Good food, Better People

Hello Family!

First off, I'm sorry about last week - we had a temple trip on Wed, then the library was closed thursday and friday for Thanksgiving...then Saturday and Sunday it was closed for the weekend. So I did my best to stay in contact. But I want to hear all about Thanksgiving! How did everything go? Thanks for all your letters. You guys are the best.

I'll start off by answering questions:

Things are really good with Hna. Flores. (Nelssie is her first name) She is really cute and AMAZING at soccer. All the Elders are scared of her becuase she kicks trash on p-day when we all get together to play. She's a lot like me in that she isn't really aggressive when it comes to talking to strangers, so we have to really push each other when we go tracting or contacting, but it's nice because she's really understanding when I get nervous. She grew up in Mexico with an older brother and a younger brother and went to UVU for a year or two before coming out here. She was majoring in culinary arts so she's an amazing chef, but so far we haven't had time to cook anything. She said that's probably a good thing though, because we have terrible knives and she would just get frustrated. She makes a lot of the decisions because I don't know what's going on but I feel totally comfortable putting in my two cents if I ever have any. We work until nine but we try to get appointments at night so that we're not tracting. So far I haven't ever knocked a door after dinner time. Last night we had mexican gorditas, which was a homemade corn tortilla thing (a little thicker) with cheese melted on top and salsa on top of that. And everything is always served with rice and beans and tortillas on the side. We don't use utensils. You're going to think I've become an animal when I get home. Everything is with your fingers and a rolled up tortilla. haha. OUr apartment is two rooms and a kitchen. And a bathroom I guess. It's pretty dumpy. haha. old old old furniture, dirty gray carpet. really basic. I'll send pictures next week. We have a huge board on the wall with John 3:16 on it and all the missionaries who have lived there sign it so it's cool to see Elder Flamm and Elder Matheson's names. We also have a huge whiteboard where we write the names/addresses of our investigators - color coded according to location. So we're way cool. And we have a huge map of the area which I stand and stare at every day but never get any better at finding my way around. We have a couch and an armchair and as of a couple days ago we also have a four foot tall bright pink christmas tree! Feliz Navidad. We associate with the elders in our district the most. They need rides from us a lot. hah. We have district meeting once a week and our district leader calls us every night. P day we clean, grocery shop, do laundry, e-mail at the library here in pasadena, then get together at a chapel with our zone and do sports/write letters. It ends at six but we go to dinner at Hermana Ponce's house; she feeds us until we want to throw up! But she's an amazing cook.

Here's a little taste of memorable Pasadena: we work a lot in apartment buildings, and they all have the same layout by the way so it's impossible to know where I am. haha. but we are teaching a mom named Martha and her daughter Amy. They actually have a baptismal date so if Martha can get off coffee we can get them baptized! But we were teaching one night and we heard this weird noise so we asked Marth if she was alone and she said yes then walked over into the kitchen to investigate. She looked into her garbage (in pasadena it's just a huge paper sack that the city comes and collects) and then said, oh it's just a cockroach! And pulled a four inch cockroach out of the garbage! oh my gosh. My companion just about went backwards up the wall. It was the grossest thing. And then she just dropped it by the garbage can and let it crawl around for the rest of the lesson! I ccouldn't focus at all.

So far, our baptisms keep falling through. Well, at least getting pushed back over and over. But we went to a baptism for a girl in the ward and an investigator of our district leader. The investigator had to get baptized seven times because her dress kept coming up! haha. But we had a family there who is also investigating so that was kinda crazy for us...they had some questions afterwards, haha but I think we explained things. Hopefully we will get an investigator baptized this next week. Her name is Luz and she's been investigating since June so my companion is really wanting to see her get baptized.

I had to give a testimony in sacrament meeting! I was way nervous to speak in churhc. That was crazy. Luckily, I had some time to prepare so I wrote it out. haha. cheater I know but come on that's way scary. Everyone was way nice though. They all complemented me on my accent. I'm talking more now so that's a good thing. My spanish is still so pathetic but it will come. It better. haha I'm certainly praying a lot.

okay i'm sorry I feel like this wasn't a great e-mail. I"m too rushed. I"ll finish with letting you know that Thanksgiving was way fun for me. We ate two dinners with two different member families (we canceled our third dinner because we felt too sick to stuff any more food into our poor stomachs) But the first dinner was with Hna. ramirez and her daughter Diana. They live in our complex and they invited the other elders in our district over too so it was a party. We had turkey and mashed potatoes and green beans and rolls. Then we went to Hna. Ponce's and had the same, with Mexican stuffing and peach cobbler mexican style and rice milk? I don't know what to call it - arroz con leche. it was good but it was a lot of food! haha. AMazing how these people litterally open their arms and take you in to their homes and hearts though.

I miss you and I love you and I think about you all the time!

love love love Becca

xoxoxoxox chancho...I need to borrow some...esweats!