Tornadoes!!!

 Jeff Sent a few pictures.  I will try and post a few of those later.

Did any of the tornadoes get near you?  Did you get some of the storm?

No, we didn't see any of the tornadoes.  It was windy all day (which made it fun on the bikes) and we got some pretty good rain.

I noticed that Fayetteville was one of the areas hit quite hard.  Were any of the members you knew affected?  You may not know that yet?

I'm not sure, I did hear that the Fayetville Raeford area did get hit, but I havn't heard anything about anyone over there.

Was it hard to transfer after spending so long in your last area?

Yes, and no.  There were a lot of people that I knew well and loved, and it was difficult to leave them.  But at the same time, when you're in an area for that long, you start feeling like it's time to move on and get a change of scenery.

How are things going in Wallace?  Are you getting to know people?

Things are going great here, yep I am getting to know a lot of new people.  I actually feel like I have been learning this area a lot faster than any of the other areas I've been in.

Is it difficult doing some teaching in English after teaching purely in Spanish for so long?

It is for sure different.  I sometimes forget words, or stumble on my phrasing, but it's not too bad. Before my mission I heard of missionaries that came home and weren't able to speak english very well, because they had forgotten it, and at first I thought that the same would happen to me.  But serving in the united states is so different, because you use english everyday whether you want to or not.  In fact, sometimes I feel like I know spanish well, and I know how to say things well, but since I don't speak it 24/7 (It's especially dificult having a companion that natively speaks english, because it's so easy to just speak english) that I think it's a little more difficult to get a really good accent.  because to get a good accent, you have to teach your toung to move in different ways and grow different muscles, and it's difficult to do in the U.S.

The other thing that is different with doing english work is that the culture is a lot different.  You wouldn't think about it, but the way you act around americans is different than the way you would act around hispanics.  I also sometimes find myself at loss with things to talk about with the english people, because the conversations that I would have with hispanics, wouldn't be the same kind of conversation that I would have with an american.  I don't know if this makes sense or not, but just know that there is a difference of culture between the two.

Right now were teaching someone named [investigator].  He has a baptismal date for the end of this month.  things are going well with him, he just has a few doubts about why we can't drink tea, but nonetheless he has been going without tea.  But to encourage him to do it, me and elder Dixson promised him that we wouldn't drink soda if he wouldn't drink tea.

Details on the Transfer

Hey how's it going?

good

How's the new transfer working out for you?

Good

Where are you?

Wallace

Did you notice they are building a temple in the town you were born Ft. Collins?

Yep

So, yea, as you know I got tranfered this week, and I am now in wallace, and My companion is elder Dixson.  He's from Arizona, and he's been out about 8 months now.  Wallace is an area out in the country (Raeford was in the country, but this is even more country than raeford).  But the area is doing really good right now.  From what elder Dixson has said, they have been teaching a lot of lessons recently (10-15 a week more or less).  It's a branch of about 80-100 people that come every week.  The branch is mixed english and spanish, and they meet in the smallest churchbuilding I have ever seen.  I'll have to send you some pix.  Since most of the meetings are in english (there's a spanish sundayschool class)  we have to translate for church.  Also, there aren't any english Missionaries in this area, so I'll be doing both english and spanish work.  It has been crazy, because I have been serving in a spanish branch for the first however far I am through my mission, because there are only three spanish branches in the entire mission, and I've already served in two of them.  So I have been pretty lucky.

So, sunday I got a warm welcoming into the branch by giving a talk in sacrament meeting.  I talked on the priesthood and how it has blessed my life.  It wen't pretty well, but I wish I would have had more time to prepare.  I had three days to prepare, and I wish I could have had a little bit more, but either way, it wen't pretty good.

You may have noticed that I didn't write yesterday... we had an activity zone conference yesterday.  in the morning we had a lesson on "helping our investigators recieve revelation through prayer.  Then for lunch we had a pig picking (my first one!), and then we played some sports until about 3 30, then we wen't back to work.  That was pretty fun, it has been a while since I have actually played any sports.

One other cool thing that you might be interested to hear.  We found out that Richard G. Scott is going to come and speak to our mission.  I'm way excited for that.  it's crazy, we got david a bednar last year, and now Richard G. Scott, that doesn't happen very often.

