Dear Family-
Well, it's been a long week. Dad was right when he said that the days seem like weeks and the weeks seem like days. So much stuff has happened I'm not even sure where to begin.
I guess I'll start with all the questions that you've asked if I can remember them. I guess we're only allowed to email one person in our family one letter or something and they're supposed to send it out or something. I don't know. Speaking of mail, I don't know if anyone's sent me any while I've been here but I haven't gotten anything since I got here. For the first few days they weren't delivering it because the other sisters that were here before still had their name on the mailbox so they wouldn't put it in. Idk if I got letters during that time and if I did I don't really know what happened to them. So if people get stuff back, just tell them to resend them.
Ok, you asked about the Mexican restaurant. We've only been there the one time. We get fed by members almost every night. Gotta love that mexican food. Every meal but 2 have been tostadas with corn tortillas...hurray for being allergic to corn tortillas. So then I just eat the stuff that is suppose to go in it. I'm hoping some day I will enjoy Mexican food. That day has not come yet. On Sunday all 8 of us Spanish missionaries that are in the 8th Ward got fed by a member family. We had spaghetti. Best meal yet. the other non mexican food was yesterday when I went on exchanges with Sister Perkins, an English sister and they fed us each a personal calzone that was as big as our plate. I don't really remember what we've done for lunches...our schedules have been crazy since we got here. We only have had lunch in our apartment like "normal" twice.
For P-days we've just gone to the park and played basketball with the zone. That's fun. Last week I didn't play because we were talking to Casey, who we haven't talked to since, I'm not sure why, but I played today. I had to guard Sister Checketts, which was a bit difficult because she's about 2 feet taller than me and played basketball all through high school. I did pretty well though I think.
I don't really remember your other questions. Oh, music Jill...whenever you guys send the next package can you send some? We can listen to Mo-Tab and classical music through the week and any church music on P-Days. I'm working on enjoying Mo-Tab along with enjoying Mexican food. (Oh, the other night we had some spinach soup stuff that tasted like you were going for a walk in the woods and fell with your mouth open and ate some of the ground.) Anyway. can you send all of that kind of music? We have like 3 cds and we listen to them over and over and over.
It's getting warmer. I think that I got sunburned today playing basketball. The weather is crazy though. Yesterday morning was freezing so we were all bundled up. It rained for about half an hour, enough to get us pretty wet while we stood outside and talked to Josh, who is a recovering drug addict who thought that Joseph Smith made up the whole story and is our god, and then the rain clouds went away, the sun came out and it was probably in the high 60's-70's for the rest of the day. Crazy crazy.
We've met so many people, I wish that I could write about all of them. We teach 1-2 lessons a day. When I say WE I mean my companions. I just sit there and smile and nod and when I catch on to what they're talking about, like if I hear them saying prayer or church a lot, I pipe in with some testimony. Sometimes they ask a question and I smile and nod and Hermana Checketts has to say, "No Hermano. No." So then I shake my head no. Sometimes during lessons I think I know what they are talking about and then when we leave I ask a question and really they were talking about something completely different. For example, the other night we were teaching a 21 year old young man and I thought that he was saying that his preacher told him not to meet with or listen to us anymore. Really what he was saying was that his cousin's wife got caught by border patrol and now she's in prison because she doesn't have a green card. Who'da thunk.
The language is coming though. Yesterday when I was with Sister Perkins I contacted a man in Spanish all by himself. I explained who we were and what we were doing and gave him a pass along card and told him he could go to the website and read about our beliefs. All by myself. The only mistake I made was I said, "Puede hablar el numero." You can talk the number, but I corrected myself with llamar.
We can teach either english or spanish speakers. When we go tracting we just talk to everyone. We had some interesting encounters. We met a kid that told us that his mom is a prophet. That was interesting. We also run into a lot of people and while we're explaining that the true church has been restored they nod and say, "I know. I know. It's great." And then we asked them what it means and they don't know. I find it amusing. We tracted into an older lady named Inez who moved here from Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. She talked to us forever and invited us in. When we told her the First Vision she told us that the same thing happened in the Bible. She also kept telling us that she was born Baptist and she's going to die Baptist. As we were getting up to leave she said, "Hold on." and held her hands up in the air. Then she proceeded to pray for us. I didn't really know what to do...at first I just starred at her because she was really in to her prayer, but then I realized I should probably fold my arms and stuff so I did. That was interesting. We were also in 2 prayer circles where we held hands while they prayed for us yesterday when I was with Sister Perkins. I guess that happens a lot when you're an English missionary.
A few days ago we tracted into a lady from Kenya named Benter. We were talking to her and we found out that her cousin had recently passed away. (Benter let us in too. That doesn't happen too often.) We were telling her how we have a book that brings a lot of peace about what happens after we die and we pull out a Book of Mormon and she goes, "I already have one of those. I read it every now and then. I really like it." Then she went and got it. It was insane!!! I'm really excited to go talk to her again. She works about an hour away in a nursing home and she works 12 hour shifts so she's not home much, but I want to go see her again.
We also met a man on Sunday that was from Egypt. He didn't speak a lot of English put he gave us some Pepsi and we sang Joseph Smith's First Prayer and gave him a Book of Mormon card so that he could get one in Arabic. He was really excited and he was really cool.
Best story for last. Yesterday with Sister Perkins we went to teach an investigator that is staying that the Salvation Army because she was in an abusive relationship and she has 2 little kids. At first we went into a little room in the front where the people that work there have meetings because that is where the guy at the front desk told us to go. After a few minutes this lady came and told us we had to go to the cafeteria because we were breaking some confidentiality thing. So we went there. After about 5 more minutes someone else came and told us that visitors actually aren't allowed at all. So we went outside because by this point it was nice and sunny and we sat under a tree. We had her read a scripture and the second she finished reading, a good sized BRANCH fell out of the tree and DISLOCATED HER SHOULDER. I kid you not. She'd already dislocated it recently so it just popped it back out again. She had to call her exboyfriend, the reason she's at the Salvation Army, and have him take her to the hospital. We didn't really know what to do because we couldn't wait inside and she didn't want to be outside and we didn't have a car and we couldn't give her a ride anyway. Each set of sisters has a car, but the other day we rolled the back window down because we stopped to ask this man on the side of the road how to say "pony" (it's cabellito) and the window fell off track so we had to take it in to get fixed. (It's still not fixed and they took the inside panel off but the part is backordered but we needed the car so now we're driving it with no panel because the other sisters' brakes needed fixed so it's in the shop right now). So sister perkins and I were stranded without a car so she's all, We'll just walk. We started walking, got 5 blocks and then she's all, We're not going to make it so we'll call the other sisters. Good thing we did...because it was SIX miles to the next appointment.
Well, I'm out of time. I hope I answered all your questions. Thank you for your emails. oh nick, and everyone, you can write me snail mail too if you want.
I love you all. Thank you for your love and support.
Until next week,
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