One Year.

hey everyone. 

 

Can you believe it is October?  I don't think that has quite sunk in yet, and we're almost done with this month and on to November already!  So weird.  I remember so vividly walking into the MTC one year ago.  haha.  I had no idea what I was headed into.  But that's probably a good thing.  hahahha. Do you remember that day Mom?  It was a memorable one.  We left and bought this little dog collar of a watch (still hanging in there) at Wal-mart - the first of many quality wal-mart purchases to be made during this mission experience.  (we shop at wal-mart. haha) Then we drove down to provo.  (ew. but it had to be done.)  and went to TGIFridays and ate molten lava cake which, for the record, I think we should eat soon after my arrival home because it was awesome, and I felt weird for being in a skirt even though everyone and their dog in the restaraunt knew exactly what was going on.  Now when I go into restaraunts, I still feel weird in a skirt, but nobody knows what's going on.  they just think i really am weird.  and sometimes I want to wear a sign that says "in real life, I wear jeans like a normal person." haha  it's better just to eat in our apartment.  But now I know what the polygamists in st. george feel like when they shop in the same store as people like us who rubberneck them all around the store. 

 

ANYWAYS And then we went up to the temple and took some pictures and my biggest regret is that I didn't take any on my camera!  so i've never seen them.  but they're probably great.  and then we walked down and took more pictures and then we walked back up and got the car and drove down and before we could even get a good cry on they whisked me away!  Rip that bandaid off I guess. haha.  And ever since then I haven't had two minutes to sit down and think.  okay that's not true but that's how I feel.  It was a good day though.  And I hardly slept at all that night.  

 

My sleeping has improved over the last year, so that's a relief.  Now I can't seem to get enough!  But I have yet to fall asleep on my knees (dad's favorite) so I think I'm doing pretty good. 

 

What else have I learned in the past year? 

 

spanish.  .  . sortof. 

spanglish.  for reals. (it really is a skill to learn!  before it used to confuse me but i got it down now)

that Christ came to the Americas (just kidding mom, that's your story! )

that my brother spencer is a saint for cleaning our hair out of the drain.  i hate doing it. 

that elders leave things in the fridge for years at a time.

that dogs aren't pets, they are guards.

tortillas are a utensil!  roll them up to be like the mexicans. 

mujer en volante, peligro instante.  this has proven to be true. 

cucumbers taste good if you squeeze lime over them.

just about anything tastes good if you squeeze a lime over it.  (except cow stomach)

most people come to the door after the third time you knock it.

cockroaches come in three sizes.  tiny, big and huge. 

they hide in the dishwasher, microwave, under the fridge and in the crack between the carpet and the floor. 

most people are spiritual.  but most people aren't religious. 

If you are carrying a bike up a flight of stairs, it helps to grab the bar below the handlebars and below the seat, then heft up onto your hip.

the freeway system in Houston is just two big circles

bolilla means me.  so does guera.  so does americana.  so does misionera. and they call us that.

the mailman comes at three thirty.  his name is Batiste.  he is a very happy black man.  and he knows everything about missionaries. 

it never pays to be stressed over being late. (dad, I owe you an apology for every day of my highschool career)

 it never pays to be stressed over anything

 

I could add a billion more obviously, but I think most of all if I had to choose just one, I would say that I have learned that having faith means trusting God.  That means doing what you know how and trusting that he will do a loaves and fishes miracle to make that be enough.  It means not to stress about where your next investigator will come from because he will provide.  (abraham was right!) It means not to stress about anything related to the future.  just do your best, enjoy the present, and keep going! 

 

this was a good week.  We met a man named Carlos who accepted baptism in our first lesson!  We haven't been able to follow up with him yet but we're excited for him.  What's weird is that when we were driving to our appointment with him, I got to his street and for some reason went past it.  I knew I was passing it but I just couldn't turn down.  We stopped our bikes and Hermana asked me what was wrong and I said I didn't want to go down his street.  She just kinda looked at me and I said "we have to, don't we." and she said, "well...do you want to try going around the block and coming UP the street?"  so I said no and turned the bike chariot around and went down.  it was so weird.  I dont' know why I had that.  But it's interesting how sometimes we hesitate right before something amazing is about to happen.  Why do we do that?  I dunno. What I do know is that fear is pretty much at the root of all failure.  and like hermana keele and I posted on our wall, "the chief cause of failure is sacrificing what we want most for what we want in the moment."  I don't know.  but there you go - a little pep talk for you. just call me Kyle Whittingham.

