9-9-2013: Que pasa calabaza!

Que pasa calabaza!

 

This week was awesome, as usual.  Nice and hot, staying around 99 to 102 on the daily, so that's always nice.  I would try to sympathize with the "Heat Wave" in Foster City buuuuut low 90's is heavenly over here...hahaha :)

 

I've told y'all about A, right? He's the 5 year old that is basically the coolest kid ever and we have dinner with his family basically every Thursday.  (cada jueves es el dia de Adrian!)  And Hermana makes the most delicious y picosa comida ever.  It's not TERRIBLY pica (spicy) but it's more than I'm used to, and it's soooooo good!  Isn't there a saying that spicy food makes your spanish better? I'd say it's pretty dang true.  Like a few weeks ago, we had hamburgers, but Mexican style because there were jalapenos in the patty and we put homemade salsa with the ketchup.  Pretty legit.

 

We also have been helping Hermana V for the past week a little bit, she's in the relief society presidency and we're having a ward party this friday (i've heard Spanish Barrios have the craaaaaziest fiestas! I'm sooooo excited) and so we were helping her make papel picado for some decorations as service, and we loooove this Hermana because she's this cool Grandma and just makes us all this gourmet food and delicious strawberry lemonade and basically just pampers us and pretends to talk gringa spanish.  She's a funny lady.  AND she gives us referrals like every time we go over there so that's pretty awesome.

 

So fun fact, there are 100million different churches here.  We drive past like 20 during our 5 minute drive to church.  SO you know how some churches have those little billboard/signs where they have a scripture and the name of the church or whatever they want, right? So we saw a sign that said the following, "After School Child Care" with the quotation marks and everything.  Note for the future anyone who's making signs for anything: NEVER put quotation marks around anything if you want it to sound legit.  We think it's so funny, but then again we're missionaries and we're weird like that...asi es.

 

Also, my studies brought me across a beloved scripture that I'm sure is Dad's favorite: Alma 19 verse 5.  :)

This week we met this really cute couple named O and M and they're so cool! It turns out they have family in Mexico that are LDS and we taught them the first lesson and they're like "yeah, this all makes sense!" and so we set a baptismal date for October 21st!  They basically have the cutest family ever and so we're really excited to keep visiting with them.  It's actually a bit of a miracle that we found them, we were looking through an old list of potential people to visit, and we saw this lady that used to live in their house, knocked on their door, and even though it was a different family than we expected, we found this super golden family to teach!

 

AND 3 of our favorite less active families came to church yesterday!  We were soooo happy :)

 

That Applesauce y'all made sounds delicious!  I want to learn how to do stuff like that some day, that sounds fun!  And way to go Aragon on the game with Jefferson, it sounds like a good start to the season, and that will be fun that Aunt Lys and Aunt Carrie will be able to see Nat play this week.  And good thing BYU finally won a game, especially against Texas!  (don't worry, I haven't been converted to any of this longhorn business.  Hispanics only watch futbol, not football.)  And that's so fun that Jody and Melia were in town por un ratito!  I'm glad they're all doing well :)

Send my love to everyone!

 

I love being a missionary, thanks for all your love and support!

 

Love,

Hermana Sangre

PS:  Here's a couple of pics w/Elder Hardy--thanks to his companions for the photo bombs.  ;)

 

 

9-4-2013: Stinking Holidays! ;)

Hello Family!

Sorry, the library was closed yesterday so we couldn't email until today.  Stinking holidays! :)

Ok. Where do I start?? This week was crazy!  Elder Pandulce/Van Dusen left this week so our 10 missionary ward is now a 9 missionary ward.  We also found out that Elder Neil L. Anderson from the quorum of the 12 is going to visit our mission and he's holding the meeting in the Colleyville Stake Center, which is just like 20 minutes away from us!  (We're thinking that if we wear our matching shirts again we can get a picture with Elder Anderson.... :)  AND it's our entire mission PLUS the Dallas mission that's invited! That's going to be like 500+ missionaries all in one spot.  Besides the MTC, that's basically not heard of, so we're pretty stoked.

