Bernalillo, NM Transfer 4, Week 5

Dear Family and Friends,

Well... this will be a good test as to how good my memory is... I left my paper with all of my notes in the apartment.

Monday: We spent a good portion of our p-day cleaning the apartment because we were told that inspections this transfer would be a little more in-depth since it's the first of the year (though when we had the inspection, it wasn't any different than normal). We also took down our Christmas tree. We went and found the water buffalo and took pictures with them as well as the horses, llamas, and el pacas (that I didn't know lived on our property--that was the first I'd seen them.) And we had a lesson with the Marquez family that evening.

Tuesday: We were invited to go to one of the Indian pueblos by a member of one of the wards for a celebration they had. That was really neat to see! Having gone to the Coronado monument a few weeks ago gave me somewhat of a better understanding of what was going on, because we couldn't ask questions while we were there. It was a really neat cultural experience.

Wednesday: We had a white-out snowstorm! I haven't seen one of those in a long time. Needless to say, I was glad that the tires on our car are fairly new and that I know how to drive in snow, or I would have been really nervous. A good 2 inches were on the ground in Bernalillo (a huge change from the day before when we were out walking with nothing but sweaters).

Thursday: I had my worst nightmare in terms of food. Don't get me wrong--I really appreciate when people feed us. It saves us a lot of time and money. And I'm really not a very picky eater--there's really only 2 things I won't eat: sea food and Chinese food. Well, some of our investigators invited us for lunch and fed us fish. It wasn't very fishy fish, but it was fish and I really had to talk myself into it not tasting horrible. Then we got to dinner. I saw what they were preparing and about died: rice patties, egg rolls, meatballs, oriental salad dressing. Oh boy. Here we go again. And then we sat down to eat and were told that the egg rolls had shrimp inside, and the meatballs were made of ground pork and shrimp. But I ate it and didn't complain. And I thanked them for dinner.

Friday: We had our planning session. As we were driving down to Bernalillo for our appointment, our tire pressure warning light came on. Oh brother. I pulled over as soon as I could and found that we had a flat tire, and could hear the air rushing out of it. We must have run over a nail or something. We called the driving coordinator, and the elders to let them know we had a flat and that I wasn't entirely sure how to change it. But since I watched the elders change our tire when we blew the tire a few months ago, I was able to figure out how to get the hubcap off, and the bolts, and jack up the car, and get the tire off. And we were getting ready to put the spare on when a couple guys who were filling up with gas (we were at a gas station) came over and offered to help. But I was very proud of myself. After our last incident with a tire, I said that I was going to have to have Dad teach me how to change a tire when I get home, but now I think I'll be okay. And take a wild guess what we had for dinner again. Yep, Chinese food. Take-out from a gourmet Chinese restaurant in Albuquerque. My companions were both in heaven, I struggled to eat it because it was more chinese-y than the night before. At least there wasn't anything fishy about this meal.

Saturday: The Marquez' had their baptismal interviews and we are set and ready to go for this coming Saturday! They are definitely ready. Leonardo has also decided that he wants to wait until he learns more, but it won’t be long. We were talking to the Deacon’s Quorum advisor and he told us that Leo was asking where he could get a full set of scriptures. He’s got his Book of Mormon, but he wants everything so he can learn. It is a little disappointing that the whole family isn't being baptized together, but we realize that it will mean so much more for the other children if they make the decision on their own. The three who are being baptized have strong testimonies, and the other 3 children are also gaining their own testimonies, little by little. And then we knew that there was no way we could make it to Bernalillo to meet with anyone before we'd have to head back up to Rio Rancho (especially since we were driving on the spare tire) and we'd been told that there was a chance of a bad storm over the weekend, we went and got the tire fixed. For dinner we had good old Mexican food--that I can handle. In fact, I can handle it hotter than either one of my companions. The sister fixed chiles raienos (I'm almost positive I spelled that wrong--wait, I'm more than almost positive--I'm completely positive), and the 3 of us split one and it was too hot for both of my companions, but for me wasn't hot at all.

Sunday: Fast and Testimony meeting. The Spanish Service is growing little by little--which is exciting because we are now less than 3 weeks away from our branch (and one week away from transfers ). I always love hearing the testimonies of the members. Before church, we went to visit a less active family who lives close to the church. It was cloudy, but we decided to save miles and walk. It was raining before we left their house and by the time we got to the church 15 minutes later, we were pretty wet. But at least it wasn't pouring like it did during church.

We are also very excited about the Rama Coronado that will be starting in just a few more weeks! We ate dinner with President Roundsville last night and he told us that a letter explaining all of the details will be read in sacrament meeting next week. This is going to be such a great blessing for all of the people aqui who have been attending church but not fully understanding what is being said, or for those people who will be baptized. What an exciting time for me to be serving here in this mission, and in this area!

Well... for not having my notes, this is a pretty detailed description of the week. I probably forgot something I wanted to say, but whatever. You can all at least get an idea of what happened this week. Just a heads up--next Monday is a holiday, so there will be no e-mail on Monday. And if there's no e-mail on Tuesday either it's because I got transferred, and you should all cry for me because we'll be SO close to having our branch start. Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Good