This week flew by! It's probably been the fastest one I've had here so far. I've only been here for three weeks though so that's probably not saying much haha. Your fourth of July sounds like it was really fun! This is the first fourth in years that I haven't watched the fireworks at the golf course. Even when I was in Italy, we factimed and I watched them on my phone! Here we had to be home by 8:00 and we weren't allowed to participate in any fireworks. We did see a few in the distance from our window. Our celebration consisted of wearing red, white, and blue and then at night I found some bubbles in the drawer, so I put on a little bubble-blowing show. Pretty exciting, huh?? Haha not really, and unfortunately it will probably be the same next year, but the year after that when I am home, I will do something really fun :) Your hike sounds like it was beautiful. But you are right, the view and scenery you had was drastically different than the cacti and dust that I experience everyday. I would love to see some of your pictures :) Something green and bodies of water would be a great sight!
I think your new ward mission plan and focus sounds so great! I hope we have some changes like that here too! One step at a time, I know we are going to get there :) Right now we are working on doing a youth activity and involving the whole world and it's basically going to be a day in the life of a missionary. We are going to start out by having them come in, go to a transfer meeting and get their companion, different classes where they do roleplays and watch some of The District, etc. It's going to be so cool! We've also started doing member visits to try and inspire them and to help them know how they can go about sharing the gospel. It also helps us get to know them better!
I would love to see pictures of Emree and Annika! Even if you just send them over e-mail :) I bet they are both so cute. That sounds like quite the adventure that Becca had. I wish I could be there to help her! I would be more than happy to babysit the kids :) I'm glad that everything ended up okay though! And I'm sure it will get a little easier as time goes on...at least I will hope and pray that it does! I wish I could hear Barett talking :) I loved his grunting, but I bet he will sound so cute when he talks, and Ryder too!!! I'll have a lot of time to catch up on when I get home! Oh, tell Aaron that I've been doing is Gypsy children necklace trick! I did it with my district in the MTC and then we did it as the four of us at our house one day.
We were able to visit and have lessons with a lot more people this week! We met Losa, a former, and his 2 sons. He let us in and his son brought us Power-aid or something which was quite refreshing. They were a very nice family, but didn't seem too interested at the moment. I could understand a lot of what he said, but one of his storeis used a lot of spanish vocabulary that I do not know yet. Then we met a lady named Debbie and we talked to her as she watered her garden. Her old partner at work was a member, but now he is going on mission now too with his wife. He invited her to the farewell talk, but she couldn't go. We told her about the homecoming talk and she got really excited and said she would go to that because she had been sad that she had missed hearing from them. We also told her that right before they dedicate the Gilbert temple, they will have an open house and she can go in and see it. She got really excited about that too! I don't think she is ready now, but I do think she will be baptized in the future :) She was very nice and great to talk to. Then a different night we met a black pastor named Paul. He obviously had his own beliefs, but he was very kind and talked to us for a long time. We talked about a lot of different things. I testified of the Atonement and felt the Spirit so strongly as I was doing it. He's not ready to be baptized yet though. He encouraged us to push the envelope and really find out if we trully believe. We tried to tell them that we had prayed and found out for ourselves that this Church is true, but he didn't seem to hear. I really enjoyed that experience though. We had another lesson with someone we've talked to before, Alejandra. The first time we met with her she said she would not read the Book of Mormon, but this time she said she would try!! Little by little. We talked to this man named Sotero (the picture) and he was just the sweetest. He keeps a mormon. org card with a list of all the missionaries he's ever met written on it. He had me sign it :) We prayed with him and then he said a prayer for us too. I hope he gets baptized some day :)
One night Sister Caldwell brought home a dead scorpion in tape and showed me how it glowed under the blacklight. Then she proceeded to stick it in an envelope and send it to her family...don't worry, I won't do that to you guys...probably ;) The water that comes from our tap is always warm and is extremely dirty so we fill up big plastic bottles every week at this place called Water & Ice. It's not owned by an LDS lady, but she really respects missionaries so we get the water for free. They also give us free ice cream when we go and it tastes so good out in the heat! We had to wash our car because it was so dusty, but we ran out of time to go through the wash, so we did it by hand one night. But we had no soap so we just used water...not the best cleaning job, but it actually did look a lot better.
We met President and Sister Nattress on Thursday and they are just the best! They are so sweet and cute and so nice. They brought 4 kids with them, but one of them leaves on his mission on the 24th...which is also his birthday, so he has to get the Melchezidik Priesthood, go through the Temple, get set apart, and fly to the MTC by himself all on the same day! It's going to be crazy for them. President Nattress doesn't speak spanish, but he is trying to learn.
We had a huge lightning storm the other night and it was so cool!!!! Not enough thunder for my liking, but there was plenty of lightning. It was lighting up the sky like crazy and it was awesome :) Jenn would have loved it!
We finally got to meet with one of Alejandra's sisters and her husband and start to teach them! And it went so well! We taught them the Restoration and we felt the Spirit. They invited us to stay over for tacos and we had flan for dessert. They were so kind and the longer I was with them, the more Spanish I started to understand! At dinner they asked about how to become an eternal family and the process of moving towards baptism and they initiated the return appointment! It was great. I can't wait for them to baptized. We counted and out of all of Alejandra's sisters and their husbands and kids, there are 16 people of baptism age!!! I would love to be a part of their journey towards baptism :) I would also love to see their families get sealed in the temple! It's going to happen :)
I've been really frustrated with my Spanish lately and after a couple lessons I was feeling very inadequate. But Heavenly Father is so smart and loving, and He had it planned perfectly that at the peak of my frustration, we would read Chapter 7 in PMG for training hour. It brought comfort and a renewed focus and drive. I just have to keep working and remind myself that I have only been out for 2 months! Oh yeah, today is my 2 month mark. CRAZY!!! Basically I only have 15 more because I have 3 weeks cut off of my mission.
I will tell you though that it is official! The call from President came last night and I am training! For sure. I get my new greenie tomorrow at transfer meeting! I don't know what I'm going to do without Sister Anderson, but I'll just trust in the Lord and take it one day at a time! I feel sorry for my greenie that she is getting someone who is so inexperienced. The Lord has a funny sense of humor sometimes, doesn't He?
Anyways, all is well and I love you!!
Con mi amor hasta la proxima semana,
Hermana Baria
