Horizon, TX, Transfer 9, Week 3

Dear Family and Friends,

Wow. Another week has flown by and this transfer is half over. Crazy! It was actually a pretty good week. It sounds like you all had fun in Disneyland. I wish I could have been there too, but I had my own adventures of a trip to Texas, seeing the Mexican border, fighting German Cockroaches and tarantulas, and a Harry Potter closet to boot. Next time. I don’t remember what I told you last week about the area and stuff. Horizon is a quiet town, and my area doesn’t go clear to the border –though it’s only 7 miles as the crow flies from my apartment. Horizon has less than 5000 people. And they say that El Paso is the 7th safest city in the world even though it borders the deadliest. Things in Texas are going great. We have a Spanish ward that is bigger than the English ward (that has only been a ward for 2 weeks). There are lots of members around that are willing to help. We’ve gotten lots of referrals from them. Our apartment is huge. When the Elders were here helping us haul stuff out they started calling it “the sisters mansion”. It’s a split level – bedroom and bathroom upstairs, kitchen, living room, and bathroom downstairs. My companion is amazing. We get along great. Sister Jardine has way awesome Spanish – so much better than mine was. Her only problem is the inability to eat spicy food. We’re working on that. I don’t know if there’s lot of illegals. We don’t ask. All I know is that I’m in the minority which is kinda weird. Things are looking brighter here in the area. Work is starting to pick up. And I feel that it has a lot of good potential. I’m excited to see what’s to come.

Monday: Happy Birthday Suzanne! It was p-day. We went to the zone activity and played basketball for a while. That was the first and last time we'll do that. They're crazy! And our apartment in FINALLY clean! WOO-HOO! You all have no idea how happy we were! We had to say goodbye to Elder Moore who was transferred to the west-side to train an elder who was sent here while waiting for his visa. (CAUTION: Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you're eating or have a queasy stomach) And we had cow tongue for dinner. We both wanted to throw up. It's not so bad smothered in chile colorado and wrapped in a tortilla with onion. But shredded on a plate with taste-buds and the the skin-muscle thing that attaches the tongue to the mouth still on there WAY grossed me out. Not to mention it was served with fake potatoes. We left the dinner appointment, and I turned to Sister Jardine and asked "So how was your tongue?" Yeah, it was gross. If I never eat that again in my life I've already eaten it too many times.

Tuesday: We started a week-long training for the mission leaders (i.e. DLs, ZLs and trainers). But my greenie was lucky and got to go because there are no other sisters around for her to hang out with for 4 days. It was a way good training--I wish I'd had that to start my mission! And even better: We got home that night and found lots of DEAD cockroaches! They were dead! There were like 3 live ones, 2 itty-bitty ones and a big one chowing down on a crumb left on the counter. But when I headed toward him with the can of Raid he took off running--but I'm faster and smarter than him. And that was the last of the live cockroaches we've seen! Hallelujah!

Wednesday: We had another amazing day of training. It's been fun getting to know the elders a little better. There are some really good elders in this mission. And we got back to Horizon and had an amazing night. We took a wrong turn and stumbled across a former investigator. We accidentally ran into a part-member less active family. We're starting to see success, and feel a lot of potential here! We're so excited. And you want to know what totally made my day? I GOT A LETTER FROM JILL!!!!! I thought she'd forgotten about me! But she hasn't.

Thursday: Another amazing day of training, but this time up in Las Cruces. We left our apartment right about 7:00 to make it there on time (the other 3 days were here in the El Paso area). On the way home we hit El Paso rush hour traffic. Do y'all remember how terrified I used to be to drive in Salt Lake? That's nothing compared to this! And I wasn't freaking out! I can drive in rush hour traffic with 5 lanes of cars and not freak out. That was pretty cool. And I saw something totally random that caught me off guard on our way to our dinner appointments: Potato fields! I know, potato fields in Texas? That's what I thought too.

Friday: It was our last day of training. We went out and applied what we learned that night, and feel that it's going to be a great few weeks here in this transfer.

Saturday: We did service in the morning for a family where the sister is dying of cancer.Then we did planning since we were in training all day on Friday. That night we taught a lesson to one of our new investigators (We have investigators!) with the elders because he's a single man and our members canceled last minute. We all felt like we were throwing up information, but we were answering his questions, so I guess it was okay??? I got a package from home and it was yummy! We were looking at the cookies for about 5 minutes before we finally realized that they were Mickey heads. All the ears were broken off. Well, about half of the ears. But not a one of them had 2 ears. And the jelly was de-jellified. But it was yummy on the bread! It only took like 2 days to get here. And mom, did you talk to Sister Jardine's mom on the phone? 'Cause her mom told her that she talked to you.

Sunday: We went to church, but Sister Jardine wasn't feeling too great, so we went home after dinner.

Over all, it's been a pretty good week. I wish I'd had that training at the first of my mission instead of this close to the end, but I have more time left than a good chunk of the elders who were there--and I don't have much time left. I learned so many good things and I am way excited to get out and hit the pavement and work hard. Things are really turning around in our area. Once we got our apartment clean, things really took off and the area is on fire! I felt something good when we got here, but now we are really seeing the blessings that come from being here. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now than working in this area. We are starting to see success. I feel now like I just had to go through that hard time to make me realize the blessings I can receive from this great work.

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Hermana Good.

PS~ Mom: would you look up a talk and send it to me? It's called Flooding the Earth with the Book of Mormon by President Benson in the November 1988 Ensign, pages 2-9. Thanks! And also, would you see if you can find the song "Prayer of the Children" in Spanish, and if you can't in English? I want to do that for the Christmas Zone Conference if they do a talent thing again. Thanks! I love yoU!