I'll have to send you pix of our apartment/house, because we pretty much live in a house made for a family.  There's two bedrooms, a laundry room, a front entryway/living room, a family foom, a kitchen/dining room, and a huge bathroom.  Also, there's a keyboard and a typwriter in the apt.  You might be enterested to know that I actually have been playing the piano.  we have an hour to get ready in the morning, and I only need half an hour, so I have been playing the piano in the mornings this week.  The other good thing is that the members take really good care of us as far as food goes.  There's a lady in the branch the buys us some milk, juice, bread, some fruit, and a meal every week.  I've also heard that we get fed just about every day (not this week though, because it was conference this week, and the meal list didn't get passed around).  But I opened the cupboards of the kitchen, and the cupboards are loaded with food!  I've been playing the survival game in Raeford (on the other hand, that helped me eat healthier, because I could only buy the necesities).

So I think you asked me about the weather...I think you've asked me for several weeks now, but I always forget to tell you.  But it's good, about 70-80 degrees.  it's starting to warm up a little bit...and get a little more humid.  I'm a little bit closer to the coast now, so I think it's going to be a little more humid than last year.  however there were about two days were it was pretty cold, about 40-50 degrees.  also, I think/am hoping that polen season is mostly over.  I think that it rained through the worst of it this year, so it hasn't gotten as bad as it got last year.  And I'm crossing my fingers in hopes that it stays that way.

Conference... Baptism... and Transfers

So about the baptism you had last week you did not tell us you were going to have one. Congratulations! Tell us about it, I don't know anything about this one. It sounds like all is going well.

The baptism that we had on saturday was a sixteen year old boy that has been working on getting baptized for the whole time that I've been here in Fayetville/raeford. He had to wait for quite a while to be eligible for baptizm, but he finally got baptized this last weekend. He had already been taught a lot by the missionaries in the past, so we didn't have to teach him everything. But we did have to get him off smoking and back on track with reading the scriptures, praying, and coming to church. I've got some pix of the baptism that I'll send when I get the chance.

Do you suffer much from allergies to the pollen?

Not too much. It depends on the day. This last week it was pretty rainy, so it didn't bother me too much, and we were inside all day this weekend. But I did actually buy a package of the claritin like you were talking about. One of the members suggested it to me.

Como estas?

Muy bien.

Como fue tu semana?

Muy Bien

Viste la conferencia en espanol o ingles?

En Ingles. Nuestro presidente de mision quiere que la escuchemos en Inlges. El se siente que es muy importante que aprendamos de las doctinas del evangelio en nuestra lengua materna. Aun no estudio las escrituras en ingles en las mananas. en el principio de mi mision, lo hacia (desde el fin de mi primera translado hasta mi quinto translado). Pero ya no. Es dificil, porque me encanta espanol, y me gustaria estudiar en espanol para mejorar mis habilidades, pero es mejor ser obediente!

algunos de tus investigadores vieron la conferencia?

Si, algunos. Tres investigadores

Como anda la clima?

Bien. Durante la semana estaba lluviendo, pero ahora, hace sol

Hace frio o calor?

hace pocito calor 65-75 degreos

ha estado lluviendo?

Si

So funny story. I was just typing all of this in spanish, and somebody accidently bumped my foot, and said sorry, and I said "esta bien". And no he isn't hispanic.

This week was a busy week. We actually spent a lot of time inside. On tuesday and part of Friday, we did some deep cleaning of our apartment (It was a mission wide thing) Then on Weds we had District meeting and Weekly planning on thursday (like normal) and then of course Conference on saturday. So we Pretty much did that and taught lessons the whole week.

Conference was pretty fun. It was pretty busy though, we got at the church at 9 am to get everything ready for the baptism. Then we watched conference, and then had the baptism in between sessions of conference. Then after the afternoon session of conference we wen't out to eat with one of the members that came out her from raleigh (It's not a member I knew from raliegh. He was baptized here in Raeford, and then moved to Raleigh about the same time that I came here. But right now we are teaching his cousin Morena.) But we ate at a "mexican Restraunt". However Ricardo (the member) wasn't too happy about the food, it was basically taco bell at a sit down restraunt. but that's alright, it filled us. Then on Sunday morning before the first session of conference (conference here starts at 12) we ate lunch at Morena's house (the prima of Ricardo) It was some really good food, we ate a sort of soup. But then she brought out a habanero asado. I don't know if you've ever eaten a chile torreado (grilled jalepeno) But when it's grilled it's a lot hotter. So my companion convinced me to give it a try, That was reeeally picante. It wasn't as bad as the first time that I tested that habenero at home (the one that I got from sundayschool) because I've gotten to where I can eat hotter food. But nonetheless, it was hot.

This is becoming a pretty long letter, and that is pretty much all that happened. But I'm being transfered tomorrow, so I'll let you know where I'm at next week!

Lost Keys!

