#14 [Azua - 10] Mar. 11th, 2013

Hello!!! :) Happy 11th of March!!!

First off, happy birthday to Mom and Michelle Chai this week! :) how happy.
Ok, to answer your questions.
•    The address that Riss would need is just to give it to Elder R. He is the assistant, and he is in my area, so I see him all the time. But if she just wrote, DRSDW Mission- Hermana Erickson, it should get to me. They would be happy to work with her, I am sure. :)

I am happy that you won a Disneyland trip! Speaking of Disneyland - Paige wrote me, and said they were in Disneyland. I am going to write her back. But you can send my thanks to her. As well as Kasha. I got letters from them both. So thanks to them :)

Happy to hear that Riss and I have matching skirts!!! How cute; precious -- Chullo as they say here :) and happy to hear that her talk went well. She always does well on talks. I never got that talent. but she sure did! :)

• So, how was the temple trip? The temple trip was great!!! I had such a fun time. We just did an endowment session - MY first one in Spanish1!! :) It went well. The temple is very pretty. It was also my first not-live one; that was interesting. I don't know which I enjoy better. But, the temple reminded me a lot of the SLC one. Only 2 zones came to this one. The others are going this week, which is why I asked to go this week, so I could meet up with Riss, but such is life. And we go to the temple every 6 months. So we will go in September again :) or that is the plan :)
• No, we never found out the cheese bandit, but we still laugh about it. People these days. Haha, I still can't get over how ridiculous it was. And also, we're now out of cheese, which is unfortunate.
• Okay, so this past week had to be better than the previous two weeks - right? We sure hope so!!! YES! it was. I will tell you all about it :) :)
• Do you know how long sister missionaries have been serving in Azua?  About two years. We had elders before. Do you feel like you are trusted by the members in your ward? I feel like Sister G. is trusted. They all think I am dumb and can't understand them. But I hope they learn to trust me. Also, she is more empathetic, so when someone cries, she rushes to comfort them. I should work on that........... it's just super AWKWARD for me.
• Do you know how many sister missionaries are in your mission? I think we have 12. We are going to get 16 more soon?
• Number of missionaries and how many are coming to serve in the SDW mission? I don't know the answer to this question. I can probably find out. But I know we are going to get 2 more in our house. So that means 2 more in Azua- this next transfer - in 2 weeks!! So I will probably train one of them!! I am scared that she will be a native speaker, and I know she would not respect me if she were a native, because she can speak more fluent. But that is my only fear in training. Otherwise, BRING IT ON!! :) :)

I learned that we can have EFY music here, and Elder R. had this past years in Spanish, and it made me want to listen to my EFY music. So if you find any CDs with efy music, or other church stuff, you could put one of those in. I like music. But other than that, I don't think I need any more cereal. H G likes gummy worms, so maybe you could send some of those for her. OOH, maybe sunscreen. I am already black, but it might be good to have some. I don't trust the stuff here. But if not, I can continue getting skin cancer. :) But thank you very much

Ok. My week. Ready to hear about it? So on Tuesday, we went to a sister in the ward's house, and she showed us how to make SPAGHETTI JUICE!!!! yeah. It tasted gross, but then I remembered that I was drinking soggy spaghetti, and it kept making me gag. But it was good! It would be so great for Soccer and stuff, because it is pure carbs. So tell Heather to drink it :) Recipe: Soggy spaghetti noodles, cooked in water and sugar, then you put it in the blender with water (as runny as you want it, use that much water) then put in milk, and some evaporated milk. Put in a pinch of salt, and then like 5 lbs of sugar! and viola!!! Spaghetti juice!!! :) :) – probably try it sometime.

I was talking to Herm G., and she was talking about this super fun game that she played before her mission - MISSIONARY IMPOSSIBLE. And I just looked at her like, "you enjoyed that game?" But yes, she loved it. It reminded me of the cabin, and how we tried to have a good time, but failed because the game was so lame! hahaha. I love her, a lot. I am going to be sad when we aren’t comps anymore.

Also on Tuesday, I had my first time throwing up since the mission started. That could be another reason why I don't like the juice, who knows. I think I was just dehydrated because I had a migraine, and we were in a lesson, and I looked at HG and signaled that I had to barf, so we ended (they chose me to say the prayer and I am surprised that I didn't spew while praying) and then we hurried home and I threw up, and felt better after :) but I’ve felt great ever since.

So we had a few miracles this week. They were much needed. Our hopes and confidence were both pretty low, but we kept our spirits high with laughter. But we have E..., right? her mom (who is actually her sister-in-law [families here are messed up. I met a guy who has 24 siblings because his dad has had so many kids..] but that is a different story.) E... doesn't want her to get baptized. We have talked to E..., and we went to visit her the other day, and her mom said she wasn't home. So we decided to visit with her mom instead! We had brought a member, and found out that they were 2nd cousins, since everyone is related here – not kidding. But we shared with her, and she opened up to us, and we had a gay old time!! We're thinking that E... will be getting baptized soon :) so yeah!!! Miracle number one.
Number 2, we were headed to the English class on Saturday, and we decided to stop at J's to buy ice cream. He was sitting outside, and he saw us, and we waved. I think he was scared of us--he disappeared the other day right before our appt. with him – but he came over and admitted his smoking, and told us that he wanted to change; completely honest, and all humble like. So we are going to work with him. It makes it so much easier when they admit to doing something; otherwise we can't do anything about it!!!! But that was miracle #2.
We also found out that HG's favorite ice cream flavor is made with alcohol. So we have both had alcohol while on our missions.... I never thought I would have it. We have both decided to not have raisin ice cream anymore. haha...
Miracle #3. Remember S... and A..? We stopped visiting them a while ago because they never came to church. They have family in our branch, but they go to the other branch, and when A and S go to church, they go with the other family. So, it is frustrating. We have tried to talk to the family (the Cano family) about coming to our branch, and they are never home. So, we gave up – then, on Sunday, THE CANO FAMILY WAS THERE!! yay! And it turns out that he was called as the Branch President!! so yeah... Now I have faith that S and A could get baptized.
So yeah! Miracles all around. The only bad thing was that when we went to S and A's house, they told us that they were no longer getting married. They had called off their relationship earlier that day. So HG comforted A.. while she cried, and I sat there – comfort from a distance; but yeah, we need to work with them some more.

Tomorrow is my 3 month mark!!! So weird. I am almost 1/6 done!! Riss gets set apart on my 3 month mark :) how happy.

Well, I think that is the only stuff that happened this week. I am sure a lot more did, but I don't want to get my journal out and search. I did finish my first journal here, so that was exciting. We had a family commit to baptism, and we'll be working with them. It's technically only the parents - the daughters are already members. But we're happy.

Anyways, I love you all. I have some pictures. But I hope you have a fun week. I love you!! The church is true!!

-Hermana Erickson. #1. :)