LOCO

*Me and a little old lady.  Her name is Catalina and she is 90 years old and still walks around like she's 20. She doesn't speak hardly any Spanish because she speaks an ancient dialect.  So cool.  Tons of people around here are like this.  I love asking them how to say basic things in their dialect and then writing it down.

FISHERMAN OR HUNTER?

So as Sister Training Leaders they are starting to give us more responsibilities.  The Zone Leaders called us late one night to inform us that we would be teaching half of a three hour training meeting that was happening in about 24 hours.  So that was fun.  

The mission is all about learning how to do things last minute, but at the same time teaches you to plan ahead and to be prepared.  We decided to spice things up and try to make it fun with the different subject we had been given to talk about.  We shared examples, asked good questions, told stories, and even used costumes and props at one point.  When we talked about using time wisely we read the scripture....

16

¶Behold, I will send for many fishers , saith the Lord , and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks. 

We then talked about the difference between a hunter and a fisher.  I dressed up as a fisher and put on a sombrero and held a stick with a handmade cardboard fish tied to it.  My companion dressed up like a hunter and we made the point that a fisher waits for good things to come to him, but the hunter goes out and gets it. 

He goes and makes his dreams a reality.  No sitting and waiting around for him.  We applied it to the mission, but the thing of it is that it is super applicable to life in general.  So many of us sit around waiting for great things to happen in our lives but unless we get up and take some serious action nothing will ever happen. 

Maybe a fish or two might pass by, but wouldn't you rather have a bear?  Or a deer?  Or something large that hunters hunt?  It's the same with blessings and our potential as children of God, and as human beings.  

We can accept the fact that we are average or good enough but wouldn't you rather be above average? Wouldn't you rather be great?  I know I would.  This week we really applied that scripture and we've been giving it all we've got.  We talk to EVERYONE, and we don't waist a minute.  We are hunters, not fishermen.  What will you choose to be this week?

VALENTINES DAY

Easily the craziest Valentines Day I've ever had in my life.  We started the day ending divisiones with our darling hermanitas who we love so very dearly, and we headed back to our area.  My poor companion was just about dying of stomach pain because just about every house they went to the day before gave them something big and fattening to eat and she was suffering the consequences. 

We headed out and taught a few lessons and then headed to the house where we were going to eat. We had to walk down a SUPER long dusty dirt road for a good half hour before we got there and once we got there the food wasn't quite ready, so we started checking out their yard and looking at all the animals they had. 

They had some goats and a very cute chicken romping around the patio.  I wanted to take a picture with the chicken (the chicken is like a member of the family, it has a name and everything) and then I passed the chicken to my companion so that she could have a cute chicken picture too, but then out of nowhere the rooster/husband of the chicken we were holding attacked my companion!!  YES my companion got attacked by a giant evil rooster chicken. 

It scared me so bad I almost dropped the camera and then we had to go and clean up my companion because the rooster got dirt and feathers all over her.  Then we ate the food and had some coconut flavored jello for dessert (thats a new flavor) and headed out to look for a reference. 

My companion was still dying of stomach pain but managed to hobble her way to the next street over to knock a door or two and ask for help finding the street where a reference lived.  The first door we knocked was just some random house that happened to be nearby and the kids who opened the door looked really surprised.  "Wait, are you guys Mormons?" they asked.  "Yep!" we responded happily. "Were mormons too!" they said back. 

Out of all the houses we could have knocked, we just happened to come across a house where 3 less active families live and we invited them to church and they came!!  Super awesome.  So after we found them, we headed out again and at this point hermana Mitchell was just about to fall on the ground and die, but then she announced that she needed to go to the bathroom NOW and there was no one who we knew who lived nearby so we contacted some random lady standing outside and asked if we could use her bathroom. Haha 

Just imagine living out in the middle of nowhere Mexico and having two white girls in skirts show up on your porch asking to use your bathroom.  Her reaction was hilarious.  She almost told us no but then she saw my poor companion all hunched over and in pain and she said yes.  So we were about to walk into her house and I tripped over a rock and went down HARD just about taking out the cute little old lady that just told us we could use her bathroom.  I thankfully caught myself relatively well but it still kind of hurt (more my pride then my body but....its fine). 

Then later on that night as we were walking along again, I fell AGAIN, but this time I went down even HARDER and scrapped my knee up pretty bad and twisted my ankle, but we couldn't go home because we still had appointments and everyone thinks that sister missionaries are big pansies and it didn't really hurt that bad and it wasn't bleeding too much so we kept going. 

We made it to the appointment which was nearby and the hermana cleaned my wound pretty good and we taught her a lesson [missionary lesson].  Then we had to go home and we ended the night making no-bake cookies! wooo. 

All in all it was one strange Valentines Day.  Getting attacked by roosters and using strangers bathrooms and falling a million times.  But it all ended well with no-bake cookies and listening to efy music. 

My ankle was a bit bruised, but doesn't hurt to walk on.  And my knee is a little scrapped and bruised but as long as I kneel on one knee I'm good to go!  Valentines Day in Mexico is a Valentines Day I will never forget.

*me and Luisa the chicken

PITBULL

No, not the rapper but the animal.  So we randomly ran into my convert Alejandro this last week and invited him to church, and on Sunday we showed up to the church and we found him sitting outside ready to go!  Turns out he had to move for his work situation and is now living in our ward's [congregation's] boundaries! WOO! 

He came up to us and told me that he bought me a Valentines Day present. He handed me a big bag, and I looked inside and saw a cute little stuffed animal with a bow on it.  Then that stuffed animal started to move and breath.  It was a puppy.  Alejandro bought me a puppy.  

I thanked him very much, but explained to him that as missionaries we're not allowed to have pets. He was very understanding and said that he would take good care of her for me and that all I had to do was pick out a name.  I named it Ruby. haha. 

We then didn't know what to do with it because church was about to start so we just took it into Sacrament Meeting with us.  It was hilarious.  It whined a few times during the prayer and everyone started looking around to see what was making the funny noise.  Then, after a while, the poor thing was crying.  Alejandro took it out of the bag and put its cute little heart patterned puppy sweater on and it fell asleep on his lap.  

Then, after Sacrament Meeting, the dog peed on the floor.  Cool.  The whole situation was just so awkward and funny, I could hardly control my giggles.  A baby pitbull, just hanging out in the church. 

It was great to see Alejandro again and he was so excited to show me his baptism pictures that he has on his phone and talk about how he went to a family home evening last week and has been learning more hymns.  It was a crazy Sunday, but it was full of some good laughs.  Love that crazy Alejandro and the cute dog he gave me, even though I had to give it right back to him.

*me and the baby pitbull

*This is where we study.  My desk is the one on the left.  Full of pictures of my favorite people and favorite scriptures and favorite pictures of Christ.  It's where I spend most of my time, if I'm home.

*Our apartment is super fresa (fancy).  The room on the right is where we sleep.  The room on the left is where I keep my clothes and stuff to get ready in the morning.