This week we met this really cool lady named N.  She's a refferral from Church Headquarters, so we didn't really know what to expect when we knocked on her door.  But when she first started talking, we weren't sure if she was already a member or not, but then she invited us inside and we talked with her more and decided that she's just really cool.  Slash we shared Moroni 10:4-5 with her and she looooves talking about the Holy Spirit, and she said that sometimes she has some friends over and they love the Holy Spirit so much that they start speaking in tongues...We set up a return appointment with her to more fully explain the Restoration of the Gospel, and she then advised us to come fasting and praying so that we can have a "speaking in tongues" experience....We're excited to see her tonight, but we hope she doesn't go completely insane while we're there.

We're also teaching such a cool couple (they're actually married, which is like impossible to find around here apparently!) and they fed us last night when we were over there teaching them some of the Commandments, and it was basically vegetable soup with an entire fish in it.  Not bits of fish, an entire fish--Scales and bones and everything.  Not gonna lie, it looked pretty nasty.  BUT, I ate it!  I thought you'd be proud of me.  It might take me a few days/weeks to recover emotionally and mentally, but I feel like a champion now. And that was the first meal that I ate where I really felt like I had to force it down, everything else here is delcious!  People tend to just make rice cooked in some sort of oil, some type of meat (usually chicken) and then refried beans (usually pinto, but refried black beans are the bomb!).  Then they just set out a bunch of corn tortillas on the table and you can like spoon everything into a tortilla to have 100 mini tacos and it's basically heaven.  We haven't had the chance to do a lot of cooking or learning how to make anything yet, but we might ask Hermano B (one of the really cool less actives that love us and is an amaaaazing cook from Puerto Rico) to teach us how to cook and teach us spanish at the same time for language study or something soon :)

We were able to stop by S's and she's just crazy busy, but still so awesome and excited for the gospel!  We're still teaching her, it will just take some time.

Have I mentioned that it's flipping hot here? We were tracting in 109* weather the other day.  I felt like a boss. (we didn't stay out longer than 10 minutes at a time before we got back into our car, so don't worry, no heat strokes or anything)

We also had a New Missionary/Trainers follow up meeting last friday and I got to see all the missionaries that came out to the field at the same time as me--including Elder Hardy!  I have a picture with him that i'll forward later.  It's supes presh.

I hope Brother Mc"Man vs. Wild"s road kill recipe won the Labor Day cook off, that sounds very much like our Texans would loooooove that.  And Mom's canned peaches, those two things sound like the perfect Texas lunch!  We didn't do anything special for Labor Day, it was just a regular p-day, but our Spanish ward is having our first big party next week so I'm pretty darn stoked for that! 

Glad to hear everyone's doing well, and I love that picture of Dad's garden, nice job!

I love you all so much!

Love,

Hermana Blood

8-26-2013: In the Hurst Zone, your last name must sound Hispanic.

Hello Family!

Mom--thank you sooooooooooo much for the package! I got it and everything is perfection.  I'm stoked to wear my BYU shirt to the P-day activity at the church (basketball and writing letters basically)  and I even already wore one of my skirts!

This week has basically flown by like you would not believe!  Because in my first few weeks we had a gazillion meetings, we didn't have District Meeting until this past week and I have come to the realization that my District is pretty dope.  Pretty much everyone in our District has a Hispanic sounding name--Me, Hermana SANGRE, then our District Leader is Elder MADERA (wood), There's Elder Pandulce (Pandulce is like a mexican sweet bread dessert thingy, but his real name is Van Dusen), Elder Atake (Like, Attack? Except for he actually spells it Atak...) and of course hma Gomez is really hispanic.  There's also an Elder whose last name is Brueggeman, but Hispanos don't know how to pronounce that so they just call him Elder B.

