11-25-2013: Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!

Note: There are accents that belong on some of those words, but I'm too lazy to figure out how to do them right now...please excuze my poor spanish grammer. :)

We had an awesome week this week!  Nothing in particular necessarily, but we just did a lot of good, hard work and talked to some really cool people. 

Tuesday we met this Brazilian lady who's like 100 years old and moved to the US from Brazil when she was 50, so she speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and very little English, so we communicated with her broken spanish (which she spoke with a Portuguese accent, so we had to concentrate that much more to understand her!) She was a referral from the English Elders in our area, and turns out she's a little bit crazy and doesn't have tons of potential, but she was really sweet and fun to talk to for a second!

And on Friday, we had about 8 appointments planned during the day and every single one of them was there!  Sometimes people forget or run out for a second or we're late because of traffic or whatever it may be, but we were able to teach all of those appointments and they were all really good lessons!  One of them was with A, who is still such a rockstar.  Her Dad is still borderline about the whole baptism thing but we'll find out what he decides right before Christmas.  Angelicah's mom, who is a recent convert of 2 years is actually getting her temple recommend pretty soon!  We're super excited for this family. 

Another one of our appointments on Friday was with B (A was working or something), but turns out that last minute she decided to go to Mexico for 2 weeks because she's been having some health problems and she wanted to get some medical tests done there.  So she calls us at like 11 on Friday morning and says "Hermanas, I'm leaving to Mexico tonight at 7, can you come over later and pray with me before I go?" and of course we moved around some of our appointments to make it work.  I know that 2 weeks in normal people time isn't a ton of time, but in missionary time, that means that she's getting back just barely before transfers which feels like forever away!  But she's a sweetheart and she told us she's even bringing her "Libro de Mormon" with her so that she can read :)

This thanksgiving we have like 12 dinners lined up with members and less-actives and some part-member families!  Ok that might be an exaggeration, we have 2 set dinners, one right after another, but about 7 other families have said, "Hey, you're invited this thursday if you want to eat with us!"  so we probably won't have time to eat with our district/zone, but if the poor bike elders in our district don't have anywhere to go, we'll probably take them to some of our dinners in our warm, heated car(Speaking of the Spanish Bike Elders--they have a suuuuper small area compared to the other companionships in our ward which means they have a total of 2 active families in their area and tons of less-active single women....bottom line, eating with members for them is a struggle, so we might take them to some of our dinners :). 

look at our adorbs little district!  These are all the missionaries in our WARD. yes, ward

The people we'll be eating with all say they're making turkey, but it will probably be paired with their delicious rice and beans and corn tortillas :) Or tamales. That sounds good...Man, I love mexican food.

Lately it's been a bit chilly, but we bundle up in our tights and scarves and stretchy pants underneath our skirts.  Thankfully, we have a car to keep us nice and toasty when it's 36 degrees outside all day.  We've been told though that it should be warming up this week a little bit, so that will be good.  However, we've also been told that this is not the worst...we have even lower temperatures that shall await us in the coming months--bring it on Texas, I say! (Yes, mom, I have sufficient cold gear :)

I'm glad that it looks like Thanksgiving for y'all will be fun, no matter what you end up doing.  And I hope everyone continues to get better from all the illnesses in the Blood home!  Is everyone on their deathbeds...? :) And that's so exciting to hear that the City wards are getting more and more active young women!  Keep up the good work.  And dad, I'm sure at some point on Thursday I looked in the general direction of the airport to recieve your hugs and waves as you changed planes from kentucky, consider them delivered!

And thank you sooooo sooosooo much for the package with the striped shirts and the scarf and tights and the lotion!  It got here safely and I'm putting the contents to good use :)

We heard that "Catching Fire" was coming out, so we decided to dress up like missionary versions of Katniss and whatnot

This email is like 12 thousand pages long so I'll just go ahead and send a separate email with all the business item stuff about the post office and whatnot.

This Thanksgiving I'm so thankful for the amazing spanish speaking people I get to work with every day and for all they teach me.  I am so thankful for this gospel and the chance I get to share it with people and for my amazing family!  Stay safe and I love you so much!

Love,

Hermana Sangre

11-18-2013: Hello Beautiful Family!

Hello beautiful family!

Drum roll please........my hand has been unwrapped!  At my appointment last wednesday Dr. Tasneem came in and we all jumped for joy and shouted halleluia and whatnot because my hand just looks so dang beautiful.  She said I needed to let it breathe and I no longer need to go back to check up with her!  As much as I think she's a rockstar and such a cool person, ain't no missionary got time for going to the doctor!  SO i am officially healed and 2-handed once again.  Opening water bottles is soooooooo much easier and now everyone thinks I'm the coolest person ever. It's no big deal, really.

