Tierra de Guanacos

Hello Family.

Well this week was another lame one but we did get transfer calls saturday and they are indeed closing down our area. Hallelujah, I'm going to the Westgreen ward in Katy Texas. I'm excited, it's a city. And there are actually hispanics down there, I was actually on the phone with Elder Allbee a couple nights ago, I'm going to take his place there and he said they have lots of investigators and lots of work going on. It'll be great, the only downside is that it's a full bike area. I'm going to have to get back on my bike and go around on it every day, in Conroe at least it was only every other day but there it's every day. Oh well, it will be fun. I'm excited to get out of Magnolia. Tomorrow is transfer day and that's when we'll be making the switches.

Umm... I thought I had more interesting things to say but I don't think much happened this week, just more tracting. The pictures attached are of Hazy Hollow, the most infamous subdivision in Magnolia. It's this huge forest full of trailers and angry red necks. There are no street lights throughout the whole thing and it's freaking scary being there at night. One of these pictures shows Elder Manship out in front of the car after an appointment we had. There's also an abandoned and destroyed trailer. The entrance of Hazy Hollow which has a Taqueria wagon and a pub where all the Bikers go at night called 'Hawg Hollow' and the big Liquor arrow with some "shops" behind it. That's what Magnolia mostly looks like, just a bunch of old run-down nasty Texan places.

The other picture is of me and the Davila family, or some of them anyway. When we went over for our last time sunday night, the mom wasn't there. Just the three kids, Lenny in the blue, he's 22 and real cool he comes out teaching with us all the time and has been a huge help to us here in Magnolia, Joe, 16, in the orange, and Valerie, 14. Only Lenny speaks spanish, and his english is far better. Joe and Valerie don't even know any spanish even they understand quite a bit. It's a weird thing but we see it everywhere. Hispanic youth and children learn english quickly and forget their spanish or don't even want to speak spanish. Their parents talk to them in Spanish but they always reply in English. They don't like their native language, and that's where Chicanos come from. Chicano is a slang word for a Hispanic born in the U.S. and can't even speak spanish.

Well.... I think that's all, I should be getting some more pictures of more people tonight so you all can see them next week. Okay that's enough for this week. Amor y Paz

-- Elder Rice