This last week was kind of a crazy week.  On Monday when we got home, I reached in my pocket to look for the keys to the house, and they weren't there.  My companion knows how to pick the lock, so we got in the house and looked around to see if we had left in in the house, which it wasn't.  So we went back out to look for it, but with out any success.  The next day we called the vehicle coordinator, and he told us that he could come the next day and give us the spare key.  But he also told me that it would cost about 250 to replace the key, so we pretty much needed to do everything we could to find the key.  Not to mention the fact that it would take him about  2 hrs to drive to our apt. from the mission office.  So we pretty much spent the entire day looking for the key.  We retraced our path the day before about three times, we turned our house upside down.  We even figured out how to break into the car to see if we had left the key in the car.  It was kind of interesting.  We slipped a metal hanger with a hook on the end through the crack on the window and looped it around the door handle and pulled it open (on the car we have if you just pull on the handle it will unlock the car.   But it still wasn't there.  When our vehicle coordinator finally came the next day, we were able to open the trunk (which you can't upen from the inside of the car...I'm not sure why, it's broken or something) and they keys were there!!  But It was also kind of disappointing, Tuesday we had about 7 appointments planned, but we had to call all of them and cancel, because the appointments were all about 25 mi away.

[Investigator] has plans to be baptized this coming week!  He was interviewed on Sun., and this Saturday, in between sessions of conference, he will be confirmed.

 This week we had plans to teach one of our investigators, and we got a call about an hour before and his mom invited us to come eat dinner with them that night.  I don't think [he] or his mom had planned this out or anything, but it worked out good.  Mario's mom isn't a member, but she is really nice to us.  This family is from Honduras, so the make flour tortillas (Mexico-corn  Guatemala-corn  Honduras-flour Argentina-no tortillas Puerta Rico-no tortillas Dominican Republic-no tortillas and I'm not too sure about the rest), But she showed us how to make tortillas.  I'm going to have to practice that a little bit more.  The corn tortillas a really easy, you just add water and smash it.  But the flour tortillas you do by hand, I'm not sure how to explain it, but it was difficult.  She was making fun of us the whole time.  It's interesting to see the difference in culture between the different countries, because when I've had people from mexico teach me how to make food they would always say that I was doing a good job, but sometimes we would say "como esta mi tortilla?"  And she would say "es fea!"  or "Es Horrrible!."  Of course she wasn't just being mean to us, it was more of sarcastic...more or less, I don't know how to explain it, but just know that it was funny.

Right now, we have a lot of people that we are teaching, and a couple that our progressing quite well.

Investigators at Church

This week was awesome.  Recently we have found a ton of investigators, and we have been really busy.  For a couple of weeks there, the work had slowed down a bit, but now it has picked up again, and we have been running all over the place recently.

Yesterday was an amazing day on sunday.  We had 8 of our investigators that came to church, and including all the children of the investigators, we had 19 nonmembers in sacrament meeting.  It was crazy.  It was also pretty insane trying to get everything set up so that they could all come.  We had two of our investigatos who are sisters, and they both have three kids, so in total there were 8 people that we had to get from st. pauls to Hope mills for church, which is like trying to get someone from Salem to Orem.  I started calling people on Friday, and we just barely got something set up on Saturday in the evening just before our nightly planning.  I was stressing out like crazy, because it would be the worst thing in the world to find someone that would commit to come to church as long as they could get a ride, and then us not get a ride for them.

So I've got some good news, you now that mouse that was in the apartment.  Well, it's dead now.

Also, on saturday we had the baptism of [former investigator], which wen't really well.  And Right afterwords, our investigator,  made papusa for us.  I don't know if you've ever eaten papusa before, but it's really good.  It's made of the Maseca flour (corn flour for tortillas), and you stuff cheese and beens inside the maseca flour and flatten it down and cook it on a skillet.  Then she made some sort of salad and salsa that you put on top of it.  But we'll just say it was good.

This was pretty much everything that I can think of to write to you about, we were pretty much just running from apointment to apointment this week.

A Mouse!

This week was actually pretty crazy. On Thurs. we had interviews with Pres. Cotteral, and then on Fri/sat I went on exchanges with our zone leader. The exchanges were pretty fun, we did a lot and also ate a lot. One of their investigators cooked carne asada for us in the morning for lunch, and then in the evening we ate some food with one of their members. They're members is from Honduras, so I hadn't ever seen the food that we ate before, but it was something like a hamburger patty with something mixed in with it, and a salad made with just boiled eggs and potatoes (no, it wasn't potato salad). But it was kind of funny, because [zone leader] was sick and the doctor said that for now he can only eat rice, applesauce, toast, etc. So he had to watch me as I ate the food and he ate his bowl of rice. But we also taught four lessons that day, which is a lot. But it was fun being able to speak to him in Spanish the whole day (He doesn't speak much English), that always helps me out a lot with my Spanish.