But I have a pretty fun story about our slightly awkward but super hilarious District Leader.  So he I guess served in Fort Worth a few transfers ago, but then the Elders got white-washed (when 2 brand new missionaries come into an area) out by Sister Gomez (my companion!) and her trainer.  So H. Gomez was in the apartment that once was inhabited by Elder Wood/Madera, and while she was looking through her desk one day, she found this giant picture of Elder Wood's face (I guess his brother got married so they printed out a picture of his face for the wedding and sent it to him on his mission or something like that).  She of course had never met him before, so she just thought it was weird and ignored it.  2 transfers later, she found out she would train (that's me!) and so she goes to a new trainers meeting where Elder Wood is also at.  She kept thinking to herself, "Man, that Elder looks really familiar.  How do I know him??" Then she got back to her apartment and while packing she realized that he was familiar because she had found that picture of his face at the bottom of her desk drawer!  So she brought it with her to Hurst, here, so that she could give it to him, and of course she told me and Hermana Hansen about it and we busted up laughing the first day.  SO we had a Zone training meeting thing and she brought the picture, and just left it on her desk, waiting for Elder Madera/Wood to come and shake our hands.  I don't think the color of red that his face turned is even on the rainbow....It was soooo funny!  So now if we think someone looks familiar, we wonder if we secretly have a giant picture of their face in our apartment...

S is doing ok, we haven't had a chance to talk with her lately because she's been pretty busy, but I know she's ready for baptism.  The problem is that Satan also knows that and is working pretty hard on her and her inactive husband, but we're being patient and doing all we can to be there for her.  We're waiting for once her kids are in school so that we can drop by and see if we can have another lesson with her and her husband at the B's house.  (BTW, The B family is the coolest family on the history of the planet and their testimony and faith is beyond incredible.)  They were the family we visited on my first day, and when Hermano asked me how my spanish was, I said "I can learn better than I can speak" instead of "I can understand better than I can speak"....whoops!  But they are so loving and just awesome.  And I feel like Hermano was a gourmet chef or something in another life because their food is amazing! 

I love the Hispanos in our ward.  They are basically the best. Sometimes we have to play piano in primary for a second because nobody knows how to play piano here, so we get to hang out with our favorite kid, A L, for a second.  He literally answers every single question and sings "A Child's Prayer" at the top of his lungs.  He's the coolest 5-year old in the history of ever and I just want to be his best friend.   And I still love my trio!  We seriously feel like we've known each other forever and we also have really great teaching unity.  I don't know what I'm going to do if I'm ever in a normal companionship, I only have ever known trios!

Spanish Slang for today: "Andele pues" which means, "oh, it's all good" or "anyways" sort of...I think that's what it means at least....haha I love asking what everything means!

[more family specific stuff...]

The work is progressing here in the Hurst 3rd ward and we love how down with missionary work this ward is, they give us referrals and ask to go on exchanges with us and they are just rockstars!  I'm loving it here and I hear it starts "cooling down" to the mid-80's within the next few weeks, so I'm going to have to break out my down comforter and wool tights or something... :) Chistes chistes...

Thanks for all the love and support!  I can really feel your love and prayers out here in the field.

Love,

Hermana Sangre

8-19-2013: "Que feo Mateo"--My slang vocabulary is growing.

Hooooooola. 

This week my appreciation for Hispanos has grown even more, if that's even possible. 

I went on an exchange Friday Night to Saturday with the Sister Training Leaders, English speaking missionaries, in this SUUUUUPER nice area of Texas. Like seriously, these people live in mansions.  It takes 10 minutes to walk from their ginormous gate to their front door.  But i realized that I felt uncomfortable talking to non-Hispanic people for an entire day....weird, right?  I love being a Spanish missionary. 

