I can't believe that it is already July!! As of today, I am officially in the Arizona Gilbert Mission. It's very exciting! I love it here. It is hotter than anything I am used to, but I love it! The low 90s sound quite nice though:) I think our hottest day here so far actually hit 120. Insane. The birthday party for Ryder sounds like a ton of fun! I wish I could have been there to run through the sprinklers with the kids, but there will be time for that when I get back. The library is closed today because the AC is broken (haha that would never be a problem in Washington!) so we are at a members house and they have four little girls. It's actually very comforting to have them all running around as I write this :) Did you remember to bring my letter to them up there with you? I wish I could see Baby Emree's big smile! Do you have any pictures of her now? I would love to see her.
The Spanish is good. I still have a lot of room for improvement, but it gets a little easier each day. I use it every day, but I talk to a lot of English people on the streets too. We only teach Hispanics though. I liked Ben's challenge too. I have the challenge in my mind, but I fail everyday. I'm still trying. I have a letter all written to send to him and now that I have his address I will send it his way :) As for handwritten letters and things in the mail, I do love it, but I also love getting your e-mails!!! I just don't have time to e-mail everyone everything that I want to say, but I have more time to write letters. Another retaining wall mom?! :) Where are you putting this one? I do think that you should plant a cactus and see how big you can get it by the time I come home. Yeah?? I think it would be cool :) Also, you are by no means the worst Primary President in the church! I'm sure you are just wonderful :) I did want to share with you the 11th point on page 220 of PMG...I figured you could do this in primary, get all the kids excited to do missionary work too!
This letter is going to be a little scattered and random, but here it goes. So as you know, I don't particularly like the texture of pineapple. At dinner, members often make us fruit juice from scratch and it is delicious! One night, it was pineapple flavor and there were chunks of pineapple still in it. I tried my hardest to drink it without getting any chunks too. I was pretty successful. The next morning there were fruit chunks in my yogurt and I decided to be a big girl and eat them. It was a little rough haha but I did it. Then the next day at dinner, there was a slice/ring of pineapple on our meat. At this point I figured it was a sign from Heavenly Father telling me to grow up and get over it so I ate it and you know what, it really wasn't bad :) What have I been so afraid of all these years? A mission is good for me :)
I have to try and explain to you the kind of place I live in. For starters, we walked outside for our morning walk and a rooster crowed. We hear them a lot actually. Then to just further clarify the picture, we pass by horse crossing, tractor crossing, and cow crossing signs on a regular basis. We live in a hick town haha. But, drive five minutes and there is a target and a walmart and fast food restaurants. It messes with your mind a little bit :) And then there is the heat. Here's a little story to give you an idea of what it is like. We were at a member's house for dinner and she pulled out these chocolate truffles for dessert. Elder Hill reached in and when he pulled his hand back out of the box it was covered in melted chocolate. Then the member said not to worry because she had another box. She grabs the box, pulls the bag out, but it had been upside down so it all plops out on the floor. This melted glob of brown chocolate...you can imagine what it looked like...was just sitting on the floor. We all started laughing pretty hard. Sister Anderson and I got down on the floor to clean it up and we were just laughing:) So the moral of the story is, it was hot enough inside her air conditioned house to melt both boxes of truffles.
We had a lesson with a former. We had just knocked on a door and then were walking away to find people to talk to when we saw a Hispanic lady and started to talk to her. She invited us in and lead us to the house that we had just knocked on!! What a miracle. Then we had another lesson with a different former. We found him outside, shirtless, watering his cactus, smoking, and drinking all at the same time. He was so nice and talked with us in the 118 weather for almost an hour. He gave us ice cold glass bottle Coca Colas and they were delicious. I don't even like Coke!
I have a few more things, but I will just put them in a letter since I don't have very much time and I still have to send some pictures. I love you and miss you!
Con mi amor,
Hermana Baria
