9-17-2012

Hola todos!
How is everyone? Happy Birthday Prez!!!! I hope it was a good one!!
:) I can´t believe you´re so old now!! And Halle-Balle... send me your
shoe size! I am bringing home something different for everyone but if
anyone specificall wants alpargatas (the Toms shoes) also, let me know
and let me know your shoe size so I can bring those home too. Also
let me know a couple of colors you would like! Ok, so this week...
 
WEATHER: wow. It has been REALLY hot and humid the last couple of
days! It hasn´t rained yet but it really doesn´t need to... all you
have to do is walk outside and you feel like you are swimming, haha.
It is pretty crazy, after being in an air-conditioned building you
step outside and it just hits you like a truck and instantly you are
dripping sweat! We have a temperature thing in our pension and we took
it outside yesterday... not sure if it´s accurate (although I wouldn´t
be surprised), but it said 103 degrees F. The heat isn´t the worst
part though, it´s the humidity. The best part of all though, is that
we´re still in winter. :) hahaha! Spring hasn´t even started yet.
Just imagine what it´s like here in Formosa in the summer. Can´t wait
for that.......... :)
 
COMPANION: this week my companion got big blisters on her feet and has
been kind of waddling haha and walking like a little turtle behind me
all week. Who knew I would be the fast walker by the end of my
mission?! I remember at the beginning I was always running behind my
trainer, wondering how she could walk so fast. And now I am the one
having to learn patience... haha. It´s ok though, at least I can see
my progress!
 
TRANSFERS: this week is transfers. It´s not very likely for me to
go.. I´m pretty sure I will stay here until I finish, but I guess
we´ll see! I have a feeling that there will either be a big change
that will affect me a lot, or there won´t be any change at all with
hardly anything. We´ll see what happens!
 
EXERCISES: this week we have decided that we are going to start eating
healthier and do real exercises instead of sit-ups in bed.. hahah, so
we started waking up a little bit earlier and going out to this soccer
field every morning. I have been running! Well... jogging, hahah,
and a little bit of running. I of course can´t go very far (you all
know how much I LOOOOOVE running), but it´s a start!!
 
EXPERIENCES OF THE WEEK:
On Friday someone tried to break into our pension. Don´t worry.. it´s
not as scary as it sounds! Although we were a little bit freaked out.
We were inside and we heard someone try to open the barred door
outside of our front door, and then they realized it was locked and
banged on the barred door, and then on our window. We asked a couple
of times who it was and they didn´t say anything, and then finally
answered ´yo´ (it´s me) and we asked again and they said ´la señora´
and we asked who they were looking for and they kinda stuttered and
said ´ ehh.... está el señor??´ and we said no that they needed to
knock next door, and then they didn´t knock next door. Haha. I guess
that is a big tactic to rob people here. Luckily we didn´t open! :)
Don´t worry mom and dad... our apartment is doubly locked with 2
different doors and is safe!!
 
This week I also started teaching piano (last week it didn´t work
out). There were about 7 people there and it was actually really fun!
Hopefully I won´t get transferred so I can keep up with that.
 
On Friday we went to see if my shoes were fixed yet (I think the 5th
or 6th time I have had to fix a pair of shoes haha) and a creepy drunk
guy named Cesar appeared out of nowhere really close to us and started
talking to us. He freaked us out a lot at first but then we realized
he was harmless. He was kind of begging us for help... telling us
that he had been in prison and is an alcoholic and really wants to
change his life and really wants help and knows we can help him. We
told him we could only visit him if he was going to be sober, so he
told us the next day he would be sober so we could chat. We show up
the next day and he is outside with 3 other completely wasted guys,
and they all start calling to us telling us to come teach them about
the Bible. Hahaha. Only this was different than the usual drunk guys
who call out creepy/inappropriate things... they were actually serious
and wanted us to teach them! We asked if they drank last night and
they said ´no we just barely started!!´ hahah and they were yelling to
us about how Jesus visited the sinners and helped the sinners. It was
the most hilarious thing to watch... they were totally wasted but
seriously wanted us to go teach them... even calling themselves
sinners to get us to go teach them, haha. We told them we could come
another day, in the middle of the day, when they weren´t drunk. It
was pretty hilarious.
 
Saturday Lucas and Ezekiel from my old area got baptized! I had the
opportunity to find them and start teaching them, and I had permission
from president to go but then our investigator couldn´t go so we
weren´t able to go either :( :(. I was pretty bummed.. but really
happy to know that all went well and they both were able to get
baptized!!
 
This week we have found some good people that can progress. The only
weird thing is that they all have weird names.... one is named Reina
(which means queen), Coca (as in coca-cola... coca also means cocaine,
hahah), Ñoco (I think this comes from Ñoqui which is a type of
noodle... it´s just a nickname but his real name is Amador which is
also weird because it means ´lover´ hahah), and Geronima (ya know like
how you say ´geronimoooooooo!´... like that, only feminine. hahah).
It´s been good though... we have had to leave some people who weren´t
progressing, but it feels so good to be moving on. (It´s funny how
every relationship with investigators is like a real relationship) We
had Zunilda who was progressing and then started avoiding us. It´s so
funny how everyone here just trains their kids to say ´ no hay nadie!´
(no one´s home) when people show up at the door. The other day we
show up to find her door wide open and music blasting, and we hear her
yelling inside at one of the kids. A neighbor like 3 houses over
yells ´no hay nadie!!´ hahaha. Then her little daughter comes up and
we ask for her mom and she points to the house and tells us she´s
inside. Then she enters in with some other kids, and they all run
outside and tell us that no one´s home and they try to shut the door
haha. We finally write a note telling Zunilda that if she´s not
interested we would appreciate her sincerity and honesty and we ask a
little neighbor to deliver it her, and he of course goes directly into
the house to give it to her. It was great. We went by the next day
and her sister finally told us that she wasn´t interested. Is it
really that hard to be honest? I guess for some people it is!
 
Anyway... I think that´s about it for the week! All is going well and
I am loving the mission more than ever, despite the little success we
are having. Thanks for all of your support!!
 
--Hermanita Hunt