Thank you so much for the package!  It arrived in safety on Friday and I immediately devoured the banana bread, don't worry :)  I figured it usually takes about 3 days for packages to get from CA to TX, so have no fear.  ALSO: I thought that the boatneck shirts would be in my box set aside for winter clothes, but if they are nowhere to be found, really do not worry about it!  I'm sure you have muuuch more important things to do than run around looking for some shirts, so really, no te preocupes.

This week was great, of course.  We taught some lessons, we saw some members, we ate some Mexican food.  It's like missionary heaven!  This week we had a lesson with one of our Investigadoritas, A.  She is young and her mom is a recent convert of 2 years.  They come to church basically every week, and she even had a part in the Primary Program.  She's suuupper cool and wants to get baptized, but her dad, who works out of town for weeks at a time, is a little hesitent.  He wants her to be able to make this decision for herself with the right amount of information, so we're going by and helping her understand the principles of the gospel. 

We also had a fiesta for Thanksgiving with the ward on saturday!  It was super fun and we cooked a turkey!  The food was DELICIOUS and they even mixed in some American casseroles in the midst of the rice and beans :)  Everyone (except the missionaries) danced their hearts out to some Spanish music and gave thanks in their awesome Spanish-ward way.  I wish I had pictures of the craaaazy amounts of food, but alas, I forgot. I will, however, attatch a picture of our in-house-chef Elder Taylor preparing the turkey that we cooked.  Preparing a turkey does NOT look appetizing, but the finished product was delish. 

Elder Taylor dominating that sick-nasty looking raw turkey.  It was delicious.

AND this past week we had Zone Conference!  It was super good and spiritual and all the missionaries in our zone got to talk with our Stake President specifically about his plan for how he wants our stake to participate in the work of salvation.  He's an awesome guy and so excited for the missionary work we are doing in this area.  A quote that someone said in the meeting that really struck me was

"Softened Hearts do not soften the blow"

I'm pretty sure some famous person said that, but since I don't know who, we'll just say it was Elder X.  Anyways, it was a call to repentance for me to be even more bold.  We're asking people to make changes in their lives and we need to do it unapolagetically because we KNOW for a fact that their quality of life can be better if they commit to follow Christ.

Also, I think I've seen Sister Ram before, but I haven't officially met her.  I'll make sure to say hi the next time we have a big meeting!  SisterGomez knows her and gives a glowing report :)

Man.  I love being a missionary.  We get to wear cool nametags and everything!  I'll send some pictures for this week in a few minutes.

Me and a ginormous armadillo.

I love Texas and I love you all so much!

Love,

Hermana Sangre

11-4-2013: It's November--already!!!

hello my lovely family! 

we're doing well, we actually just got back from a doctor's appointment and they said that my stub is healing pretty well :)  my doctor is dr. tasneem and she's super cool. we're basically bffs now because she has me coming in twice a week to look at my hand just to make sure that everything is healing ok, which so far it is!  the burn is technically called a partial thickness burn, because they dont refer to them as 2nd or 3rd degree burns anymore, but it basically means that i had blisters for a few days and then they drained and i'll just get some rad scars :)  it will probably be a month until i don't have to wear gauze on it out in public.  i've been telling people lately that i got into a fight with a mob of pirates and they chopped off my hand in the struggle. for whatever reason, nobody believes me... :)

thanks for the emails! i'll send my full update in the mail soon enough!

much love,

hermana blood

But wait--there's more!  This from her handwritten, received by snail-mail letter.  She responded to mom's questions re: her burn,then more info about her week:

Well, I already told y'all that my burn is a "partial-thickness burn" which is inbetween 2nd and 3rd degrees, so not too bad.  The treatment involved taking antibiotics and applying silve sulfidine (?something like that?) every morning and wrapping it with gauze and an ace bandage to protect it.  The bandages weigh like a billion pounds so I also get this dope sling.  I look pretty cool, I gotta say.  ;)  The healing process should be done in about a month-ish, so not too long. 

It sounds like the inter-faith choir was super fun!  I wish I could have seen the church--I bet it was absolutely beautiful!  Bummer that Aragon lost to Half Moon Bay, but I'm sure they'll have a rockin' game this week!  We also loved Daylight Savings time ending--we got an extra hour of sleep! Heavenly.  :)

Thanks to Sister Hardy for following up on that Spanish expression!

This week was REALLY good.  One of our investigators, RG, is getting baptized on Saturday!!! She's basically a member already because she's been coming to church since January and in June she called up the sister missionaries saying, "So, I guess I need to be taught by the missionaries before I get baptized.  When can you come over?"  The only thing stopping her from getting baptized right away was she wanted to wait for her previously less active husband to get his priesthood back.  It's been a process, but she's finally getting baptized! She's super cool and we're really excited.

Aaaand we set a baptismal date with ByA!  We go over there for dinner and a lesson once or twice a week now and this lasat time  made us "mole" which is super delish and super Mexican.  We're hoping they'll get baptized together the first weekend in December.  