 

alright that's all i've got.  

 

I love you! have a good one!

 

Becca 

 

p.s. we dropped Fernando (against his own wishes) because he refuses to pray.  but he came to church and everything.  he can't get enough of us.  more on him when he humbles himself enough to admit that he actually needs god's help to come to a religious conclusion.

White and rockin!

Dear people who may or may not be reading this because my sweet sister sarah may or may not be updating my blog regularly these days:

How's everyone doing?  I am tired.  I guess that's a good thing haha.  We hit it hard this week - and plus it doesn't help that Hermana Killpack's bike chain broke so we ended up walking about four or five miles Saturday night trying to get out of the gangsta ghetto of cloverleaf before dark.  But actually, it was kinda nice to get off the bikes and walk for a while.  I gianed a new appreciation for the differences between the cluttered ditches of cloverleaf, TX and the paved roads of Holladay, UT. We've started a list entitled "things found in the cloverleaf ditches" and so far we have :beer bottles, mangy dogs, frogs that make a creepy bleating noise, COUCHES (see picture from last week), newspapers, deflated basketballs, an upside down doghouse, garbage of all sorts, a shopping cart, coke cans (those are rare because so many people walk around collecting soda cans, so it's ten points if you find one of those) and if you're lucky, maybe a dead possum or cat or armadillo.  This list is an open list, so you may hear me make reference to it in the future.  stay tuned. 

So Hermana Killpack is going to be awesome.  correction: she IS awesome.  I've never been with a harder working companion.  Today is actually her Birthday so here's a shoutout to my girl Killpack.  and just between us, her name is Jessica so I liked her right off the bat.  She LOVES pride and prejudice so we were basically made for eachother.  It's fun to finally be with someone who has just as much time as I do on the mission.  I feel like we have the same goals and the same sense of near urgency as we're about to hit our year mark together on thursday.  We were talking about how we both feel like there was SO much we expected to accomplish on our missions and you start to realize that a year and a half just isn't that much time.  So there's lots to do.  The ward just thinks it's HILARIOUS that she is named "killpack."  they told me that I went from one "kill" to another.  (for those of you who are cocking your heads to the side and reading that past sentence more than once, Hermana Keele was my last companion and it is pronounced "kill") and now they just call Killpack Hermana kill.  It's a good thing she's a good sport.  

So this week we were out knocking doors (ALL DAY EVERY DAY pretty much) and we found this weird looking house with the stairs coming up on the side, slanting at about a fourty five degree angle so that I had to lean to the side in order to walk up onto the porch and knock.  Nobody answered.  Darn.  I wanted to see if the person living there leaned to one side.  But as we were walking off, I noticed that the driveway went way back and there was another shed/house looking thing in the back, with a black girl sitting on the porch.  At first I kinda thought "too far.  and she definitely doesn't speak spanish" but my guilt got the better of me and so we walked back to contact her.  She was way nice and seemed pretty interested so we referred her to the elders.  They are currently whitewashing their area so I was pretty suprised that they went over the next day but they called us and apparently she loved the restoration message - they said she broke down crying, and said she didn't want "this feeling" to leave.  She was supposed to move on Friday but she stayed to figure this "mormon thing" out.  haha!  she went to church yesterday and she has a baptismal date.  So we're pretty good at finding people for the english elders to baptize.  I told them they owe us one. 

Other than that, we're looking for people to teach.  So if you know any spanish speakers in the Cloverleaf area, write me back ASAP!  hahahaha.  It's going to be a good transfer though. 

Hermana Keele called me from her new area to tell me that she lives with two english sister missionaries and their names are Sister Wallace (whom I already knew) and her greenie...sister...BOWHUIS (whom i ALSO ALREADY KNEW!) what?  that's right.  MaryJane, are you freaking out right about now?  because Mrs Bowhuis' daughter courtney is in my mission!  newly arrived.  I'm excited to see her. I got to say hi and she sounds good.  zippy and unexpected twist:  she was actually dating the brother of a boy in my district in Broadway 2, so I've known she was coming out all along but just didn't realize it was HER.  (nobody ever said her actual name.  they all just said "Elder Gardiner's brother's girlfriend" was coming to our mission.)   So that was pretty funny.  I asked Hermana Keele how Baytown was and she said "very large, very WHITE, and rockin."  Not to be outdone by the infamous Keele, I shot right back, "oh so it's just like me."  and she DISSOLVED into laughter.  I could literally hear her hit the floor and roll around.  That's why I love her.  Everything is a big deal.  hahaa.

