Week 1: Mission Field - "The Field is COLD!"

Well, I've been expecting Texas weather for so long that it's been really sad that it's not warm all the time :(
I know that I should be grateful it's not hot all the time yet, but pretty much every day has been overcast and I've worn layers and layers and layers. And then I'm pretty okay :) We have to use bikes 2 times a week, and so far I have discovered that none of my skirts are very bike-appropriate. Oops... So I'll be getting one or two today (I hope...)

 

Our area encompasses part of both an English and a Spanish ward, and so Sunday is almost all spent at church. It's so strange to be actually out teaching people. I haven't ever met so many interesting (crazy?) people in my life - but it's super cool how nice people are for the most part. We look for and contact lots of referrals and potentials, like I think this week we contacted 16 referrals and 6 or 7 potentials? and then a little bit of random contacting.

 

Oh my goodness, people don't understand portions here. Thankfully we've never had two investigators feed us in one day (yet), but when they do they FEED US! Yesterday we had gone home after church and eaten a bunch of food since it was fast Sunday, and then we stopped by an member at at 8:00 and she fed us Mexican spaghetti and quesadillas for days. so much food - I thought I might explode. But the Mexican's love it when you love their food, so you kind of just have to put on a happy face and pretend like your stomach is as big as Texas. :)

 

Here are a couple of stories:

We were out tracting last night and we had contacted all of our referrals, but still had time before our next appointment so we decided to knock a couple of random doors. IN order to decide, my companion asked me what my favorite number was (which is 23) followed by a couple other questions, and we ended up at a door where a woman answered and, very sleepily, explained that she works night shift so she was sleeping. So we apologized, introduced ourselves, and asked for any referrals she might have. She said to try the house across the street, and so we did. A guy answered who wasn't super interested, but said we could come back later. We talked for a while, and then asked HIM for any referrals (we pretty much ask everyone we ever talk to) and he was like "yeah, the lady across the street" (who had referred him). we looked back and she was outside sitting on her driveway. Weird. So we thanked him and left, and were kind of creeped out that she was sitting there, so we decided to leave. But she called us over, and said she couldn't sleep and wanted to talk to us. We sat on her driveway in the cold drizzly weather for almost an hour talking to her. Along the way, we asked if she felt like she sees God's influence in her life, and she said "yeah! The number 23 pops up everywhere!" and then proceeded to give examples of that. It was a little crazy that just minutes earlier the number 23 had helped us choose her house. Ha. I think she might have been a little crazy, but we had a cool conversation that I feel like she really needed.

 

Also, people are just super superstitious around here. They ALL have stories of when weird things happened. My favorite was a lady that showed us a picture of some wood that she said looked like the knot was a picture of the Virgin Mary and 2 other people. I'm never really sure how to respond in those situations... "Wow! How cool! Yeah... do you wanna come to church with us? We have pictures of REAL people in our church!" jk. But it's pretty funny. We also talked with a potential the other night for an hour about his animals. We kept trying to figure out how interested he was, but it always just came back to his animals and we couldn't end the conversation to escape.

 

I have pics, but I'm nor sure if I can figure out how to get there on here in time.. We'll see :) If not I'll send them next week.

Love you!