Week of July 7, 2008 -- To Mom
July 7, 2008
I don't know how long I have so I will write as fast as I can and if I end abruptly, you know why.
Today (monday) is my Preparation Day.
Okay, so my first area is in a city called Marshalltown, Iowa. It is about an hour Northeast of Des Moines. I found out that there are only 18-21 spanish missionaries and about 120 english misionaries, and several sisters.
In my town there are just enough for a pair of english and spanish missionaries. My companion's name is Elder Mclaws and he is from Arizona. We, the spanish elders live by ourselves in an apartment complex at the north end of town and the english elders live at the sout end of town in a different apartment. I'm relatively happy about that, because we can focus on speaking more spanish around the house. No bunkbeds. I recieved my sheets and pillow (thanks for the pillow mom) the day I arrived but I didn't have a comforter. I just got it yesterday at walmart for 15 dollars. It hasn't been too cold lately. Yesterday was the hottest/most humid day here. I hear that last winter was just terrible.
We have our own washer and dryer which is crazy nice because that expense goes away. I get $150 dollars on my card (which I don't have just yet because they hadn't anticipated me coming so soon out of the MTC) which comes out to about five dollars a day. I need to get a bike and I don't know how much I want to spend but today we are going to walmart to pick one up.
The ward is uber small-----I bore my testimony yesterday and as a prologue to my testimony I said that the ward has the potential to grow if they just open their mouths and talk to all. I gave them the example that (me and my companion) have been walking everywhere and waving to cars that pass us by. about 4 out of 5 cars always wave back and I encouraged them that this town is nice. We started a book of mormon challenge where one person is challenged to give the book of mormon out this week to someone they know and report on it next sunday. hopefully it works. I was also thinking we should have a invite a less active person challenge to increase attendance in the ward, because numbers are slim...we are working on it. Only one totally spanish family/person comes to church, and then they only stay for sacrament meeting. I am a little fearful of going to their house because I hear they are teasers...pratical jokesters. But all should go well.
We are white washing the area. MY companion knows the area, though, because this was the place where he was "born." and he just gave birth to me at 134 lbs (I hardly gained any weight at the MTC).
There are only nine areas for spanish elders/sisters, I'll try to name them all, but they are somewhat hard to remember: East Des Moine, Hampton, Ottumwa(my companion elder delgado was sent there), Norfolk Nebraska (only one out of state) perry, Marshalltown, and I can't remember the rest at this time.
My job is to update the area book (and that is pretty much the most important job for missionaries because without updating the areabook, you cannot help other missionaries that are new.) It's hard to go to bed at exactly 10:30, but every night we(or I) get closer to that goal.
My companion is awesome. He knows a lot of the language, and when he came out he was only somewhat good at speaking. He always says that he likes my testimony when we are talking to someone in the street and leaves it to me to back him up. There are a lot of hispanics here. 1 out of every 4 people we meet is hispanic or so. We've been walking a lot because we get the car one week and the english elders have it the next week. Walking has been good because we can just bump into anyone on the street or who knows. I'm kind of fearful about getting a bike because we won't be as productive in talking to people on the streets...we will however get better at making appointments on time or actually getting to appointments.
So far, I've taught the 3rd lesson with my companion...which was terrifying because I hadn't gone over the third lesson in the MTC and we were also teaching in spanish to a lady from Mexico.
We also are teaching a less active member named Maria Banderas who was supposively baptized into the church but doesn't know it herself. She's probably in her 50s or so and has a son that seems interested...I think we should focus on him.
We had fourth of July dinner at a less active member family's house: Tony and Lacy. Tony is the less active member and Lacy is not. She treats us well, though, and their family made it to church on SUnday (without and invitation from us.) It was a crazy dinner appointment though, first one in my life and all of their guests were nonmembers. What really scared me the most was when Lacy brought out a taser to show her friends... don't get me wrong though, lacy is a sweet lady. And that is where we met Maria Banderas because she is Tony's mom.
Yesterday we were walking to a Noche de Hogar at the santo's family house and we bumped into an investigator that had moved--her name is Maria Guadalupe and she is also from mexico...she fed us chicken wings and a nice salad. She said, in spanish that she had made the dinner without knowing why and when we stopped by she knew why...It was pretty awesome. She was convinced that I knew spanish, which is really good and also convinced that my companion knew spanish...that we were natives...that made him really happy. He's been working on his accent by listening to the book of mormon on CD and repeating everything that is said.
I've made plans to read a whole lot. Mostly the book of mormon a couple of times in spanish and english (hopefully around 7 times) The rest of the standard works in both languages and the missionary library in english. I set times and goals when to accomplish them. Now I need to do them. We have from 6:30am to 8 to get ready and eat and shower. Then we have personal study from 8 to 9. Then we have companionship study form 9 to 10, and then we have language study from 10-11 am.
We arrived safely in Des Moines. I'm sorry I didn't call you at the chicago airport. 1 hour was just not enough time to eat and make it to the next gate. The first plane was relatively large but the second plane was just 3 seats across. 2 on the left and 1 on the right. I sat next to Hermana Beasley and tried to comfort her by talking with her throughout the one hour flight because I heard she didn't enjoy the first one that much. We sort of had a bumpy ride to chicago....OMG chicago...I saw the skyline from the distance but what really surprised me was seeing the expansive lake...I had forgotten that Chicago was next to a great lake, and at this moment I don't know which one. It was cool to be in a different airport too. A member payed for our lunch at Chili's to go. She spent a fortune on us...she was from vernal utah and said that she didn't get to feed the missionaries often so this was her chance to do so.
Hermana Beasley was very courageous about talking and she spoke to someone on our last flight that was from Puerto Rico. Because she was sitting by me, she asked me to somewhat translate what she didn't understand of the spanish language. She is and open talker, it was just really cool.
In Des Moines, we met our Mission President and the travelling elders and I think the APs, but I'm not sure. It was definitely interesting, not knowing where in Iowa we were going. The stake center of Des Moines is about a block away from the Mission home...oh and if you want to send me letters, make sure it's US postage (not fedex or UPS) and that you send it to the mission home. All things will be forwarded to me from there.
Fireflies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Iowa has fireflies....It is an awesome thing to see at night between 9pm and 10pm.
Fireworks were cool. We watched them be shot off from the Veterans home in Marshalltown. They were loud and spectacular.
We ate at the Johnson's house yesterday for lunch.member..
gotta go, times up
love you all bye
Elder Gonzales
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