So that's what's new with me.  I think we're going to go grocery shopping after this, then get the car washed and get our hair cut!  woohoo.  so it's a big day.  Hope everyone has a very white, very rockin week.  Lovin this October in Texas weather. 

love

Hermana Becca

Transfers!

So first things first...today is TRANSFER DAY. I am staying in the ever gangsta clovaleaf but Keele got transferred. she's opening up a brand new Hermana area in Baytown so I'm afraid I won't be seeing her much anymore! I need to take a moment to feel bad for missionaries all over the world who, all to often, have their lives turned upside down when the person they live, sleep, eat, cry, fight, and breath with has to move. But it happens so often that nobody even feels bad for us. It's really not fair. Losing a companion is worse than breaking up with your really serious boyfriend. haha. almost. not really. But i'm going to miss Keele! That was a tough one for me. I was suprisingly emotional about it. My new companion is Hermana Killpack from Idaho. She started her mission the same day I did and so we'll be going home together five transfers from now! that sounds so weird. let's not think about it. She's really cute though so I'm excited for the transfer. Time to show her around this crazy town! We're going to have fun. I can already tell.

Rafael did it! He is officially a member! That was such a great way to end our transfer together. It was kindof a stressful day for me though because we started off the day by going to a tri-mission conference (that means everyone serving anywhere in Houston) to hear Elder Costa speak! It was cool. We got to shake his hand, and he gave a really good, really motivating talk. Just what I needed! But it was out of our mission so it took us a while to get home and we barely made it in time for the baptism. Oh well. It worked out! He is such a good guy.

Alright. time to talk about atheist Fernando. (go on everybody, sing the song! ... I've never even heard it but everybody is mentioning it so I know that's what you're all doing in your head right now! are you done yet? okay let's continue) He's still an atheist, but he is an atheist that is in LOVE with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. hahahaha! He came to our correlation meeting on Wednesday asking all about For the Strength of Youth, then showed up to a lesson with parts of it underlined! He came to church on Sunday, (got in an argument with the Hermanos about faith, so we gave him a pretty tough talking to telling him that he couldn't come to our church just to argue and that he needed to come to LEARN) and afterwards he called us and the elders and asked to meet at the church again, where we talked and finally broke down a couple walls about his personal life and he asked what he would need to do to be baptized. what? still hasn't decided if there's god, but he's reading the book of mormon and coming to church. we know he believes in God, he just doesn't know it yet. But he's almost there. Stay tuned. I think he's going to suprise us all.

I hope everyone is doing well - sorry this email is so scatter-brained, transfer day does that to the best of us! I love you and miss you! enjoy the pics!

love, Becca

p.s. sarah, you tell me how well the hair worked in the humidity? I thought it did pretty well... this was the end of the day.

p.p.s.just another day studying scriptures in our classy classy area! isn't that nuts? we've started a list of things we find in the ditch on the side of the road - COUCH! crazy.

what? it is October.

Hey you guys

So what do you do on a pday when you have laundry to do, letters to write, scriptures to study, an apartment to clean, and a language to learn? You obviously sit in front of the mirror for an hour and straighten your goldilocks curls! hahah. But only if your companion insists (incessantly) (did i spell that right? I don't think so...)and she curls her unforgiveably straight hair so that you're not alone in your sudden change of appearance. That's right. It's straight today. And I feel weird. I'll let you know how it goes after a day out in the 67% humidity. Speaking of that - can you believe it? sixty seven percent! It feels soooooo good outside! And we're actually down in the eighties. I told Hermana Keele this morning that I was going to wear a sweater. But then I decided not to and I'm glad I didn't. Not THAT chilly yet.

