Okay so I don't have much time (there was a ton of emails!) So this'll just be a general letter to everyone and I'll work on answering things more next week. Thank you all so much for writting to me!
I love it down here! I have the best companion, Hermana Kigueta! She's from canada and a fourth ogibwe indian. She's great to work with and we get along so well! She's also really glad to have me because I know how to and like to cook. We're starting to eat pretty well!
The area I got sent to is very interesting. My companion told me as we were driving to it that it was down at the very southern most part of the mission by South Mountian. Our mission is called Montana del Sur, Sur. I really am serving in the best area of the whole mission. Now don't start worrying with what I'm going to be telling you next. My companion told me as we were driving to our apartment that we're down the street from the projects and are in one of the poorest areas of the mission. As we walked into the apartment she jokingly told me, "Yeah it's great. We have cockroaches for pets. Also sometimes it smells like either garbage or smoke from rhe other apartments." Yeah it's all true. We have a bit of a roach problem but the apartments are getting sprayed tomorrow so that'll help. I didn't know that they were green on the inside. Aparantly Elders had the aprtment a few months before they the sisters have been working on geting it clean since then. It was a mess!
And they weren't joking when they said it was a poor area. It's funny to me that these people are living in these run down old shanties with no AC but they have a phone with interent on them.
But honestly I'm sooooooo lucky to have been sent here! It's one of the more densely populated Hispanic areas in the mission and our ward is the best! We have an absoluitly amazing memeber support here and they just loves us! The calls us their principessas and angeles and take good care of us. Another great thing about the people here is that I've only had one door slammed in my face and got yelled at once by a guy. But it wasn't that bad. For the most part even if they won't listen they'll talk to us and invite us in. I hate when we knock on the doors of americans because they're always really rude to us, but the hispanics are super nice!
We'e got a baptism!!! It's this awesome girl named Stefanie. She's 16 and just amazing. She was a little standoffish when we first met her but has warmed up big time! They've been teaching her family for 10 months already but only her in specific for a few weeks. A recent convert Suzy is a huge help with her! We had a neat lesson the other day with her. Since she's so close to bweing baptised we had to sit down and tell her straight out that she needed to get rid of her lip ring. She was shocked and got mad at us a bit. She flat out told us that she would do anything but take it out. But we bore our testimoneies along with Jose Juan, a member who was there (he's awesome!) and all of the sudden Hna Kigueta was elbowing me and saying, "Look!" I looked and Stef was holding her ring in her hand and looking serious at it, then put it in her pocket. She has just lit up since then and gotten so excited for her baptism this friday! I just love her!
I'll send a letter with more stories in it to p[eople later.
So today! This morning we went for a hike on the mountain by us. We sat up at the top and looked over the valley it was amazing! But then it happened. I'll send you a picutre of what we saw so you'll know why we screamed and ran about twenty feet away. This monster had crwaled onto Hna's backpack right next to her arm! It was a giant centaped! I'd see a few little (3-4 in) milipeds running around but hadn't expected this this! It was at least a foot long and huge!!!!!!!! You'll see what I mean when I send pictures with the letters later, it scared us so bad!
Okay one more quick story! We were knocking on doors one day and an older hispanic lady answered. We smiled and said, "Hola, somos represetantes de Jesucristo-" andshe lit up and swung the door open and said, "Pasen! Pasen!" She all but kicked out the guy who'd been talking with her out the door and was sooo happy to talk to us. She told us how she was a catholic by tradition but had been really feeling lately that she wanted to find a church. We talked a bit and basically gave more of the first lesson (we didn't get to Joseph yet) and she was just loving it. Before we left we gave her a Book of Mormon, and you have to understand, we don't just do that down here. We mostly just give them our numbers and a pamphlet. But we could just see how excited she was. We'd read a bit with her (Alma 7:11-12) and she felt that it was right. So we gave her the book. We invited her to church and she was excited to go but didn't show on sunday. We called and turns out she had gotten pretty sick. But we're going to call again today to see how she is and to invite her out to Noche de Hogar. The members here just rock and every week they have a group family home evening together for everyone at the familia Jones' house. We're also having a birthday for one of the members tonight there to. He's doesn't know that yet though, we just told him that it was his turn to give the lesson.
I love this area! I love this ward! I love my companion! It's the best area in the whole mission! Cockroaches and all! But I don't mind those too bad anyway,my aim has improved considerably since I've gotten here. After all we get our own apartment and some privacy. The elders are in consecrated living (in a members house) and they don't have cockroaches there...they have scorpians. As in, in the house. A elder got stung twice because one had crawled into his towel. It got his ahnd and he dropped the towel and then it got his foot. He's okay though. I haven't seen any here but then our apartment is up on the top floor.
It is HOT. I about passed out when I first stepped outside. It's generally been about 105 here during the day. It's really odd that the sun comes up at around 5 and by 6:30 it's already baking at 95. It doesn't really cool off at night here. And I'm learnign that storms don't help. Because then it's both hot and very humid. Although we had our first real storm. It was awesome! The whole sky was lite up with lightning and it just flooded! It was awesome!
Well it's time to go, I love you all! Take care and I'll write as soon as I can!
No comments:
Post a Comment