Can I just take a second to tell you about S? She's our most promising investigator and she is seriously the coolest lady on the face of the earth.  Her husband is a less-active member and she's been investigating the church for a few years now, but for whatever reason, she hadn't been talking to the missionaries for a few months.  So when Sister Hansen got here 6 weeks ago, a member of the ward told her and her former companion to visit the B family, a really awesome less-active family in the ward (they're less-active because of health reasons, but they're testimonies are seriously rock-solid).  That was miracle number one in this story.  The B's just happen to be really good friends with S's family.  They then invited the sisters and S's family over to dinner, which was their first interaction with the sisters in several months.  Then, after a few weeks, me and Hma Gomez got here!  We all click with S so well, and we've had 2 lessons with her so far and she is so ready to grow spiritually and just be relief society president or something. She really is amazing. Her baptismal date is September 15th so we're working with her to feel ready.  The timing is just so perfect, and after our most recent lesson with her, I had a serious spiritual confirmation that I am here right now in this place for her and to help her get her family to the temple. 

This week just kind of flew by in a blur!  It's been cooling down a little bit to the low 90's so that's kind of nice, but thank goodness almost every house we visit has AC or fans or something.  Plus we have our beloved car that has a working AC. Honestly, we don't really pay attention to the heat, it's just kind of part of the day.  And it makes me feel a little bit like we're in Mexico.  Have I mentioned how much I love spanish? AND THE FOOD??? so good. I die like 100 times a day because the food is so stinking delicious here. 

Thanks y'all (Texas is affecting me!) for answering my question, I've been thinking about that for a little bit and I loved your thoughts on that.  I actually have another question, but this might be more for Dad since he used to be bishop, but I am open to all the help I can get from anyone! :) What were some things that missionaries did to help you bring less-actives back? Or In what ways can missionaries work with the bishop and ward mission leader to be most effective?

[Ed note: miscellaneous family stuff has been deleted--you didn't want to read it anyway...]

And keep up the running!  Hma Gomez is a cross-country runner and so i sort of trot behind her during morning exercise and I am respecting Dad and Jake a whole lot more now that I run every morning--it's hard!

Want to know some Spanish slang??

"Que feo Mateo"--That's dumb

"Hijole"--Dang it!

"Orale"--Awesome

"Sale Vale"--Okie Dokie

These are all things that our member friend Hermana E always says...

I expect you all to practice so that we can all be natives eventually. :) haha

Thank you so much for all your love and support, I can really feel it out here!  I'm glad things are going well and I love the updates! I love you all sooooo much and I love being a missionary. 

Love,

Hermana Sangre

8-12-2013: I have been reborn and I am now Hispano

HELLO! 

 

So, I'm sure you know, that I am here in Texas!  I am in the Hurst stake (right south of Fort Worth and just Northwest of Arlington) speaking spanish (por supuesto!) and I have TWO trainers!  Hermana Hansen is my real trainer and she's from Centerville UT and she is AWESOME.  She's been out 9 months and she has a motto to always be in the middle of her mission.  I'm learning so much from her!  Then my junior companion trainer (i don't know if there's a real title for this....haha) is Hermana Gomez, and despite what you might think, she is not a native :) She grew up in Tooele (spelling?) County UT and her Dad is from Mexico (so she looks hispanic) but she never spoke spanish until she got into the MTC 6 months ago, so all the Hispanos here are confused when she says she can't speak the language very well...haha But our Trio is seriously the best and we have great unity already and it feels like we've known each other since birth.  I LOVE my companions sooo much!

 

Texas is the best.  We have a car (i'm partially thankful and partially sad, but mostly thankful) and it's 100+ every day here.  When we go running every morning by the library, it always says the temperature and we stay consistently in the 85 degree area at 7am...  With humidity, if you're outside for more than 5 seconds, then you basically feel like you're in the upstairs room of 24 hour fitness after a 2 hour workout, except for that's how it feels all the time---AND I LOVE IT! It makes me feel like I'm working hard.

