YAY! I had my first Baptism yesterday! It was so special, Arnie (Arnulfo Gomez) is so solid, such an amazing member of our church. It was so exciting to see him get baptized, and Hermana Taylor (Hermana Frieszell’s companion before me) got to come, which was so neat because she found him tracking with Hermana Frieszell, but then she was transferred, so she didn’t think she’d be able to come, but she had a fireside at a chapel nearby, so they let her run over. It was so cool!
So how was everybody's week?! Mine was incredible, I was so happy to get your letters! I’ve got a lot to tell you and I tried to make a list… I’ll start with silly things first. There’s an Elder here named Elder Homer, he’s an actor and the first thing he mentioned was that he was in “Pay it Forward” he’s the kid who pushes Haley Joel Osmond into the knife and kills him. My response to this was, “…You made me cry.” And then he said, “That’s what everyone says.” And rolled his eyes. He’s super funny though, you should keep an eye out for him if you watch that movie again. All the Elders and Sisters are really funny, we’ve got a sort of code… I think it’s common among all missionaries because I heard some of these expressions before… here’s a brief vocab/phrase list for missionaries.
The Be Born: when you arrive in your mission from the MTC.
Mother/Father: The missionary who trained you.
Son/Daughter: The missionary you train.
+Grandfather/+Grandmother: The trainer of your trainer.
Aunt/Uncle: other missionaries trained by your same mom or dad.
To Die: When your mission ends.
To Kill: When your companion’s mission ends but you’re still here.
To Kill Each Other: When you both finish your missions at the same time.
The dramatic life-analogies seem kind of appropriate though. At first I thought it was weird. But then, like I usually do, I thought about it way too much and decided that the MTC is our pre-earth life, then we go into the ‘real world’ and forget everything they taught us/have to relearn everything they taught us with real-world application, and we have families and we meet people who we knew before sometimes and it’s really surreal, then we die and go on to fulfill our true purpose and have families like the ones we came from. This pretty much means that you (my real family) signify my heavenly family in this analogy.
I may include this in my book about missionary work. Depending on how it is received by people who aren’t as crazy as I am. What do you think?
My companion and I teach an English class at the chapel on Tuesday nights, it’s way harder to teach English than Spanish. English is… well, there are rules but we break them so much. There’s exceptions for everything, it made me like of Brian Regan, “I before E accept after C, and when sounding like A as in neighbor and way and you’ll always be wrong no matter what you say.”
English is silly.
We have a car! But the miles are so limited we’re afraid to use it anymore this month, we’ve also got Bikes, and I’ve learned it’s actually pretty easy to ride a bike in a skirt, it’s just hard to keep the skirt from blowing off. We’ve also got our feet… Oh, my bike helmet is a little sad. I’m pretty sure it’s an egg-carton. I’m going to die. Actually, I’ll just look for another helmet when I get the chance.
Oh, the way sad news I have is that in our mission President Hansen has decided to go beyond the white handbook when it comes to what music is acceptable. Only hymns, pretty much, is the new rule. It has to be “sacrament appropriate”. This means I’ll be sending my Ipod home soon… I’m pretty sad about this, but I’m trying to be obedient. The really lame thing about this is that there’s apparently some country singers who took it upon themselves to do their own renditions of the hymns and everyone seems to have this CD and they play it and I think I’m going to hurt someone. I can’t stand that kind of nonsense with religious music. I swear it’s got to be some kind of sin. It’s a crime against the genius that God inspires in people to create music for him, when talentless pop-wannabe musicians just ‘borrow’ and then violate sacred music. Seriously.
Lucky for me, my companion seems to feel the same way. We listen mostly to hymns in Spanish. The music itself isn’t much better than the country junk, but at least it’s interesting for me to try to sing along in Spanish.
Everyone says my Spanish is really good, but Hispanic people are so nice, I don’t know if I should believe them. I do understand a lot. The other missionaries say that I seem to understand a lot more than is normal for new missionaries, but I can’t really say everything that I want to, or anything that I want to sometimes. But my speech is good enough that I can carry on a conversation and teach about gospel-principles, with some hand-gestures involved…
Oh! I also wanted to talk a little about my area, City View.