Alright so last Tuesday we were knocking doors and having ZERO success. We were having the opposite of success actually. It was one of those days where you start to maybe almost doubt the first line of the young women's theme a little bit. (the "who loves us" part) Anyways the last straw for me was one of the last doors we knocked when a punk eighteen year old kid answered with his headphones on and took one look at us before saying "Christians? I'm not interested. I'm atheist." and attemped to shut the door in our faces. Luckily, Hermana Keele doesn't take that from ANYBODY. haha so she asked him what makes him atheist and he said a few things and then I started pouring my heart out testifying that there is a God and that he is our loving Father and he said "yeah yeah, that's nice." and shut the door. mid-Hermana Tingey-sentence. We both kinda threw our heads back, and said "Alright thanks so much, have a nice day" through the glass of the door, and walked off to get shut down by the next door. (a little more kindly at least...they just turned their music up louder and never answered haha) The next day, keele said "remember that punk atheist kid we met yesterday who totally ticked you off?" and I said "hermana. I'm trying NOT to remember him, thanks." haha Well somewhere in our exchange with the atheist, we must have slipped him a pass-along card because next thing we know, Wednesday night we're sitting in correlation and IN HE WALKS. what? yeah. headphones and all. but get this - he's wearing church clothes. Turns out he totally researched everything you can possibly read online about mormons and he came to ask us a few questions...which turned into him repeating over and over again that he was atheist and us just ignoring him and teaching him. Finally I said, "Fernando. It's not too often that an atheist walks into a church." He said "i know." But long story short, we now have "atheist fernando" under our "progressing investigators" list because he came to THREE of the five conference sessions AND he read 1 Nephi chapter one. He said it was "okay" and that he didn't really get it. But he keeps calling us. Definitely not atheist. Hermana Keele bet me fifty bucks that he gets baptized. I'm starting to think she's right. He keeps saying maybe he'll pray "a little later on" but he's not ready to yet. And yeah, we're pretty excited about him. Interesting fact: he said that what got him interested in us was how we maintained our composure on the doorstep when he was rude to us. pretty cool.

We met a quirky little couple this week named Benny and Bianca whom I couldn't even BEGIN to describe, but let's just suffice to say he's your typical strong silent hispanic guy with tatts all up and down his arm who draws beautiful pictures while he's "locked up" and she is a white redneck with an obnoxious laugh who desperately wants to be the mafia member's girlfriend. But she had faith like you wouldn't BELIEVE and when he was telling us he doesn't feel worthy of approaching God to ask him if the Book of Mormon is true she said, "Benny, you CAN ask God. Because I know he loves you. When I first met you after leaving my ex-husband, I prayed and I said, God if this is the man you want me to be with, let it be. And you BEED Benny. You beed." Yes folks. He beed. it was so funny, but it came at such a tender moment that I couldn't even laugh. She is amazing. Her ex husband came up behind her one day in his eighteen-wheeler while she was driving with her three girls and purposely rammed into the back of her, knocking his three children out of the car and paralyzing the left side of her body. Her faith is based mostly on the miraculous recovery she has had (really just her eye droops now) and the fact that her three daughters were unharmed. That is cloverleaf. But we love it.

Rafael is on for this Saturday. He's going under the water and coming back up a Mormon! We're so excited for him. He's so excited. It's all just good feelings all around. Gotta love the guy. He's incredible.

That's all folks. at least all for now. i'm kinda bored of typing. But I hope you hear from ya'll real soon. I love you and I miss you and I appreciate you all! Take care,

Becca

Monday Monday....SO GOOD TO ME!

That is our theme-song for P-day. But sometimes we sing it to our investigator Belkis (sounds like BELL-keys, mom). and we put her name in there so it goes "Belkis, Belkis...so good to me!" haha and the best part is she is totally gangster and she doesn't even flinch. We come riding up on our bikes singing that out to her and she just goes,"hey." without even CRACKING a smile. doesn't even acknowledge that we're doing anything out of the norm! she's incredible! she's got a sense of humor like steel! haha but man has she had a hard go of it. She is twenty one and pregnant with her fourth child and her boyfriend is abusive in every way possible. It's scary. But I think she holds her own. Seriously. She has told us stories. If i were a man I would be terrified of her.

ANYWAYS...

So last monday night. hahaha. three words: noche de HOGAR! family night. We asked our recent convert Esmeralda if we could do an FHE at her house with our investigator, Rafael. So around three that afternoon Esmeralda calls us and invites us to do it at our relief society president's house instead, because the elders were doing one with her and she invited esmeralda and it just turned into a string of one mexican inviting another and the end result was that we totally crashed the elders' FHE. haha but at about six forty five she called us and said that she was waiting outside our apartment to drive us to it and so we walk out and realize "wait a minute. that's not esmeralda's car. who is that man in that truck?" and it turns out that RAFAEL was driving us, and Esmeralda, and FOUR other women from the ward to the noche de hogar! of course the five women squished in the back seat of the truck so that Hermana Keele and I could sit up front, nice and cozy with our investigator, with his crucifix swinging wilding from the rearview mirror right in front of our noses, while he frustratedly tried to get directions from the five giggling women in the back who lovingly refer to him as "rafa." hahahahhaa I think next time they'll just stick us in the trunk! that's the way we do it here in cloverleaf. Needless to say, I think he's doing well in the "fellowshipping" department. And that was the best FHE i've ever been to. It's a party here in Houston 7.

