Let's hear some chatter out there!

Hey! The pics from Alice look great—I dig it. Anne Hathaway looks beautiful, and of course, Helena, my love and I like the girl whose playing Alice. Do I even need to mention my undying love for Johnny? Probably shouldn’t. I’m a missionary you know.
This transfer so far has been a little strange. A lot of the missionaries who were around when I first came out either went home, or are about to leave. So some of the mascots of my mission so far are starting to get all trunky and lame. Some of them are awesome right up until the end though. Like Elder Rowberry, who was an Assistant when I came out. He just went home. He does that thing kind of like Buster in Arrested Development with giving random backrubs, except not creepy. Anyway, he walked up to the Elder Next to me the Monday before he went home and was rubbing his shoulders and then he looked down at me and just said, “I’m sorry. I can’t touch you.” I laughed and he laughed and then muttered something like “Just a few more days…” and walked off. The other Elders and I watched him walk off, a tired broken shell, losing all yet gaining himself in the process… it could have been a very deep moment except that then a bunch of them laughed and Elder Meade added, “Few more weeks! Yes!” As he is next to go home.
I don’t know how I feel about these new kids who’re coming in. None of them are as awesome as the Elders who are leaving right now. I’ve been assured that they’ll get more awesome as they llegar a ser better missionaries.
This last week was pretty rough again, my Hermana Forsling is still ill and we think we’ve figure out I’ve got some pinched nerves in my back that are causing random pain at inopportune moments. Like in the middle of lessons. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but it’s really annoying. Also, Emily, who’s pictures I still haven’t sent you, has NOT been confirmed yet. She was supposed to be confirmed two weeks ago, but Babylon is calling and yesterday the excuse was fishing. I don’t know what we’re going to do… Pray a lot. And try to explain to her, again, with power and authority, WHY she needs to come to church every week and keep the commandments of God; with love and boldness, but not overbearence. We’re working with such great people right now though, I really feel like they all have desires to know more and to be in good standing with their heavenly father. Our big success of the week was getting a inactive woman and her less-active son to church! They’ve been making excuses (some of which are pretty good) for why they can’t come for ages, but we finally got them in the building, all spiffed up and greeting old friends too.
Also, a dry Mormon couple just moved into our area. They were already in our ward, but they had to move, the rent was too high, so they came over to our side of town, and are crammed into a little apartment/casita thing. It is way too small for how many kids they have, and two more are on their way up from Mexico. Eight people shove into two little bedrooms… Anyway, they would have been baptized ages ago, except that their not actually married and can’t get married on account of the woman having a husband who is SOMEWHERE in Mexico, she has no idea where, and the divorce is taking forever to go through. The second the paperwork is final, they’re going to get hitched and then baptized. She’s there are church every week with this army of kids. One of the boys is baptized and the two girls coming up from Mexico are going to need to be taught and baptized too when they get here. This is a really sweet family, I’m so glad that I get to teach them.
I’m glad you liked the pictures! I was going to send more, but I left the disk home on accident… I need to send my whole camera card soon.
That family, the Castillos, are SO funny. We went to drop in on them Friday night and got a big surprise. Hermana Pidwirbecky! I haven’t mentioned anything about her yet, but she was one of the last sister missionaries in this area before they switched it to Elders only. They just BARELY re-opened the area with Hermana Forsling the transfer before I got here. Then the whole masked-ET deal happened, and I ended up here too. So, we hear about Hermana Pidwirbecky ALL the time. She’s the missionary who baptized Hermana Castillo and I think 2 or her children. (Roberto, the one who looks like Sokka, wouldn’t have anything to do with the church until last September when Elder Lowry and Campbell showed up.) she’s still got one son, Mario, who’s, I think 22 or 23, who won’t ever listen to the missionaries, and usually hides in his room when we’re over.
