I am eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Hernandez family's house. I have no idea what it will be like. We had a ward thanksgiving party on Saturday and it was super fun! It was basically the same as most Mexican parties. Loud Mexican music and dancing. There was "Thanksgiving food" but it was heavily mexicanized with a lot of chile. It was really good! Basically the Mexican American tradition is to skip Thanksgiving and start celebrating Christmas waaayyyyyyy tooo early.

 

Everyday is usually a good day here, but yesterday was extra happy-making. So much goodness kept happening to us!

 

1. We are not the best at street contacting. We prefer to knock doors, so we usually just say hi and other normal stuff to people we run into. This one guy that lives in our apartment complex is always super nice to us and always asks us how we are doing and random stuff like that. Yesterday morning we ran into him on the way to our car and started talking to him. We told him we were on our way to church. He started to look really nervous and then asked if he could come with us next week. He has been having what he has called spiritual difficulties and thinks that the best thing for him would to be learn more about God and what he wants. He told us he could tell that God loved us and he wants us to teach him what we know. We were like actually, that is what we do. He was like what! No way! And then we set up an appointment. He looked so relieved! We should have asked him weeks ago! Poor thing.

 

2. Four of our investigators came to church. We felt like shepards making sure they all went to the classes they were supposed to and had friends and stuff like that. Plus we had to babysit one of the Elders' investigators. Don't ask me why. It was so hectic! I am so looking forward to the day when my investigators are my own children and I can teach them from the beginning the right what so that they know what's up.

 

3. I helped the Spanish ward coordinate when they could use the building by translating what he said into English, which another missionary translated into Korean for his ward member. I don't know why I thought this was so cool but I just love me the Garden Grove Culture Clash.

 

4. We went to a baptism for some of my companion's old investigators after church. It was so beautiful! She had taught them for a long time and was so happy for them. Watching her face was just as much pleasurable as watching the baptism.

 

5. We ran into the Ap's at that church building. Ahh they're so cool. Plus we got to see a lot of other missionaries there.

 

6. The Bowens were at the baptism. They are so nice! President Bowen even gave a short talk in Spanish. It was so cute!

 

7. The Gomez family came to the baptism. The girls were both so excited. Valerie, the one who is 7, held my hand the whole time.

 

8. We had dinner at Hermana Estudillo's house. She is an amazing cook! And super helpful and nice.

 

9. We finished off the day by having an amazing lesson at the Gomez's. You can feel the Spirit so strongly there. After our planned lesson we talked about all the little events, including their son's death that have led them and us to all be where we are now at this moment. It was amazing to see God's hand in all of our lives and even cooler that they realize that and can feel His love so strongly.

 

Love you!

Hola!

 

 

The members here are interesting. Most of them are converts and they have very strong testimonies. Testimony meeting is the best thing ever! They also really love each other and are pretty united. But at the same time this is the most dysfunctional ward I've ever been in. It's just very unorganized. Setting things for specific times is a joke. They don't care that much about rules or procedures. We told them about the white bible and they thought we were joking. Church is super fun and always exciting, but sometimes I stop and think, "Is ward council supposed to be this fun?" Probably not. So I can't decide it their version of Mormon culture is worse or better. The one thing that I do definitely like, is how much they adore missionaries. We're like angels to them. We do a million things for the ward that they are probably supposed to be doing for themselves but at the same time they take very good care of us. 

Right now my favorite family is Gomez. They are the family whose son died. We're still teaching the parents and their two girls because the girls need to be baptized. They were completely inactive before but now they go to church every week and want all the blessings of God! We've become best friends. We are at their house all the time. They are super funny. Last night we were talking about baptisms for the dead and Max was like I want their to be a whole arena of people thanking me for doing their work when I die. They'll be like Whooooohh Yeahhhh!!! I should probably start working on that. Technically they're Mexican but they both grew up here and are racist against Mexicans. Every time we go over we leave with bags of food. Max (the dad) tried to sign up to feed us every day this week but Michelle (the mom) told him that wasn't nice. They are super sassy. Especially the girls. The girls don't speak Spanish very well so we have to tell them what words mean in church. On Saturday we took them to a tour of the Newport Temple grounds. It was so cool! They want to be sealed as a family as soon as possible. They want us to come over every day but we only have time to go there every few days.

 

Thanks! Love you!

Hi  mom!

 

I did get the package! Thank you so much! You need to keep sending me stuff so that my zone knows you love me. Haha just kidding. We get mail whenever our zone leaders go to the office which is at least every Monday and Wednesday, but they also sometimes go on other random days of the week if they have a meeting or need to get supplies. On Friday night I got an envelope with a million thank you notes (yes, I counted) from women in our ward. Tell them thank you from me! I really appreciate them. Also tell them to be thankful for the ward they are in because the ward I'm in right now is SO dysfunctional! They all mean well and have amazing testimonies but because almost all of them are converts they don't quite know how to do the not spiritual stuff. I think I'm up to 6 unofficial callings now. Haha it's a party.

 

I'm glad you liked my letters! I love each of you a whole lot. Good, good, and good. Make sure to remind them that I am the most important member of the family while their minds are still young and impressionable. My mission is chill! And I know that his would be too because he's smart enough to not take things personally. He would be such a hard working missionary too! Charles has still not written me!

 

Mine and my companion's relationship gets better every week. We're still not to the point where we break out into "L! is for the way..." every time we try to have companionship inventory, like with my last companion but we have gotten to the "I'm about to tell you something that I've never told anyone" phase. So that's grand. The other day one of the Elders asked us, "Do you guys EVER fight?" We looked at each other both trying to think of a time where we had fought, but we couldn't think of anything so we just said, "We're fighting right now... telepathically" And the best part of this story is that even though transfers is next week we know that we both won't be moved because training takes two transfers and that would be like a mother abandoning her baby before she was old enough to live on her own. Her mom's name is Kari so must be a different person.

 

Yeah that first family is the Garcias/Gomez. We visited them again last night. When we teach them the spirit is always really strong but we still haven't been able to get them to go back to church. And the other family is the familia Gomez. We are teaching them because their two daughters, 9 and 7, have not been baptized. We also have become really good friends. We sit with them at church and eat dinner at their house at least once a week. When we leave they always give us food to take home too. Their daughters are obsessed with us. Whenever we try to make a return appointment with their parents, they say "Tomorrow tomorrow!!" On Sunday Victoria asked her mom if we could have a sleepover because she didn't want us to leave. They're a really cool family. Her sister lives in Orem so you may get to meet them one day if we have a reunion. The love H and M and organic food so I think you would get along.

 

 Last week was hard. We helped set up for the funeral and then we sang during the funeral, so that took up most of Tuesday. I don't think I've ever seen a dead body before so that really bothered me. Both me and my companion have been having nightmares all week about her dying so we haven't been able to sleep.

 

We got a car! A Ford Fusion. It is very nice.

 

Love you!