 

So the spanish....hahaha my companions always say I came into the field pre-loaded with the 12week in field training program because my spanish isn't terrible, but I realized VERY quickly that the gift of tongues is more present with me when I'm teaching lessons and less so during small talk...  We had lunch with a puertorican family my first day (puerto ricans talk suuuuuuuuuuper fast) and all I could do was smile and nod because I couldn't understand a word they were saying!  I'm getting better every day, but I'm not worried about it.  The Lord is blessing me with sooo much love for these people, and even though I can barely understand them, I trust that I will be given the words to say that will invite them to come closer to Christ. 

 

I LOVE this barrio/ward too! I had to bear my testimony in spanish along with the other new missionaries, and I introduced myself as Hermana Blood, but they could all call me Hermana Sangre.  They laughed. :)  Also, they are so willing to help the missionaries and they are so humble and amazing.  The Spanish ward covers the entire boundary of our Stake, and so we have 10 missionaries in our ward (crazy, right???).  We sisters have a majority of the area because we have a car, and so we get to meet with a lot of the members.  Our Ward Mission Leader and his family are awesome and so strong, and they just got baptized 3 years ago!  It's so cool because most of the ward are converts and they are so strong in the gospel and our ward is pretty big.  It's really amazing. 

One of the Members is named Hermana E and I feel like she's a mexican version of SisterP.  She is so funny and awesome and the other day we took her on an exchange and she kept asking us these English words, so here's what happened (in English, even though most of it was in spanish).

 

Esparza: "What does whack mean??"

 

Me: "It doesn't really mean anything, Hma!"

 

Esparza: "So it's not a bad word? I would hate to say a bad word."

 

Me: No, it's not bad at all!

 

Esparza: "Ok!  Tu eres whack!" (You're whack!)

 

She cracks me up.  I love her, and ALLL the members!

 

We have had a bunch of meetings this week, so we weren't able to do a lot of contacting but we've had some really good lessons with Recent Converts, Less Actives, and some cool Investigators.  And the members feed us like every night (The food here is soooo good! They eat rice and chicken here like it's nobody's business.) and sometimes it's in homes with families that have some really humbling stories.  I feel so blessed and touched to know that these people are taking time out of their busy lives to feed us whatever they have.

I already feel like I should be Mexican. Or Guatemalen.  Or Columbian.  Or puerto Rican.  These people and this culture is AWESOME. 

 

I'm glad to hear that Utah was good!  And that you didn't die from the probably awful smell of the floors, but I'm glad they're all finished.  Thanks for the T-shirt!  I can't think of anything crazy right now that I need...except for maybe like some hair-cutting scissors?   I don't think we're gonna have tons of time today to get that for myself. And maybe print out a few pictures I'm sure you've taken the past few weeks? Those are always fun!

I LOVE being a missionary, and I am so humbled by this experience.  I know that these Hispanics are who I'm supposed to meet and I love them already!  Thank you for being such an awesome family and for letting me take a piece of my heart to leave with these spanish speaking people of Fort Worth Texas. 

 

I love you!

 

Hermana Blood

 

8-9-2013: Hermana Blood has arrived in Texas!

Friday, August 09, 2013

Dear Brother and Sister Blood

Sister Ames and I want you to know that your missionary has arrived safely in Texas. 

We look forward to serving together in accomplishing the Lord’s work.  We hope

You enjoy the attached picture of your missionary as well as knowing that the missionaries are in good hands here as they are in the Lord’s service.  They arrived on Tuesday and we took them to the Mission Home where we had a good Texas Barbeque meal and then a testimony meeting.  We went to a local Ward Building for some training and a personal interview with President Ames.

The Elders spent the night at the Assistant to the President apartment and the Sisters

Stayed at member’s homes.

Wednesday morning we had more training followed by a meeting with their first Mission Field companion.  That afternoon your missionary began working in the field and she looks great.

