...Don't call anyone a Naco.

Hello from SUNNY California!!! Finally! Sunny California.

This has been quite a week. We had a mission goal to contact 20,000 people this week and "engage in gospel related discussion" We finished last night and fell short by 46 people. Awesome! and super lame at the same time. I loved this because it forced us to talk to absolutely everyone we ran into. You think that missionaries talk to everyone everywhere they go, but sadly it isn't true :( Good missionaries do, or they should, but it is just super uncomfortable sometimes. SO I am glad we did this, because it helped me to be better at that. And we have had a number of really neat experiences come from it:

We were in a hurry to get to our next appointment, and a woman walked by us in an apartment complex. We started to pass her but decided we should go back and contact her. She said hello and told us that she had been baptized into the church over 20 years ago and hadn't been back in ages. We spoke for a minute but she acted uninterested in talking to us, so we left her with our phone number and told her she could call us if she ever needed anything. The next morning at 8:00 AM she called us and said that she'd been thinking all day since we talked and she wanted to go back to church. We got the address for her and she went out and bought a dress. She went to the English ward so we haven't heard yet if she actually made it, but how neat is that! All because we took 2 minutes to stop and talk to her.

I could write a book about all of the hilarious things that happened this week, and five about all of the awkward things that happened... but I will just tell you one about the joys of learning a language! We are trying to learn the names of and be able to differentiate all of the different accents and dialects we hear here. The people from Veracruz and Spain never pronounce their "S"es We were told by a member that this is how the "Nacos" talk. She said people who live near the coasts often talk like Nacos. So...we just thought it was the name of another dialect. We were out contacting and started talking to this man in a neighborhood, and he clearly had the accent. Sister Cowley asked him if he was a Naco. He gave us this really confused kind of disgusted look and said no. We were confused, but never clarified. So three weeks later we are talking to the Frias Family who we are teaching and they start talking about Nacos - who are apparently the "Valley Girl's" of Mexico, and wear crazy cheetah print clothing. We told them the story about the guy on the street and they laughed so hard. They couldn't even speak for like 10 minutes they were laughing so hard. No wonder the guy never showed up for our appointment.

...Don't call anyone a Naco.

AND.... Random/Funny Stories

It was POURING rain last week....POURING. A member told us to meet them at a restaurant and they would buy us lunch. It was raining so hard that in walking from the restaurant to the car we literally looked like we had jumped into a swimming pool. We were all sopping wet. The Elders had to ride their bikes and their shoes and backpacks were full of water. They had to dry off the floor when we left because there was a puddle surrounding our entire table. lol...we all had to go home and change before we could go out again.

Bad things happen when you try to "return the favor" and serve the elders... The Elders sometimes ask us to go pick up their bikes. If they're in a hurry members will give them rides and their bikes will be left on the other side of the city. Usually we don't go because we don't have a bike rack, but one day nobody could help them and they were desperate, so we went thinking that we could fit two full size bikes into the back of a Toyota Corolla. By the time we found the apartment and figured out how to take the bikes apart (because there is absolutely NO WAY to fit two bikes into the back of a car) it had been an hour and a half, and they missed 2 appointments. They don't ask us for help with their bikes anymore.. Ooops.

President Jackson randomly invited sister Cowley and I over for breakfast last week which we were excited about! He told us they invite groups of missionaries over once in a while for breakfast and this time it was us. We assumed it would be with other missionaries, but we got there and it was the assistants and us... Super awkward. They talked about transfers the whole time and then asked us to leave right when we finished eating because they had to have a meeting. BUT the food was delicious lol.

and I officially made it through my first transfer!!! I'm staying in Yerba Buena with Sister Cowley :)


Have a good week!

Miracles of the Week...

Our branch is officially a ward now! and there is so much to do that we have 2 new missionaries coming in this week. They are straight from the MTC so I Will NOT be the dumbest person in my district anymore :) Ha cha.

We found 6 new people to teach in 6 days

One of the ladies in the office plays the violin and she has been letting me borrow it on P-days. It is so soothing to play music.

We went to the outgoing fireside on friday for the missionaries who are leaving. Amazing to hear them speak and all of their stories. Some of their investigators played in a string quartet --- It was the most beautiful, moving arrangement I have ever heard of "Nearer My God to Thee" in my life.