To Paula Smith
Hey! Yeah, my first area is right in the Vegas Valley. They call our area east Las Vegas... We are staying with an English speaking couple on a street named Za Zu Pitts! They are super nice, but extremely clean. They had a talk with us our first night to go over house rules. They like to keep their home on the same level of cleanliness as the temple. They also have a home security thing that you have to type a code into every time you leave or come into the house. When we leave, we have a minute to get out before the alarm goes off. It's loco. Haha! At night it's really pretty because right behind our house you can see a perfect view of the strip.
My companion, Hermana Franco, and I have been double transferred, which means it is a brand new area for both of us. We are opening the area. So we've been spending the week trying to visit potentials and members. We've also done some street contacting. It's tough because the area is new for both of us and we're just trying to get our feet on the ground. For the first two days we didn't even have a map of our area, and the area book and the ward list we have is outdated, so many people have moved away. It's tough, but I'm surviving somehow. Haha. The Spanish is really hard for me. I don't really understand much when people talk to me, but I keep my "zoo face" on, as Hermana Franco calls it. Hermana Franco says she couldn't understand a word when she came out, but she's been out 13 months now and her Spanish is great, so hopefully I get there eventually. Today should be our first lesson with a young woman named Gladys.
And wow, I didn't realize how little Spanish I really knew until I got out here! They really do baby you in the MTC! It's 10x tougher out here on the field! Even though I'm serving in a state side mission, I feel like I'm in a different country. Just about everyone out here is Hispanic. And EVERYONE has a Chihuahua! They're all over the streets, in all the houses, EVERYWHERE!
The weather's really nice, though. It's even kind of chilly right now, but the sun warms things up in mid day. Yeah, Hermana Furstenau was pretty good at Spanish in the MTC, but our lessons together were pretty evenly taught I think. So how was dad when he first got out into the field? Could he understand when people talked? Could he talk right away?
I have this fear of being a lack luster missionary, and I really don't want to let opportunities pass me by because I have no confidence in my abilities. It's a struggle, but I'll be okay. I have the Lord on my side.
I actually see Hermana Webb a lot because her companion was my companion's companion during their last transfer. Haha! They were really close, so I just saw Hermana Webb today at the grocery store. She's going to tell her cousin to stalk Joe on facebook, but I'll definitely let her know about his email. ;) She's dead serious about this matchmaking thing. Honestly, I have NO TIME to cash checks here, and I don't even know where a B&T bank is. It would be best to send it back to you and then transfer it over to my debit card.
I'll tell you some really cool things that have already happened, though. So our second night, we were coming home from a potential's house and we did some street contacts on the way back to the car. We came across an older woman named Debra. She spoke English, so we started just talking to her like we normally would during a street contact, and ended up talking to her on her porch for about 40 minutes. She opened up a lot to us and we shared some thoughts about having faith and staying strong and trusting in God through hard times. She expressed to us that she had been looking for peace at this time in her life and she felt as if we were sent to her for a reason. We gave her a card and told her to check out Mormon.org and give us a call. She said she definitely would. We haven't received any phone calls from her, though.
Another cool thing that happened was two nights ago. We were trying to go visit members so that we could get referrals, but hardly anyone answered the door when we knocked. Those that did weren't who we were looking for, but most accepted our pass along cards anyway. Finally, we knocked on our last door and Elsa answered and let us in. Elsa is a member and as we sat down and talked with her, she really opened up to us and shared some very personal trials she's had to go through in her life. She also expressed that she was very lonely and didn't have many friends. In fact, she had some food for the other elders in our district and they said they would come pick it up that night, but had forgotten. We called the elders to remind them and then they came afterwards. She was so grateful for us and felt that we were an answer to her prayers. She said she had been crying all day and reading conference talks and really just having a hard time. And if we hadn't come to her house, the elders would never have come to pick up the food and she would have felt so alone and so sad. Yesterday during Relief Society she shared the experience and thanked us again.
Even though I couldn't understand a great deal of what she was saying, I felt such a great love for her. And that love for the people is what makes this work so worth it.
Oh, and Hermana Franco is convinced the Relief Society president hates us. Haha. When we were at a meeting, the RS president was very disappointed when she found out the two elders who had been visiting her previously would now be replaced by two hermanas. Apparently she also told our zone leaders that she's not too fond of sister missionaries. Who knows why?! We'll just have to win her over somehow. I hear the bishop in our ward is tough to deal with, too. He never even introduced himself to us. He sort of disappeared after sacrament meeting.
My first day on the field our district told us we have a tough area and a difficult bishop..add that on to the fact that I don't speak Spanish and you can imagine how I felt that night. What did I get myself into?!
Really, though, it's a struggle, but I feel much better than I did 3 days ago. I sent a package from the MTC to Las Vegas, but I haven't gotten it yet. They said it would get to my mission home in two days, and it's STILL not here. It had a lot of my Spanish books in it. So I'm kind of freaking out about that, too. Anyway, I love you and I'll send you pictures eventually. I'm just a little stressed, so I can't do it right now. Haha.
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