I’m in the ghetto.
A lullaby of my neighbours arguing and car alarms going off between strains of sirens puts me to sleep every night… But I’m sleeping really well and continuing to have bizarre dreams. With car alarms.
Greens Point is the name of the little place where I live. It’s got a nickname, I was advised not to tell you, but I think you’ll think it’s funny, it’s often called Guns Point. I don’t know what everyone’s talking about though, so far everyone I’ve talked to has been really nice. Except for that preacher (That story is in my other letter). There’s all these adorable little kids in our apartment complex, they’re all black (I think my companion and I are the only white people for a couple of miles) and whenever they see us they always say “Hi! Where are you going?! Why are you always leaving?!” and then one of the other little kids with say, “They have to tell people about Jesus”. They are so cute. My companion says that there is a certain amount of respect that black people have for “church ladies” which is why they have us live there. We’re actually a lot safer, because people don’t want to rob from the church ladies or give us a hard time. Since we’re Spanish speaking we usually travel out to other parts of town to proselyte.
My companion is so great, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you a little more about Hermana Frieszell before… she’s from Washington, and she’s 24 years old. She’s been out here for about a year, and I think that Greens Point/City View is like her sixth area. She’s moved around a lot more than is normal for missionaries. I’m her first baby, but she’ll probably have the chance to train again before she goes home this summer. Her Spanish is really solid, but she says it took her a while to feel like she was fluent (about nine months). She and Hermana Drainy are the oldest Hermanas. She and I are a lot alike, she’s really laid back, doesn’t really worry about being on time etc. as long as we get everything done that we need to. I try not to have a hard time with it, I do have a lot of experience waiting around for Jensen, so, no big deal
The dollhouse sounds incredible! You have to finish it before I get back, it sounds so neat! I love that there’s history/a ghost story to go along with it, that is just so cool! I bet Laney is having fun, I want to see her drawings of the ghost lady! Eliz. Tilley? We are so awesome. I just remembered how cool our family is. Jensen, you are so cute. You’re not allowed to tell me that there’s a million things you want to tell me but you can’t because it’ll take too much time. Pick one and write me about it! I want to hear what’s going on! Good luck on the test, I hope you EARN your RedSash. I’m excited for Chantal to get her black too, she needs a sash to match her soul. I hope she seriously considers the Air Force, I think she’d love it!
Shazi is going to conquer Kimber?! Sweet. So sweet. Dulce. Yeah, she’s better make sure to go to seminary. Aww, tell the kitties I said “Mwwahhola!” and tell Chester “…” which means I love you in Hispanic ratty-speech.
I’m starving. We’re fasting today with two or our investigators. Carolina y Nellie SantaCruz/Puig. We’re hoping we can find them work were they can attend church on Sunday. They both want to, but they need to work and neither of them can get Sundays off. So, we took them down the employment office today to help them out. I LOVE this family so much. Nelly is the mother and then Carolina (the r is almost said like a T Catoeleena), her daughter has two children, Rafael and… I’ve never seen it written but I think it much be written like Paula, but it’s said “Powla” and then Nelly’s other two daughter (both teenagers) are Maria Jose and Marisol (Marisol is a nickname, I’m not sure how to say or spell her full name). They’re from Ecuador, which is apparently the most beautiful place on earth. I think we should visit sometime… anyway. You know those investigators who missionaries say they just love WAY too much, and you want them to get baptized so bad?! Well, I want everyone to get baptized, but this family is a major focus for us right now. They are just so sweet, and so curious, I really hope we’re able to get them to church. They came to our Baptism yesterday (they were late because of work and missed the baptism itself), but they still came by, which I think says a lot.
Anyway, I’d better get going, but I’ll be sending you my other letter for the week soon enough. Goodbye, I love you all con todo mi alma!
Hermana Lirioblanco