all, just wanna say that everyone who wants to write me should use dearelder.com or something like that. mom put it up so everyone can find it. it will come within a week or two but is practically garunteed to come to use, unlike the mail. i got one withint four days that dad sent it so if people wanna write it is free. dad mom and anyone else wholl use it a lot, if you pay four dollars a month they garuntee it to us in four days that its sent. good deal. only if you want. im not quite as desperate for mail here since they keep us busy all day long. i really have like no spare time, except for maybe a couple minutes after lunch sand dinner. but thats good and the way i would have it.

so im sleeping better, thanks for your concern. this place is sweet because today p-day we spent two hours playing soccer and will probably spend another three hours out there. but who knows. i realize how old my body is though. after i play i get really sore and thinks that some of these young whipersnappers need to play easier. but i would never play any easier on them, so it works nicely.

ok. this saturday we got to spend out in the field in peru. me and my companion with one teachers and a lady from the ward territory we were in. we went and visited inaftives and did some contacting. it was a really cool and humbling experience. we got the poor part of town, but if any of you have seen peru, the nice part of town is ten times worse than the poor part of town in pheonix. so basically these people lived in nothing. it was good though i dont know why but i felt like home. not that my home reminded me out the place, just like those people were my family. it was cool. so since my companion still hadnt quite got the language down, and they want the missionaries to teahc i did a lot of talking. i understood mayber 80 percent of everything being said, which was more than enough to get by. the people we talked to listened and you could tell the ones that sincerly wanted to be at church but just couldnt afford not to work. however, we got everyone to accept our commitmehnt to go for at least one hour this coming week and see how things go. me and my companion defidently felt like we had a lot to work on though. contacting and just basic language for the stuff we need to teach. so we are working our butts off this week to make sure we will be perfectly ready for htis saturday. and i believe we will. i put more detail in my journal, im gonna try to make a copy of it and send it home, if not mom i wrote you a letter taht left here yesterday, it has all the details. get it up so people can see.

a couple of more things. one i hear that bolivia is becoming quite a hot spot with the political unrest stuff. the elections are in august and they say that they might break out into a war. if thats the case they wont keep us in bolivia. so just if any of you here about a war in bolivia, just know that i wont be there and ill be perfectly safe somewhere else. tehy dont expect a war its just a possibility.

two yesterday was the indenpendce day of peru. yay peru. founded 1821 one year after joseph smiths vision.

three, i got peruvian money, its crazy cool. i think i already had some though. i dont know how. the exchange rate is 2.8 so not quite as good as i had hoped. whats happening to the dollar over there guys.

oh, some of you expressed some concern about me coming over here and not dominating soccer just becasue htere were some peruvian people. uh no. can you maradona junior. ya. and humble.

again if any people wanna write use DearElder.com its good.

so im pretty sure i wrote everything i wanted to with 7 min left so im kinda excited.

we got a lot more cool pics coming your way whenever i send it to you guys. did you guys get the last ones. did everyone see them. cause they were crazy cool.

well well well i guess that all folks.

till next week

July 22 - MTC Peru

hey im writting from peru to let you guys know some stuff.

first of all im safe in the mtc and having a good time recovering from that horrible midnight flight.

this place is really cool and the food is better than at the mtc. some real peruvian food. its cool. peru on the other hand isn{t so cool. the place is crazy poor and all the drivers are worse than amanda when she started drivine, and thats saying something.

i cant wait however to get out on saturdays and start teaching. its a privelge here that they dont get in utah. im excited.

another cool thing is that they say we actually get to get a tour of the city one day. like regular tourists. thatll be cool

anyways my address here is something like this

Apartado Postal
Aspersud-CCM
12-167
Lima 12-Peru

or

Elder Taliercio
Bolivia Santa Cruz
Centro de Capacitacion Misional
Lima, Peru
Av. Melgarejo 159
La Molina, Lima, Peru

or you can send it pouch, which means not in an envelope just taped at the top to

Elder Taliercio
Bolivia Santa Cruz
Lima Peru MTC
P.O. Box 30150
Salt Lake City, UT 84130-0150

they want us to tell you guys not to send packages. one we cant have food in our rooms anyways cause itll atract ant and cochroaches, to they say its expensive and wont get to us anyways. so send letters and if you want to get me anything they say to just put money into my acount and ill get it here. so i guess just talk to my ma if you wanna do that.

they also pay for my letters going out. cool. and we can write any day any time as long as were not in class. so expect some mail but not to much casue id feel bad having them pay for 100 letters

i played on the soccer field here. its turf but its really nice. i like it alot and will have fun i bet.

anth thanks for the address, ill get you a letter soon.

im tuesday is my p-day so expect another letter then.

send this to everyone and thanks for everything

bye...