Birthday!

Hello Family!

So I'm just sittin here in my trendy new brown skirt. That's right, I said brown. Nope, it's not a black skirt from downeast. That's the thing mom, you WROTE about a black skirt but it never made its way into the package. . . guess you decided to give it to Jessica! hahah jk. But that was pretty funny. I was confused. But THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH for the Birthday package! It got here the day BEFORE my birthday but I was really patient and I opened it on my birthday right after our morning run. It was perfect! Everything is so cute and fit well so it was a success. I'm the trendiest sista out here now. haha thank you thank you. (LOVE the shirt. big points!) It was all nice and lightweight...perfect. And so fun to hear from everyone. So here's how the day went down: In the morning, when we got back from our run, there was a Tupperware on our porch with a big bow on it, full of candy and ramen noodles from the elders. They left a message on our phone singing a terribly off-key rendition of happy birthday. Then we opened the box from ya'll and played around for a while taking pictures, etc. We baked the cake during planning so that that night we'd be able to come back and blow out the candles and eat it! I got lots of calls from the other missionaries and lots of letters that day so it was awesome. We took the cake to district meeting the next day and everyone loved it. Hermana Warner was teasing me and she told some of the elders that I was turning 24 but they totally believed her and so then when I told them she had lied they were like, "yeahhh suuuuure Hermana Tingey." hahah so I guess I've got an old (fat) face! Anyways. It was memorabe. Oh yeah, President and Sister M. called and sang as well. Cute.

Speaking of President: We had some serious fire and brimstone from him this week! He called a "specialized training meeting" with the two spanish zones and then called us all to repentance! I've never seen him like that. He basically just said that the numbers in the Spanish areas have never been so low and he accounts it to our slacking off with the language. The rule is that you're supposed to speak only Spanish the second you set foot outside your apartment and any time you're on the phone, which we definitely weren't following. So we were feeling pretty guilty. Not fun. Anyways the moral of the story is that we are now speaking a LOT more Spanish than we were before so hopefully we'll see the numbers go up. We also cracked down on our Spanish study and a few other things that were getting slack. Next time we have a meeting like that I want to be able to sit there and listen, knowing that I'm not the one who needed the talk.

Anyways, next week is transfers so we're all getting nervous. NOBODY in our zone changed last time so we're all going to mix around this time we think. I hope I stay but. . . let's be realistic.

We met a cool kid on the street this past week. His name is Victor and he was just walking down the street that we were knocking so I talked to him and turns out he's totally interested. (he looked like a thug...I really didn't want to contact him because I was judging and profiling him but it just goes to show you not to judge a book by it's cover, or an investigator by his bling) But he asked if he could come to our church! (YES please do) We got him a ride with a family that lives near by that has a kid his age and they were chatting it up all through church yesterday. We love setting people up like that. We';re going to be queens of line- ups when we get back. We like to call it "man dates" because we're trying to line people up with potential friends. haha anyways, he's a cool kid.

We've met a lot of new people this week and knocked just about every door in this area that I haven't already knocked. (not true, there's LOTS more) but we're excited to see who starts to progress. Noel got the Priesthood last week and told us that every day is better and better. He has three names ready to take to the temple. Atta boy. He's amazing.

I'm doing great! really not wanting to leave my little home here on bellfort. Hope everyone is doing okay and loving the new school year! hahahaha i wish you all lots of long hours of homework. I"ve done my share. Love you! thanks again for the birthday stuff. You're the best!

Love,

Becca