So "Rafa" is doing great. He really is though. He's a little timid but he told us that he's getting more comfortable around us now and he certainly is telling us more during the lessons. And he prayed for us last time! so that is a good sign. We haven't been able to meet with him as much as we wanted to so we've moved his baptism back to the ninth. He's great. Loves the church. Just really worries that he won't be prepared enough to get baptized. I think he has very little confidence in his spirituality. but we've got lots of confidence in him! he understands everything we teach and expands on it!

It's a good thing we've got Rafael because just about everyone else that we know shut us down this week. Quite literally. and I wish I were kidding. Teresa let us down and didn't come to church even though she PROMISED us she would be coming. So we went to her trailer to chew her out and found her whole family plus every cousin twice removed she's ever had watching the soccer game. not to worry, they invited us in and pulled up some chairs for us in the corner - handed us spicy mango suckers, and went back to the game. So we talked right there in the corner with Teresa. I think she'll figure it out. She's just confused. But she definitely feels the spirit around us. Other than that, we've been doing a lot of finding and we met a woman named... Lily Luna. She is loony. I want to caller her Luna Lovegood! she lives in a bright pink house and she has all these plants and she had one foot painted blue toenails and the other foot green and she doesn't shave her armpits. Anyways she immediately fell in love with us. Didn't listen to a word we were saying. But it was a funny time. The best part of the story happened a few days later though when we were back on her street visiting one of her neighbors and I looked up and saw her...ON THE ROOF OF HER HOUSE! Of course. Of course. hahahhaa. that was a good laugh.

We also met a WHITE guy this week named Josh. He actually waved us down on the bikes - he was standing in front of a gas station, drinking. And he was quite drunk. But he told us all about the girls he met once who were missionaries and how dang fine they were. Then he asked if we were married and "what would happen if he showed up to our church in a tuxedo." hahaha! we just both started laughing and he started laughing and we were laughing at him but he didn't realize it so he just kept laughing and that made us laugh even harder. He said that he needed us and Hermana Keele said, "no Josh. you need Jesus." That is the conversation in a nutshell. Actually it lasted about ten minutes and he just TALKED AND TALKED but never said ANYTHING. For example he would say something like this, "yeah, I know who's ya'll are...me and my buddies, we talked and a fine girl like you, GIRL, you's so da*# SMART! ya'lls iz smart as he#! and one day we put on our finest up ther in pine trails and i be drinking and she had such fine blue eyes and i need ya'll. i need ya'll." and on and on and ON. Meanwhile, the homeless couple we contacted about a block back had made it up to the gas station and while the wife (who only had one breast, and definitely did not have even one bra cup) went inside to buy something, her husband listened in on our convo with Josh and then got right up in my face (he should probably get the skin cancer removed from his nose) and laughed and said "what's his problem!?" and I just kinda pulled my face back and said, "good question." and then he said "huh! he's bin drinkin." Well diagnosed. Which brings me to the other homeless man we met this week named Monty who carried a backpackers backpack and as soon as we gave him a pass along card crumpled it up and started picking at his teeth with it. Made for a difficult time not laughing when we had to refer to the number on it and he had to un crumple it and wipe off the plaque. yuck. Once he realized we were "Jesus people" he just threw his hands up in the air and walked off without saying anything, which I guess is one way to deal with us. Hermana Warner looked at me under her cute little green helmet and said, "I guess Monty's just not into that Jesus stuff." haha. We saw him at a bus stop the next day, yelling across the street at some kids. We sped by and called out "hey monty!" and he said "GIRL, you lookin' FINE today!" so if not a great contact, he's at least a good confidence booster.

But hey, we had a trunky moment watching the women's conference. The hermanas were all saying how they knew their moms were watching it right then and I remembered how my sweet mother always skips it to go to the football game. So I secretly sang the Ute's fight song in my leetle hart so that I would feel connected to my mom too. Kinda like when I come up and hug you from behind mom. But hey - I really do love you and you should read the Prophet's talk because it was a good one. Thank you so much for sending me those notes! i hope you read them first. It's cool to see those blessings coming true! others i'm still waiting for...haha but it helps me have more faith. Okay I love you all this is an incredibly long email for a fairly uneventful week. All in a day's work here in the clover leaf! Take care. "Do work son, and peace be the journey." (quoted from Hermana Keeler.)

love Becca

MY APOLOGIES!

