Hi friends and family,
Wow. So lots has happened, but there's not enough time to tell it all. I'm so glad to finally be out of dumb, cold Utah, and in awesome, warm, humid Texas...it was snowing when I left the Salt Lake Airport, not acceptable in my view...Anyway, my mission pres. and his wife sister crawford are the BEST! I love them so much. I've been sent to the Pasadena 3 East area, which covers deer park and the porte. My companion is Hermana Lizanskaya. She is from Russia! She's lived in the U.S. for 5 years so she knows English thankfully, but her Russian accent is so thick that sometimes I can't understand her English, let alone SPANISH!! She knows Russian, English and Spanish. Lucky! I barely even know English, let alone Spanish. We have been "white washed". We both have never been to this area, so this last week was kinda slow going, but she is a great trainer and things are going great. She's VERY soft spoken, which I'm not use to, but she's so helpful.
We have mostly been working on tons of referals. We've spent most of our time in these super ghetto trailer parks to find them. We couldn't find a certain trailer number so we went and asked these people outside their trailer. Not even exaggerating one of the ladies was as skinny as my arm and had this smoker voice, the other lady had long gray hair and was missing her two front teeth, and the old man with them was wearing only overalls, had a cigeratte in his mouth, and was missing all of his teeth and had a raspy voice. Oh my goodness, it was so funny. It took all my strength to keep from laughing!! I thought that was just an exaggeration on movies and stuff, but the people really are like that out here, haha. We gave them some pass along cards.
We've met a few while knocking doors that let us in, and let us share some of our message. Some have been in English, but most are in Spanish. If we teach someone in English we have to give them away to the English speaking Elders unfortunately:( Anywho, SPANISH! Ugh, don't even get me started. Haha, my eyes must have been so HUGE my first few days here, because I have no idea what's going on when we teach. Thankfully my companion is awesome and talks most of the time. Sometimes she goes quiet though and waits for me to talk. If I understood what they were even saying I just continue from there in VERY broken Spanish. But if I couldn't even follow the context of the conversation then I just bare my testimony... because I don't know what else to do. Haha!! I feel myself getting better already though, and I'm not as nervous. There are like 500 goals specific for THE mission, so I have quite a ways to go. I have A LOT to memorize, but it's actually really fun and it's helping me with Spanish too. One of the many things we do is we memorize the ENTIRE 1st vision. Not just the 2 verses you memorize in the MTC. It's like several verses...and I have to memorize it in Spanish...which I don't understand...BAHA. Un dia, un dia.
Church is AWESOME! Everyone is so friendly. Every sister member of the ward greets me with a hug and a kiss. I'm sure the Brothers would do the same if they could, because they're all so loving. I just nod my head, cause I don't know what they are saying, but I feel loved anyway. I love MEXICANS! The Bishop called me to give my testimony randomly. Man out of the 9 other missionaries in that ward I had to? It was super hilarious, because when I bore my testimony the members in the congregation had SUPER confused look on their face because they probably couldn't understand my super gringa accent or awful Spanish, but some thanked me after for sharing. The members feed us delicious food too. The sunday school teacher talks like a million miles an hour...I have NO IDEA what she even talked about on Sunday...oh well.
So, after riding home from a teaching appointment guess what happened...my bike handle bars came off and it was scary! Haha, so then we drove the car the rest of the next day and guess what happened then...we got a flat tire. My companion looked hopeless but luckily I new how to change it. So, we eventually got home okay. The only option was to walk the rest of the day. Just when I was thinking, "Seriously? Man, Satan doesn't want us to work or something" I realized why. If none of that hadn't happened then we wouldn't have noticed these apartements close by. We met this sweet latino family of 4 that let us come in and teach and visit a little with them, a mom, 12 year old daughter, and 2 little boys. We gave them a Book of Mormon and asked them to read. They said that they would and they said we could come back this Saturday, whoot whoot! So excited. They are christian and go to some church pretty often, which is great because they are pretty full of faith. Before we left we asked if we could leave with a prayer. Then the 12 year old girl(I would give all their names, but I can't remember...latino names are WEIRD!) asked if we would pray for her because she had a test in school this week. What a faithful person!!! We got her to pray with us and it was awesome. So, it was actually a blessing in disguise.
One other cool thing that we do as a mission is "Hora de Poder". Hour of power. Every thursday from 6-7 we knock doors. First we meet with a member and teach them a bit. Then we have them pray for us for this hour of power. This is also the day that the general authorities pray for the missionaries in the world when they are in the temple. Also, the Mission Pres. prays for us too. So, it's like a triple wammy of prayers and then we knock for an hour. So, we met with this adorable family on Thursday, and when we got up to leave the mom was all, "okay put your shoes on" to her 5 kids. So, the whole family came and knocked doors with us and it was awesome because we did it in there neighborhood. One of their neighbors let us in and we gave them a lesson. The coolest part is that we didn't even ask the kids to participate but they all randomly gave their testimonies about the BOM, Jesus Christ, and Joseph Smith at the perfect times. It was so cool and it made their mom cry. We gave her neighbor, Miss Elizabeth, a Book of Mormon, so we'll see how that all turns out. She seemed to really enjoy our message too.
Another awesome thing is that we get to go to the temple once every three months as a mission. I came here at the perfect time because we are going this Wednesday. I'm so happy. I miss going to the temple every week, so it's such a blessing that they are letting us go pretty frequently.
Well, I love you all! Thanks for your support. I'd love to hear from you all. Texas is the BESTEST! The Church is true.
Con amor,
Hermana Draya Salcido