Nov 17, 2009

Hey hey hey


So sorry I forgot to tell you last week, but PDay got moved to tuesday this week for some reason, so I wasn't expecting a letter from you mom, so it's ok. I'll just have one BIG long one to read next week! haha
Dad-Yeah, the bear was really crazy! It was freaking hilarious though! I'll put the memory card in the mail and you can see all my pictures, all the way back to like, Sept. 17th I think. And yeah, when we go to Henrico or some other apartment, we just end up sleeping on the floor or couch. I've been on floor both times. Last time (last Tuesday) I was on floor, elder washburn and elder Nelson as well and then Elder Lusk was on the couch and elder Pasker (his greenie) was on the recliner. I know, how crazy is it that missionaries have a recliner in their apartment!? And it's only Elder Wheatley and Elder Hernandez in that apartment! Thats ridiculous! But yeah, thats how it works up here in VA. And Brother Bear in spanish was AWESOME!!!! I think I might have a new favorite disney movie (besides Nightmare Before Christmas of course!) And also, Phil Collins did the music for that movie, and he redid his songs in spanish for the spanish version! It was sick! I think you'd really like it dad!
Mom- Sorry for the lack of info about P-Day being moved! It's ok though, I just get to type a longer email this week! maybe haha! So have you gone out with the missionaries yet? Oh man that's gonna be so sweet! SO how's work going, gearing up for the holidays! It's going to be like, your 2nd year straight working there right? That's insane! I've never had a job for longer than 8 months! hahaha
Mallory- Thank you SO much for the scarf and cookies! I opened the package last night and immediately put on the scarf and wore it around all last night. It was like, 72 degrees in the apartment, but I didn't care. That thing is SWEET! all the other elders in the apartment are so jealous of it cause they all have little wussy not awesome scarves! And the cookies are AMAZING! oh my gosh they're SO good! I had to hide them cause I don't want the others to know how good they are! But yeah, thank you sooo much!
But this week has definitely been interesting. We're supposed to be teaching a minimum of 20 lessons a week, which really shouldn't be too hard, but it's actually really tough to get that consistently. We had 2 lessons last week by P-Day, which was really bad. But by Sunday night we were up to 18, which isn't too bad. But we've been trying to be a lot more effective and teach more lessons consistently, but yesterday was not a good day for that, but I think I changed a kid's life yesterday! haha We helped Lulu move some furniture and I found 2 rupees from India in there and she told me to keep it, so I put it in my pocket. We end up going to Kroger(a grocery store here) and we run into Sis. Sanchez, so we help her carry her groceries out to the car cause she's prego. So we're talking to her and her kid, and she asks him if he wants to go on a mission someday and he says "I'm going to India to be a missionary!" SO I was like, "Oh, hey, I can help with that dream!" and I pulled out the Rupees and gave it to him. So our ongoing joke since yesterday is that he's going to get his call to India when he's reporting out he'll tell the story about the day the missionaries gave him Indian money! But then I started to get mad. We went over to maricela's house and I only wanted to spend like, 20-30 minutes there, but Elder Nelson and Washburn decided to spend 2 HOURS there!!! I was so mad! And then when we FINALLY left we went over to Rosi and Elder Washburn makes a joke and says "Elder Nelson only has 340 days until he's getting married!" (cause he leaves in 340 days!) and he got super ofendido and upset and it was just super awkward and then Elder Nelson got mad at me for saying a prayer to share a message and then end with a prayer, so it was just super crazy and contentious last night and ridiculous. And then we had to clean like CRAZY today because last week the crisis decided to rearrange the whole house so they moved their beds into their study room, our beds into where theirs used to be and their study room into the living room where we were sleeping. So our room is practically one giant gay bed(i'm not even kidding, there's about 2 inches between each bed) and it was absolutely filthy and cluttered and just ridiculous. So we had to clean forever this morning! But yeah, hopefully that's behind us and we can start getting to teaching lessons again, because we met our daily lesson goal on Thursday, the first time that had ever happened on my mission, and I was SUPER STOKED!

So funny story, we were at Maricela's last Friday adn I needed the other elders to get up off the couch really fast, so I yelled "Levantaos" which means "Get up" but it's in a conjugation that they really only use in the bible and in spain, and I didn't even think about what I said, it just came out like that, and Maricela just looked at me and the other elders jumped up and looked all strange and surprised and then we all just started laughing and it was really hilarious. Then on Saturday, America got baptized. She's the daughter of Juan and Lulu. And the baptism was amazing! All done in spanish and I understood everything and it was sweet! But Elder Nelson was in the bathroom before, the one with the lever to fill up the font. Elder Washburn and I are standing outside and we end up reading something and not noticing the mujer walking around the building. Well, we didn't notice her walk into the bathroom behind us until she shreaks (kind of) and comes out and says to us "I thought there were only two of you. Is he going to be awhile?" and it was super awkward and hilarious! But Juan didn't do the baptism. I don't know what it is with Hispanics, but they think that Missionaries and Bishops have special powers. The bishop did the baptism, but luckily Juan confirmed her, and the Spirit was just like BAM! in the room! It was so crazy. And then the next day, Roselyn finally got blessed, but once again, Juan had the Bishop do it. But it was funny, we asked Juan last Monday who was going to do the blessing, and he just sat there for a little bit, then said "the bishop. And all the old people." We asked why and he says "Because old people know a lot of stuff." Well, we couldn't argue with him about his baby's blessing, so we just said Ok and that was that! but yeah, it was an interesting weekend. I translated all of Elder's Quorum again, and the guy that taught is CRAZY smart and has a vocabulary the size of Texas and maybe Louisiana. He's a REALLY good teacher, but its' impossible to translate for him! But it was super good parctice. The primary program was also that day and Hermano Jones translated and a bunch of times when the kids would just yell something into the Microphone, he would just pause and say "no sE" or "ni idea" and all the hispanics are laughing out loud and the white people don't get it. It made me love being a spanish speaking missionary even more. But on Saturday, I talked with Hno. Jones about improving my spanish (because he talks sooooooo good in spanish) and he told me about this little exercise where you put a pen in your mouth sideways and hold your tongue underneath it and talk in spanish. It sounds stupid and idiotic, but it strengthens your tongue in the way you use it for spanish, so I tried it and my tongue is still sore! It was crazy! SO I think I'm going to keep doing that. And then he also told me about a game he and his companion played in Ecuador where any time one of them spoke english, they had to buy the other a candy or something. Now, things are a little more expensive here in VA than in Ecuador, so we upped it to every 5 times. I was the first loser. But we've barely spoken any english at all over the past 3 days. It's crazy. I feel like it's already helped sooo much. I'm trying to convince Elder Nelson to only talk to us in spanish even during planning, but he didn't like that idea. Oh well.
Anyway, I think that's about all for this week. Love you all and miss you. Hope you have a great day. Can't wait to hear from you next week. Adios