Anyway, Hermana Pidwirbecky was visiting! We were really confused to see this unfamiliar car in their front yard and then Brendita squealed all excited “Porgque hay tantas Hermanas?!” when we walked up. Anyway, Hermana Pidwirbecky forced Mario to listen to us. Which we greatly appreciated. He’d come out of his room to say hi to her (I think he used to take discussions with his mother when she was baptized like 3 years ago) and Hermana Pidwirbecky was like “Sit down you big baby it’s not going to kill you to listen.” He actually participated in the lesson too. More so than his active LDS family. (Roberto & Reyman son bromistas.)
Fun, fun. I like this muchacha.
So, we had a little help that night. And we’ve meet some new investigators this week who are all very special and wonderful and I can’t wait to work with them some more… But seriously, times is hard, yessir.
Roberto got into a fight this week at mutual too. But we’re pretty sure it was the other kid’s fault… Javier is a boxer and a martial artist, like Roberto and depending on who you asked Javier either gave him a friendly hug from behind or tried to put him in a headlock and a fight broke out. At church. It was pretty bad, we heard about it from a bunch of people, including non-members. Anyway, one nice thing about this was that the parents seemed to all kind of wake-up a little. A bunch of the kids had been off at EFY or youth conference or los dos, and when they came back we were all shocked to see a couple of families sitting together that NEVER do usually. Teenagers bore their testimonies and a bunch of the guys cried, and the girls with attitude expressed humility. Very nice. Javier also bore his testimony and started to cry, then asked for forgiveness from the ward for anything he might have said or done to offend them.
So, the ward seems to be changing and growing together as a lovely family… I’m excited for the youth. Since, I’ve got to be honest. Before this last Sunday, I would have told you that this is one of those wards with the way-scary clichish youth that need to be smacked around by the Holy Spirit a little. There was an especially huge change in one girl in particular.
Anyway, so that’s what’s going on with me! Back home sounds lovely and idyllic, except for the presence of rattle-snakes! That’s really terrifying! Don’t go wandering around in the woods. Were you very close to it? because it sounds like you were. Were you really far away from immediate medical care? Is there such a thing as ‘single-serving-anti-venom’ that could be shoved in a first-aid kit? Nobody is allowed to be bitten by venomous serpents while I’m gone, okay? There’s something in the Bible about that. It must have been fun to see Aunt Nuggy & los ninos. I sure miss them, and all of you of course.
It is HOT. It’s so tempting to swim sometimes. You’ll be out tracting and you’ll notice somebody has a pool. (Well, that’s a lie, nobody owns pools around here unless their drug dealers, but you see them at hotels/apartment complexes sometimes). Anyway, you’ll see water and… well, we’re trying to be good and not drown. Hermana Forsling always asks me if we can go swimming and my response is usually “Yes darling, when you go home in November you can swim.” Which makes her angry, as she does not like being reminded how close she is to dying.
Is Kimber curriculum. fun? Sometimes random facts come back to me. They’ve been nearly useful before too. I really want to see this slideshow! Somebody send it to me, PLEASE! The sixth movie sounds like a lot of fun. I’m glad they left in the part with the birds… I’ll try not to be too jealous. But, Ginna, you go ahead and geekout for me, okay? You have to do twice as much geeking-out with me not there.
Well, I’d better get going. Hermana Forsling is part of an All-start basketball line-up between the 3rd ward and 10th ward missionaries. I’m going to go be a cheerleader for 3rd ward. (Which means I’m going to read Jesus The Christ on the stage while they play and occasionally clap in acknowledgement of superior skill. Sports are fun and all. I’ve figured out what I don’t like about them. TALKING. I don’t like the ‘chatter’/’hustle’ junk. It’s so annoying. Let’s all just get tired and sweaty and talk later. These guys are chatterers… silly verbalosity. Totally unnecessary for proper battle. Random sound effects and giggling I approve of, but chatter. No.
I LOVE you all so much. I’m working hard. Not discouraged in spite of the roughness. I know God is giving us the help we need and that we’re with the people who need us. Tengo muchlurve para vosotros. Besito.
Lovelovelove/Hermana Lirioblanco