Your missionary’s first assignment will be in  the Hurst Spanish area.  She will be serving with

Sister Hansen and Sister Gomez.

Their apartment address is:

Sister Kathryn Blood

5201 Springlake Parkway #102

Haltom City, TX   76117

Your missionary will email on Monday which is their preparation day.  They are always

Glad to hear from you.  Thank you for your support.

Sincerely,

President and Sister Ames

8-1-2013: Nothing weird happened this week so i can't make a weird subject...

Why, hello! 

 I'll plan on calling you in the morning of August 6th (please be awake when I call! haha I don't know if the calling card works the 2nd time but we shall see.   :)

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to attend the Temple at all :(  It's been closed for the entire month of July and our first P-day wasn't until July 4th so... But because it was our last p-day today (gahhh I'll be in Texas Tuesday afternoon!) we got a notice saying we were needed to help clean the temple.  It was so cool!  Us sisters got to help with one of the smaller chandeliers in the Celestial room and one in a sealing room.  They are NOT kidding when they say every crystal is cleaned by hand!  It was so cool though and a really fun experience! 

But seriously, this week has just flown by, I can't even remember everything we did!  It feels like yesterday I got my travel plans, even though that was like a week ago...But yesterday I got to be a host for all the new missionaries coming into the MTC, that was pretty cool!  I got to be on the shepherd side of the Sheep-herding.  :)

[NOTE from Kate's mom: Here's some pics from Hermana Blood--I hope I haven't already included these in a previous blog...still working out how this whole blog thing works. ;) ]

me and the hermanas!

Me and Elder Scott!

our zone

Me and Sister Jackson from my BYU ward

Me and Sister Parker also from BYU

This week involved some serious spiritual feasting.  I've learned so much and I'm positive it's because I've started beginning every Personal Study of the scriptures with a prayer--it makes SUCH a huge difference.  One thing that was kind of bothering me this week was that I found myself not asking questions during gospel study as a district, while everyone else was, and I assumed that meant I must be lazy or unwilling to learn.  Then, during one of my Personal Studies, which I began with a prayer, I remembered in my Patriarchal Blessing that I've been blessed with the gift of discernment--or the knowledge of good and evil.  I then studied several scriptures relating to discernment, and I realized that this blessing and gift is why I'm not asking questions.  It's not that I'm lazy or unwilling to learn, I just have a different gift than those around me.  And no one spiritual gift is better than the other, they're just different!  And that's ok.  It was a fun moment of personal revelation that all came because I changed my routine. 

Another cool moment was when one of our teachers, Hermano Lowe, did a fake lesson, or "demonstrate teaching" and he taught the First Vision/The lesson about the Restoration.  When he got to reciting the first Vision in Spanish, the spirit was SO Strong. 

"Vi una columna de luz, mas brillante que el sol, y esta luz gradualmente descendio hasta descansar sobre mi...Al reposar sobre mi la luz, vi en el aire, arriba de mi, a dos Personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripcion.  Uno de ellos me hablo, llamandome por mi nombre y dijo, señalando al otro: Este es mi Hijo Amado-Escuchalo."

On that last line, I felt like I got hit by a truck the spirit was so strong.  I had a testimony before, but know I know with my whole heart, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and that through divine power, he was able to restore the authority of God and the fulness of the Gospel that was once lost from the earth. 

Now, I know that i wrote that in spanish, and I wish i were better at writing so that I could more accurately describe how amazing this experience was, but I hope that despite my inadequacies and the language barrier that you can feel the spirit that I feel every time I recite this sacred passage. 

With this knowledge, it is my duty and responsibility to share this message with all who hear.  Fort-Worth, Texas here I come! 

Have I mentioned how much I love you?

Love, Hermana Blood

P.S. it took 5 and a half weeks, but i finally got a picture with Elder Hardy.  I'll send it later, but I thought you and Brother andSister Hardy would appreciate that :)

Classic me and Elder Hardy and his companion