Dear Everyone,
This past week has been pretty eventful, so I'll try to get it all in as best I can in the time that I have. First I'm going to try and answer the questions I neglected to answer last time. Also, I'll try to get a handwritten letter off to Rebecca Johnson, Sarah, the Simmons and the Hancocks, since they were all so kind to send me letters around my birthday and I failed to get one sent off this last week. I know I failed at that this week, but I'm working on changing that.
I did get the package from Mom, and I'm very grateful for that. The belt is awesome, and the snacks and what not were very welcome. However, I am confused about the sending of hot chocolate, since it still averages about 95 - 100 every day, but I'm very excited to use it when it cools down here a bit, probably around December. Everything I need for the bike is here, so you don't have to worry about that at all. And as far as email goes, I believe it is only supposed to used, receiving or sending, with family. However, if my address is lost for a short time, or if someone just has a quick thing they need to get off to me, it's fine, I guess. The one exception for that is other missionaries on their missions. I have sent a few short emails back and forth with a friend of mine in the West Indies, for example, since it is hard to write letters between busy, moving missionaries.
I guess a natural launching point for my first story would be to correct something Mom said in her letter to me this past week. On the contrary, I have seen TONS of rain here in Donna. The rain here beats the rain in Virginia for sure. And, the thing that makes it even worse, here, is that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is flat. When it rains, it pours, and since there is no natural place for the water to flow, any dip in the road or any depression has at least three inches of standing water in it. There have been days when it was dry, don't get me wrong, but there are also some pretty big storms we've been caught in. Maybe I'll baptize somebody in one of the giant puddles they have around here someday (kidding, but seriously, they're huge).
I guess the most important thing that happened this last week was that we found two new great families to teach. One is the family of a middle-aged woman named Sandra, and her two children Danny, 15 and Ilene, 11. They were a referral from a family in the ward and are all really great. We had our first meeting with them on Saturday and they accepted a baptismal date and then came to church on Sunday. They seem to be really interested in hearing the Gospel. Sandra is a window. Her husband died when she was young, and she has had a hard time providing and caring for her family. But she is a very hard working and productive woman. Danny and Ilene, the two kids, are possibly some of the tallest people I've seen. Danny is 6 foot 4 inches at age 15 and still growing, but Ilene is the really crazy one. She's 11 years old and 5 foot 10 inches! When we were in Church on Sunday, one of the 16 year old girls from Young Women's came by to invite her to their activities, only to find out she's still in Primary! I just shot her a big grin and started laughing, but she seems pretty used to it.
Earlier on that same Saturday, we met Julie and her husband, Herman, and their family of four young boys. We had tried to meet with them over and over but kept finding them busy and to be honest, I was starting to lose faith in them. But we still stopped by Saturday morning to try and see them and Julie answered the door. Her husband was still sleeping but she said that she would call us with a time that we could come back and visit with them. I thought to myself, "Well now, she's just not going to call us and this whole process of trying to catch her free will start over again." However, to my surprise, about a half an hour later she called and asked when was the soonest that we could come over. We hurried back to their house and had a really nice lesson with them. We asked them if they wanted to be baptized, not really sure if they were actually taking in the things we were talking about. My companion and I were both surprised when they both looked at us and said, "Oh yes, we've both been wanting to be baptized for a while now." It's always amazing to me when we're able to catch a glimpse of the work that the Lord is doing in people's lives. We go out and work every day and we think that we're doing a lot in the world, and then you stumble upon a part of God's mysterious workings and grand designs. I can testify that the Lord really is at work here in the vineyard, and that he is doing more to soften and change people's hearts than we could ever hope to do.
The other story that I have from the week is that I had my first day on a bike out here in the mission field. We have a car in Donna, but I was on exchanges with the Elders in Weslaco, a bike area. It wasn't too bad really, but it just made me even more grateful for just how chiflado (spoiled) I am back in Donna. During the exchange I was with Elder Bell, from Tennessee, who interestingly enough, reminds me strongly of Elder Hancock. They don't look similar at all, but they both have similar attitudes. They're both positive about everything and can get excited about any subject.
Anyways, I'm just going to use this last bit of time to talk about some random subjects/questions I got from a few people that I figured everybody might be wondering about. So far, I have not run into anything deathly spicy, except for maybe one small incident. We were at a gas station getting some breakfast right before a meeting in McAllen, and I got a couple of burritos. My companion, who loves spicy things, went over to get some salsa. I figured I'd grab some too. I got a little cup of some tame looking salsa, but, on my way up to the register I figured I'd try just a bit of it. So, I just barely touched my finger into the salsa and licked it, only to find out that the salsa was not "tame" at all. I will admit I was struggling to hold back the tears and painful faces as I was paying for my burrito, desperately trying to reject my gringo status.
Spanish is coming along pretty well here. Pretty much everyone I meet is really impressed with how much I know for having just come off the plane. Most of the Spanish Ward members think that I've been in the mission a while and are quite surprised when they figure out I got here three weeks ago. However, I'm still able to keep the pride out because though I can speak the Spanish fairly well, all of the Mexicans around here talk really fast and have slang words that they never taught us in the MTC. So, I still have trouble understanding a lot of the Spanish speakers here. It is improving, though, and I'm slowly catching on and finding the spaces between their words. Probably the funniest thing that happens though, is that people see that I'm white and assume I don't speak any Spanish.
One time a man opened his door and he seemed fairly young so I started off in English and he replied back with a simple "hello". So I started to explain that we were missionaries in English at which point I could tell he wasn't interested and to try to get us to give up he replied, "No hablo Ingles". I just smiled and started speaking in Spanish at which point he just sighed, drew back, and closed the door. I have one other story kind of like that, but more of just one that frustrated me, but was still kind of funny. I have trouble switching between thinking and speaking in Spanish and English, so I like to just stay in one language or the other. So, I was really thrown off and stumbling when we were talking with a man and a couple of his friends. We came up and started talking to them and without fail, the man would always talk to everyone else in Spanish, and then talk to me in broken English. Even after I replied to him in Spanish, the process continued. He'd look at my companion and say, "Buenas dias, como esta?" then turn to me and say, "Hey, how you doing buddy?". With all the switching in languages I just get confused and end up speaking to different people in the wrong language. Hopefully, soon I'll get used to it and be able to switch back and forth without having to consciously think about it.
I hope everything is going well in Virginia, and wherever everybody else is. Everything is great out here in Texas, and things are slowly but surely moving along. I hope everyone has a good week and can try and see the hand of the Lord in whatever work you're engaged in.
Love,
Elder Wood