Fun fact:  I had pozole for the first time on Sunday!  That's a Mexican soup and the 2nd counselor in the bishopric and his wife made it for all the missionaries.  It was pretty dang delish.

We had transfers on Wednesdy and we got 4 new missionaries in our ward/district!  A new Zone Leader to replace the one that just went home, and 3 Elders in the Southside of our district.  Of those three, one is Elder Gutierrez back!  Then we have our new District Leader Elder cook and they're training a newbie, Elder Christiansen.  Our district is now really young and no one has been out for more than 13 months.

Another fun fact:  I've discovered that I love $5 sweats at Walmart.  Also:  I can open up a water bottle (a plastic one that's never been opened before) one-handed.  I dare y'all to try and do that.  It takes some practice AND I can put in my contacts one-handed!  I am evolving into a one-handed mummy, day by day! ;)

Wellp, I think that's all the news I have.  It's getting a bit colder now over here, a wet cold so it's nice and nippy! Who'd-a-thunk that Texas gets cold-ish?  Anyways, we've got lots of work to do this week and we're excited.  This will be an awesome transfer wtih Sister Gomez in the Hurst South Zone!

Thanks for your love and prayers!  I love you all so much!

Hermana Sangre :)

10-28-2013: Halloween/Mummy hand post!

Dear Family,

don't be alarmed....but this email will be on the shorter side. 

this past week was a great one because..........i got to visit the ER for the first time! yay! :) we had a very small grease fire in our kitchen saturday morning (i'm alive, our apartment is fine, it sounds worse than it was, i promise!)  and the only casualty was my left hand.  i just got burned pretty shallow on my thumb and first two fingers, but the ER gave me some cream to put on it, bandages and gauze.  really i'm just getting an early start on my mummy costume for halloween :)  i'll be following up with a normal doctor tomorrow and they'll be able to give me some more information.  it doesn't even hurt, but the ER gave me some light pain meds as a precautionary type thing, but i didn't even cry or pass out, so that should tell you how it's not even a big deal. (i'm just letting you know cuz i had to use our insurance card there, but i'll be sending all the paperwork to sister ames and she said missionary medical should be taking care of it.)  overall, i'm doing fine and my hand should heal pretty good!

if you have any questions, sister Ames says feel free to call her;

unfortunately, i have only one hand to type with, and that takes like a gazillion years so for the next couple weeks i'm gonna need to stick with hand-written responses to your emails.  we'll still be coming to the library every week, but it would be easier if you had a few q's i could answer briefly via email and then i'll do the majority of the update via snailmail.  i still havent gotten an email from emma watkins, but i'll get working on an email to send her in the next little while, it will take some time with one hand out of commission... :)

pic 1--see, i'm just fine!!

pic 2--i found a street with a super cool name... :)

i love being a missionary! i love you so much! i'll send you a letter shortly!

[Ed note: But wait--there's more!  From Kate's handwritten letter received on 10/31...]

Well, This week was a pretty exciting one!  On Monday we got to talk to B & A after a little while and they'e still doing aweome.  B will probably be getting baptized within the next few weeks.

On Wed. we decided to try and save miles in our car by biking to and from district meeting, and on the way back...we both got flat tires!  Haha.  It was a nice walk and thankfully we didn't have any appointments for a little while that we had to miss.  AND i FINALLY got a good tan!  Someone else even told that I looked tan, that proves that it's true!  ;)  Thankfully we were pretty close to our apartment when it happened so we didn't have too far to walk.  The Bike Elders in our District will be helping us out with the tire repairs in the next little bit.

Then on Saturday morning we were on an exchange, so Sister Gomez was out in Arlington while our Sister Training Leader was here in Hurst with me.  She wanted to heat up some oil for frying potatoes, but I noticed it was a little too hot, so right as I went to move the pot, the oil caught fire and I was a little too close.  We got to the ER and they said I'd be fine, really it's not too bad.  At least now I get a cool story and a super dope bandage! 

Thankfully, I can still eat most Mexican food with one hand.  I can actually do most things with one hand!  Sister Gomez and I keep a running list.  I can:

   wash my hair

   shake hands!  That's a must!  ;)

   Text our investigators

   Draw stick figures (hand drawn artwork included in letter...sorry blog readers)

   Eat yogurt

   Eat beans and rice

   Extend the baptismal invitation

   Read Preach My Gospel.

That's basically all I need anyways, right?

Things I CAN do one-handed:  

Sister Gomez and I will be staying together in Hurst for at least one more transfer so we're super excited!  We're losing 3 missionaries from our ward who have finished their missions and are headed home.  Our ward will miss them tons!  But Sister Gomez and I are really excited about spending Thanksgiving (Dia de Accion de Gracias) here!  :)

Love you lots!!! :)

Hermana Sangre