Great Food
!Que Tengan un buen dia de accion de gracias! Yeah, for Thanksgiving, we’re going to be eating at the Branch President’s home in Apex. Should be some good food…we’ll see what is cooked up, I think they’ve lived in the United States for a while. He’s actually from Dominican Republic I think. But nonetheless, should be a good cultural experience. It’s been fun to see what the normal meal for Hipanics is. It’s pretty typical that people think they eat burritos, tacos, beans..etc. all the time, but in reality, I’ve had a lot of variety…stew, chicken, rice, beans (of course) and other things. This last week, we were feed really really good, only had 1 or 2 nights where we didn’t have a dinner appoitment. Also, we had a couple nights with unbelievable good food, nice authentic mexican cooking..hmmm. One other thing that hispanics love and are known for is their chili. Every meal, they offer hot sauce or have some chili, it’s great. And of course, to avoid being made fun of or being called a “gringo (foreigner)”, we have to partake! It’s all good, I haven’t had any overpowering experiences yet. But Elder Staheli..a few weeks ago experienced one. We were at an investigators house and they weren’t home. They had a garden full of these small green chilis and Elder Staheli decided to try one out….BIG MISTAKE!! Haha, he took a little bit, spite it out immediately and threw the chili. He also touched his nose with some of the juice. His mouth was on fire and his nose was steaming and he could barely talk as we ran to a member who lived nearby. The chili he ate was a “chili de arbol”, and he ended up being okay after our member treated him…it was a great fun time for me and the member!!
The work is moving along here. Except it has gotten unbearably cold in the last few days. I think on Friday, the high was around the mid-40’s during the day and was near freezing at night (I know that’s a pretty nice day in Wyoming!). But, I heard that weather is similar to this pretty much all winter. So, I don’t know what I’m going to do untill it gets nice again! But it’s kind of funny because I see all of these native North Caroliners with their heavy winter jackets on and freezing! And, also it’s very cold for all of the Hispanics, they hate being cold. That usually means in the house, it is 90 degrees. Just this last week, we went and visited a recent convert/less active and I was sweating so bad in their apartment…sooo hot. Also, I had to give the lesson all by myself because I was on exchanges with an English missionary. Actually, my first time all by myself in my own area doing spanish work, so I was pulling a solo act. It was cool, at all the doors that were opened during tracking..it was all me! It went pretty well, I’m getting to the point where I can understand alot of what they are trying to say and speak back with a limited vocabulary. I’m still working hard though!
We have some great investigators, we’ve been blessed teaching quite a few families who we see pretty regularly. Just these last few weeks, we finally taught like 3 of the husbands and 2 of those are really interested. One of the couples we are teaching are from Mexico, named Johanna and Fernando. We started teaching Johanna after finding here while tracking. We taught her a few times outside of her door, and she wanted her husband to hear. Well, he was sick and tired of the same message from the other churches and really didn’t want to listen. She finally convinced him to listen and we went over and during the first half of the lesson, he was pretty skeptical. But, when we started teaching about the Restuaration, he started to get very interested and definately felt the spirit. Well, now things are going great with them, he accepted to be baptized. But..they couldn’t get to church, like that rest of our investigators, because Johann came home late from work. That still seems to be our one problem. We can only get one-part member to church every week, Sandy and Santiago. Santiago is a member from Mexico and Sandy is not a member, but want’s to be baptized. She has a little word of wisdom problem that we are helping her with and they are not married either. But they are planning on getting married soon. Marriage is a huge problem here for the hispanics, because you can’t get a marriage certificate unless your a citizan, so we have to ask everyone if they are officially married because a lot of times they aren’t. We even bumped into a member who just got here 2 months ago from Guatamala and has been a member for about a year. We thought it was his sister who was living with him..but we were wrong. I don’t know if the Law of Chastity was ever taught to him…anyways…
Well, I’ve been chastised a few time on the length of my letters due to the problems that sometimes occur, but I will try to a better job writing a little more and about everything going on. Have fun everyone this holiday season and don’t forget about me!
Hasta Proxima Semana!
Elder Hardy
PS: I just recently found out from my roommate that GARTH FREAKIN BROOKS HAS A NEW CD! WHHHYYY MEEEE!!! Anyways, it was a Wal-mart ad and only like 25 bucks for a 6 cd-set…so I wouldn’t mind Dad, if you go to Wal-mart, buy me the set out of my savings/whatever and add it to my shrine so when I get back I can see it sitting on my bed! Nevertheless, I shall return to my mission