For those of you who follow this blog...this is Sarah. I'm so sorry I haven't kept it up to date! Here are her past emails all in a row. I'll be better from now on!

Hello Tingey Clan!

Can you believe it is september twentieth already? what? That is so crazy. We are one month away from my one year mark (but who's counting, right?) haha. Okay Since nobody seems to be online to chat with me today maybe this e-mail will actually make some sense.

We had a crazy week. Partly because of an adventure we took one day, but mostly because we're missionaries in ghettho-houston texas, teaching mexicans about the gospel. So here's the adventure: Hermana Keele had a doctor's appointment in Beaumont for her allergies, which coincided perfectly with Elder Rindflesch's appointment with the same doctor and since that doctor lives an hour away, we decided to carpool. To make a long story short, what should have been a three hour jaunt to the allergy doctor turned into an all day boredom fest in a doctor's waiting room and an emergency check in to the nearest (baptist) hospital. Yeah. Elder R. had some test done on his heart that came back irregular so they checked him into the hospital and he ended up staying overnight. Not exactly the way you want to spend a day on the mission. Especially when there is some hick texan mormon in the waiting room with you who starts talking about the kid that he's not sure is his and the vaults where they hide all the secret mormon stuff in salt lake in from of a room full of patients. Greeeeaaaat. Now they really think we are normal! He was pretty weird. And I think the elders were about ready to punch him out. But Hermana Keele and I decided that while we were waiting, we might as well kill time at the nearby goodwill store, and we made a few quality purchases. (a spanish club tee-shirt. it doesn't get any better.) Anyways. That was a really far distance for us to drive. and we did nothing all day. I hate that. So we were glad to get home.

Not to be outdone, the next day held an even bigger adventure for us cloverleaf sisters. We met Greg. Greg is a Texan baptist who speaks english and wears a wifebeater and has Jesus in his heart and that's ALL you need. We tried to talk some sense into him but he just went off for about an hour, making no sense and confusing himself and us, and at the end of that hour, he asked if he could pray with us. So then he grabbed both of our hands and prayed to "Father Jesus Lord" that we would realize that there is no such thing as prophets and that if America were a body, "let Houston be the heart of that body, and let her vital signs be STRONG." hhahahaha! what does that even mean? at this point I was squeezing Hermana Keele's hand pretty hard and we were both doing our best not to burst out laughing. As we left, he asked if he could come to our church, because he believes we should all unite as Christians against the Israelis because, don't know if ya'll know this or not but them'siz havin' nine kids a-piece and they can come right in and infiltrate this country - be it legally or not- and vote for non-christian ideas. So somebody sound the alarm! And just like the jews that moses saved from the egyptians, we shouldn't stay in one place - we should continually be moving and CONQUER CONQUER CONQUER! (too bad i can't describe the hand signals that came into play at this point... he was really getting into it.) So the moral of the story is ... onward christian soldiers!... oh yeah. He also gave us a cd of his pastor preaching and his paster (who -zippy and unexpected twist - also turns out to be named greg) but pastor greg says you can go online and take a quiz about yourself to find out what your spiritual gifts are. They don't want anyone to be "hindered." so i think ya'll should take advantage of that steal-of-a-deal.

So now we come to Wednesday night correlation meeting where we walk in and our ward mission leader has something on each cheek and behind his ears, strapped on with medical tape. I whispered to Hermana Keele "What's wrong with Hermano Avalos?" and she just shook her head and then wrote on her planner "Mexicans think taping magnents to their face will cure them of whatever ails them." hahahahhahahaha and it's true! They really do have little "cures" that are so strange. The best part of the story is, the next night we were at hermana guerreros house and she heard Hermana Keele say that she has athsma and she is at this very moment making a mask for keele to wear that has MAGNENTS in it so that she will cure herself of her athsma. pretty sweet. i laughed pretty hard.

As for the spiritual side of missionary work, we have a man named Rafael with a baptismal date for October 2nd. He was invited to church by his friend, one of our recent converts. He loves it! We've only taught him once but we're seeing him again tonight so more on him later.

We also met a woman named Teresa who we're working with - she has always seen LDS commercials and wanted to call and ask for the Book of Mormon and she said "there' s just something about you guys." and also told us that she thinks you meet people for a reason and right after she met us she met some lutherans and did not feel at all the same with them. She said, "you guys are amazing." so that's a good start.

Pretty good week eh? Every day is an adventure out here in the clover leaf! Pray for us! and for Greg.

love you guys! hope all is well.

Becca