BIG CHANGE

Dear Family,


So Mom and Dad I hope you are enjoying your trip and your anniversary!! It sounds awesome from What I have heard. What is this with the swine flu. Is everyone alright?! Whats going on, my family is not dying off right?!


Okay so sorry I didn't write you last week I was traveling!! Yeah they sent me to curacao!! Crazy right?! It feels like i just got turned upside down, shaken really hard and then thrown into a pot of boiling water!! Its crazy!! First off I am trying to learn two new languages and it is hard Papiamentu is a fairly simple language but its still a new language I have to learn and learn to understand. It is basically english dutch spanish and portugese mixed up. Its hard. Once I get that down I'm going to have to start learning Dutch!! Its hard. I dont even know spanish yet and I'm trying to learn two more. But I have faith that the Lord will help me!! The climate here is like St. george. Its really dry and they have Cactus EVERYWHERE!!! The people are basically black but you usually have to guess what language to speak to them when you see them. The colored ones is usually spanish or Papiamentu and the white ones are Dutch. So... yeah everyone tries ot speack dutch to us!! So I got here monday night and met my companion and them worked for a day and then wednesday I flew to zone confrence for a couple days which was Sweet! Then came back and continued to work! Anyway yeah I'm way close to venezuela. I actually saw it on the flight to aruba and on a clear day in aruba you can see it as well. I will be here for about 3 months (or as long as immagration will let me) and in aruba for another 3 then back to puerto Rico. I met Elder Alisa who grandma and grandpa white know! and they are right he is a stud. My companion is Elder Christiansen from Alpine and he is a cool cat. He is huge so no worries for my safety. When I got off the plan there was 3 elders who were all more than 6 foot tall. It seems like all the elders here are huge!! (including me). So there are 8 missionaires here and 2 in bonaire and something like 14 in aruba. And My bike I left in puerto rico along with my suit and a suitcase. I guess they store it somewhere and here they just have bikes that the missionaries share.
Okay so thats the update ha ha anyway the church here is... STRONG! We just have a branch but the chapel was full to the brim with about 120 people! It was fast sunday and right when they opened up the time every little kid there i think went up and got in line to share their testimony. I couldn't understand but the spirit was there SO strong! Church was awesome!! However the work is hard. My companion and I are working hard and so we should have some success sometime soon. Like I said my companion is huge so we eat A Lot of food which is not helping my weight issue!


Anyway I'm not sure what else... The iguanas are crazy here! ha ha they try to get into our house sometimes!!


Anyway family I love ya. Thanks for your love and support and please start feeling better eh! I look forward to talking to you next week. Hey and there was an article all about the importance of women in the Liahona I think maybe 2 months ago or something... Its the first article in the magazine and its AWESOME. You should check it out!! I know this is the true gospel and that we as a family will be together forever if we keep working like we are!! Thanks for the good example!


Love elder Knudsen


P.S. A really cool present sometime would be a NICE jump rope or something like that ha ha and ignore the charges on my credit card, I just forgot my church money for a week so I'll get reembursed.>