August 2, 2010
Hello Family.
Well I'm my new area now. It's in Katy Texas and the ward is called the Westgreen Ward. It's a great area so far. This is the first time I've seen suburbs since I left Provo. Most of it suburbs and it's quite a shift from the trailers and ranches that I've been in for the first year of my mission. There's lots more hispanics too but as ever they are hidden among the other people and it takes some effort to root them out of their hiding places. I hope one day I'll get to go down to the inner city and not have to worry about running into white people.
This is my first transfer as senior companion. My companion, Elder Rupp has been out about 8 months I think. His spanish isn't that great, his grammer is good, probably better than mine he can nail all the conjugations of any tense, even the ones that nobody uses like past-subjunctive. But his accent and just speech in general is terrible. So we kind of complement each other. He can teach me grammer and I can teach him how to speak better. My spanish has gotten pretty good, at church yesterday I gave the prayer for the end of sunday school and this one guy asked me if spanish was my 1st language. Which it isn't but I appreciated the comment. Anyway Elder Rupp is a good man, he has an unquenchable desire to be obedient and work hard, which is good. Unfortunately he's sycophant and always sucks up the mission leaders, likes to beef up our stats so we look better (I had a terse conversation with him after he called in our numbers last night and he lied to our district leader about how many ITL's we got), and perhaps worst of all he's the mission's biggest sister lover. There are two sister missionaries serving in the Westgreen Ward as well and he calls them all the time and always makes sure we end up sitting next to them in sacrament meeting. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if it weren't for the fact that we rely on the sister for rides anywhere. Meetings, church, etc. So we're with them like every other day. I'm not too worried about Elder Rupp getting too cozy with them since he is a um, a very large guy, they don't like him very much but that means that they won't leave me alone. There have been a few moments where I've nearly jumped out of their car while we're driving just to get away from the sisters' horribly awkward attempts at flirting with me.
That's really the only downside of this area is the sisters. Being on all bike isn't too bad. I like the exercise but this week has been really, really, hot. Today is supposed to be the hottest day of the year or something, and every night when we get back to the apartment my clothes are completely soaked with sweat. The work is rather slow, I seem to always end up in dead areas, this week we had a total of 10 lessons, and not a single member-present lesson. But the nice thing about a bike area is that even if you don't teach anyone all day you still feel like you worked hard since you're exhausted by the end of the day.
The ward here is pretty cool. It's the most diverse ward I've been in yet, people from countries I've never yet encountered. Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Cuba, The Dominican Republic, and Guatemala. I can't wait to start learning new words, phrases, and accents from those countries. It's a pretty strong ward too, lots of active youth (a rarity in hispanic wards), a scouting program (even rarer in hispanic wards), and great church attendance. It also helps that demographically the ward is all most middle class-upper class (people don't have to focus as much on trying to simply survive so they have time for their callings and things). We also get fed by the members quite a bit, I'm not worried too much about gaining too much weight since we work it off biking all the time. I actually found out that when I was in Magnolia I lost 10 lbs, mostly because we hardly ever ate with members, and it was so darn hot. I'm down to my last belt hole on my belt so I may have to get a smaller belt soon if this keeps up.
Okay, pictures. In order:
- Us and Hna. and Hose Flores.
- Us and the Gordillo Family
-Me and the Gordillo Family
-Me and Luiz Gordillo
-Hna. Flores' Papusas
-Paul Flores (Austin's Salvadorian twin, this kid is 12 and acts just like Austin)
-Us, Carlos Fernandez, and the Perez Family
-Elder Manship, me, Elder Hurd, and Elder Lewis at some service we did (deforestation)
- Same as above but with brutal looks on our faces
-This shirt that I, Elder Manship, Elder Parker, and Elder Ordaz decorated, we had this blank white shirt so all 4 of us started drawing on it and that's what came out, lots of random stuff
-Close up on the shirt
-Elder Parker wearing the shirt.
So that's all the pictures from my last area in Oakcrest. I don't have any pictures of here yet. My memory card is almost full so if you can put like an extra $20 or so on my debit card I'm going to go get a new memory card today.
And before I forget I have the complete recipe for the Papusa salsa:
8 Roma Tomatoes
Chiles Secos De Arbol
1/2 of a good sized onion
2 Garlic (I don't know if she said 2 cloves or 2 whole garlics but I believe it's the latter)
Chicken or Beef Bouillon, preferred brand being 'Maggi'
Vegatable Oil
Sugar
Water
First take the tomatoes, the chiles (amount depends on how spicy you want the salsa), the half onion, and the garlic and blend it all together in the blender. In a pot, pour in enough vegatable oil to completely cover the surface of the bottom of the pot and sprinkle in some of that Bouillion powder. Add the blended vegetable matter and enough water to get the right consistency. Boil it all, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes, then add a dash of sugar. The sugar takes the kick out of the acid in the chiles. And that's it. It can be served hot or cold. Pretty simple and really good.
Okay well that's all the time I have for today. I hope you are all having fun, take it easy and I love you all, peace.
-- Elder Rice