On Saturday we found a little surprise in our kitchen cupboards. I got back from the exchange and looked in my cupboard and saw a pile of shredded up bread. I saw that and asked my companion what happened, he said he didn't know, he just thought I had done something crazy with my bread. So I pulled my loaf of bread out of the cupboard to se what had happened and saw a little head popping out of the loaf of bread. So as you could imagine I through it back in the cupboard. My companion then grabbed the loaf of bread and put it in the trash. But there was something alive in that, we couldn't just throw it in the kitchen trash. So I pulled it out and brought it out side and through it on the ground, and a little mouse came running out of the loaf of bread. We went back inside and pulled out the microwave and there was a lot of droppings from that mouse, it looked like it had been hanging out there for quite some time. So, now we have some poison out and all of my food is in the fridge.

Other than that there hasn't been too much of anything exciting this week....O wait, Actually, [investigator] … is going to bet baptized on the 2nd of April (which means if everything goes as planned, he'll get baptized before I leave!)

Also the daughter of on of our members is going to get baptized soon. The mom is a recent convert, she was baptized about 8 months ago, so we have been teaching the daughter. … But she'll be getting baptized this Saturday.

Good, Great, Yeah

What is your p-day schedule like?

STudy like normal until 10 30, write home, do shopping, come back home, hang around the apt.. It's not too exciting. When I was in Raleigh we would go and play basketball for a couple hours, or some other activity. But here, we live out in the country and there's not too much out here to do. One time we wen't to play basketball, but we had a bunch of dogs come chase us off. It got to the point where one of us would shoot the ball while the other made sure that that dogs stayed back, so we left and we havn't tried doing that again. So at the apartment, often times we clean the apartment, write letters, cook/eat food (sometimes I'll spend a little more time and make a better meal), etc. And Preparation day ends at 6 oclock, and we go at and work after that.

How long do you have for e-mail?

I don't think there is really a set time to be honest. I thought there was before, but I looked in the missionary handbook and I couldn't find where it said how much time, but it does say that we shouldn't preocupy ourselves too much with communicating with friends or family.

Do you do all of your wash on p-day?

yea, most of the appartments in the mission have washing and drying machines.

All of your shopping too?

yea.

How is the weather?

Good, it's getting a little warmer, I'm hoping...I honestly don't know how to spell this anymore, but la temporada de los trajes, ends soon.

How are you doing?

Good

On saturday, we translated for the womens conference for the stake. This time around went a little better than last time, but I have found out that most women's vocabs are different then mens (you know how I might say that something is orange and sharee might say that it's peachy). So I kind of just had to try and figure out what they were saying and put it in my own words, because I don't know how to translate peachy...duraznoso...?? But then they fed us lunch (it was a very light lunch, so I ate about 3 plates of food, and then they started taking away the extra plates around us...They had about 30 extra plates a food that nobody was going to eat!) but it was really weird, because the theme of the conference was about the temple, so during lunch they had a "fashion show, where some of the young women modeled their mom's wedding dresses. And as a missionary that is REALLY awkward, so we just ate our food as quick as we could and got out of there.

Yesterday the presidency in the branch got got changed. Pres. Martinez is recovering well, but it's going to be a while until he'll be back in full swing. So the new branch president is now Pres. Urias.

So, kind of a funny story. On Thursday we had exchanges with elder chupin and Elder Raleigh. I wen't over with elder Raleigh, but when we went to exchange back we both drove half way (because it's about 60 mi one way to get from our apartment to their apartment) and we switched back over, and started driving away and my companion told me that he didn't have our phone and that elder chupin still had it. So that's when we started going crazy, because you cant do a whole lot without a phone. so we pulled in to a gas station and got some change to call the other elders and tell them to come back, but when we called them they didn't answer. So we left a message and told them that we would call them back in a few minutes (because we have a rule that we can't use the phone while were in the car, even if your the passanger.) and so we thought that maybe they just needed to pull over. so we wen't in side, and I needed to use the bathroom, and when we left there was an old lady that needed help putting her walker in her car, so we offered to help. But then she started telling us the whole life story of her and her family (I know as missionaries, we should take time and listen which we did do, but our phone was driving down the rode!). So finally when she was done talking (half an hour later, we wen't back over to the pay phone and called them, and got them to stop, but we had to drive an extra 15 miles to get it.

There wasn't too much more that was exciting this week, and this letter is getting long.