First month

Here are some highlights from Jared's emails-

Our district is amazing, we all get along famously, and I love them all...and we haven't even been here a week! I'm so happy to be here and very glad I decided to go on a mission. I am in an amazing district, all but 2 of us are going to the same mission. We are also lucky enough to have sister missionaries with us, and they rock! They keep us in line when we need to be, so don't worry about me and the other elders joking around too much.

 Hi! my entire district except for 2 elders are going to Hawaii. We are a family. We all get along great! I am companions with Elder Bateman and share a room with him, Elder Garcia, and Hunter. Our district contains those 3, Elder Streeter, Elder Buckley, who are going to Guatamala, and 4 sisters that are going to Hawaii also. Sister Mallory, Sister Wright, Sister Duke, and Sister Smoot. Things are going by so fast. Halfway done with the MTC! It'll be so sad to leave, this is the best place on earth besides the temple (which I went to today!)

The spirit is so strong here it's insane! I'm on the big island in Honoka'a. My companion is Elder Hammond. He has only been out 3 months. They are implementing a new program, it's 12 weeks of training new missionaries and the goal is to train the new missionaries so well that in 3 months we'll be able to train the newbies. I've almost been out 1 month! I'm not sure if it feels like longer or shorter than that. I haven't ate anything too weird yet but I'll have to get back to you on that. They are feeding us choke food yeah? There's a little pidgin for you, choke i guess means a lot. Even with all the food I'm losing weight. Maybe I have a parasite. It'd be good because I can't afford to gain any weight with having only 1 pair of pants that match my suit.