Hello Family.
Not much to report this week, we really busted our butts and we did really well, taught a lot of lessons and talked to a lot of new people. The best part is we didn't tract much, the nice thing about this area is that it's populated enough that we don't have to knock doors all that much, there are enough people bumming around in the streets that we don't have to knock too many doors. Speaking of which, on Tuesday we did exchanges with our Zone Leaders and for the first time even I got to go down into Houston. It was amazing, just ghetto apartments everywhere and as soon as it cooled off in the evening, everybody came outside and we didn't see a single white person, it was great! I've never seen so many hispanics all outside at once on my mission. They usually all just disappear as soon as we show up on the street. But not there, we talked to like 50 people in a couple of hours and got a tons of lessons and return appointments, people who at least pretended to be interested. It was great, we didn't have to knock on a single door. A couple hours there was a week's worth of work in my last area in Magnolia. I hope I get to go down there someday. I'm finally out of the country wastelands but I'm still stuck in gringolandia.
Other than that not too many interesting things have happened. We did teach this one guy who told us a long elaborate story about his experience with God back in his homeland of Guatemala, he says that after trying to commit suicide three times he finally prayed and had the evil voices cast out of his head by a huge muscular angel who then commanded him to start doing a religious talk show on the radio every day at 3:00 AM. He says he's done it ever since. Stories like that are just so typically hispanic and I've heard so many now that I don't even lift an eyebrow at such things.
I'm also completely exhausted, the heat is just killing us on the bikes. We always carry lots of water with us but we often stop by members just to ask for cold water and nothing else. It's a good thing we have lots of members in our area and our area is pretty small too so we always have some friendly territory close by that we can stop at to duck out of the rain or get water. We get fed quite a lot too, though my hopes of trying new authentic hispanic foods from all over latin america (as our ward is very diverse in it's nationality) have been dampened a bit as not many of the members often make their indigenous dishes. This one time we had a dinner appointment with this one family from Mexico and we were hoping for something good but they just bought a bunch of KFC before we came over and we all ate that. Though it was the first time I've ever eaten KFC with tortillas, eating coleslaw with tortillas is quite a different experience let me tell you. The thing is that most of members here are middle-upper middle class, meaning that they're usually pretty Americanized and don't eat too much different from Americans, though with some odd twists. Last week there was a ward baptism and they served hot dogs with pico de gallo on them. At another members house this Hna. changed up a traditional Mexico City dish of toasted bolillos by using re-fried beans and Louisiana Hot Sauce. Yeah.... Oh well... I can't really complain, it all tastes good and it's free, so... yeah....
Our investigator who was to be baptized dropped off the face of the planet. Another common occurrence that also doesn't quite merit the act of raising an eyebrow. We hope to find him again soon, he could still make his date if he comes to church next sunday. Our investigator pool is still pretty low but at the rate in which we talk people we'll get some new ones soon. The problem is the the ward, while really strong- Isn't all that enthusiastic about missionary work. We had a grand total of 3 member present lessons this last week (lessons to an investigator with a member present). And all three of them only counted just because they were less active part member families we were visiting. In my three weeks here we haven't had a single member come out an teach with us. They don't really want to. I'm tired of that, it doesn't get us anywhere, and that's going to change this week, on sunday we kind more or less persuaded a couple of members to come to some appointments we have, we will see how that goes.
Okay I'm tired now and out of things to say. I still don't have any pictures because I haven't taken any pictures of this place yet. Not too many remarkable things about here to take pictures off, just suburbs. I love you all, have a good end of summer. I'm looking forward to school and all that starting again so people's schedules will become more regular. Okay peace out.
-- Elder Rice
Puchica vos Cipote
August 9, 2010
Puchica vos Cipote
First of all here is my address:
2000 Westborough Drive
Kenwood Club at The Park Apts. #1109
Katy, TX, 77449
This last week has been pretty brutal. It's incredibly hot, every single day like 99 or 100 degrees and the humidity is just horrifying. But I think I'm somewhat used to it now. Every night when we come home I am completely drenched in sweat, I usually get home and wring the sweat out of my clothes. Luckily my sweat doesn't seem to smell too bad or to even have a smell at all, but my companion, on the other hand probably has the worst smelling sweat I've ever smelt. On saturday we were biking and saw some murderous looking blue clouds on the horizon. We decided to stop by one last referral and then try to beat it back home before the storm hit. We didn't make it... I remember peddling furiously looking up at the mass of gray death in the skies and trying to race the clouds. Well we didn't escape and we got caught in the downpour. We might as well have jumped into a pool we were absolutely soaked when we made it back to the apartment, my shoes only just finished drying this morning. It was fun though. I was going to attach a picture of me when we got back when I was completely soaked but we took the pictures on Elder Rupp's camera and he forgot to bring it today. It was pretty fun though, well not really but we were laughing the whole way back as we biked through the rain.
The area is going good now. When I got here it was pretty dead and we had like 10 lessons last week, this week we've whipped it back into shape and we've doubled our lessons. There are lots of opportunities to baptize people here. Quite a few part member families who aren't baptized for stupid reasons like not married, don't care, work on sundays, afraid of offending extended family, offended by members of the ward. Dumb reasons that can prove difficult to overcome but I'm not too worried about it. I have high hopes for this area it may very well prove to be my most fruitful are so far. From the part-member families in our area alone is an easy half dozen or so.
Uhh.... I'm not sure what else I have to say... Oh yeah, so I guess I hit my year mark this last Thursday. It came out of nowhere, took me by surprise. I'm going downhill now and it's going terribly fast, since that Thursday time has flown, actually it slowed down on sunday at church. Those 3 hours still feel like 6 hours. I don't really feel different, I don't know how if I've even changed or not, I probably have but don't realize it. The only difference that I can detect between me now and me a year ago is that now I have the ability to power nap, and don't have too much trouble getting to sleep at night anymore since I'm exhausted all of the time.
Well that's all I have to write about today. Aidan's art thing looks cool, so that picture of the face is his? I thought for sure it couldn't be his because their weren't any snails in it. Aidan looks a lot older, he looks a lot like me and that's kind of scary. Okay, I'm tired of typing. Oh wait, one more thing. So I have a new favorite spicy snack, they're called Zakkis, it's a mexican thing, these spicy little corn chip things that are chile-lime flavoured, actually they come in multiple flavours but the 'fuego' ones are the best that are chile-lime. They definitely beat Hot-Cheetos. It never ceases to amaze me that EVERYTHING taste better with chile and lime, the mexicans surely made an epoch making discovery. So get some sometime soon, you ought to be able to find them at Wal-Mart or any gas station. I love you all, hasta luego.
-- Elder Rice
Puchica vos Cipote
First of all here is my address:
2000 Westborough Drive
Kenwood Club at The Park Apts. #1109
Katy, TX, 77449
This last week has been pretty brutal. It's incredibly hot, every single day like 99 or 100 degrees and the humidity is just horrifying. But I think I'm somewhat used to it now. Every night when we come home I am completely drenched in sweat, I usually get home and wring the sweat out of my clothes. Luckily my sweat doesn't seem to smell too bad or to even have a smell at all, but my companion, on the other hand probably has the worst smelling sweat I've ever smelt. On saturday we were biking and saw some murderous looking blue clouds on the horizon. We decided to stop by one last referral and then try to beat it back home before the storm hit. We didn't make it... I remember peddling furiously looking up at the mass of gray death in the skies and trying to race the clouds. Well we didn't escape and we got caught in the downpour. We might as well have jumped into a pool we were absolutely soaked when we made it back to the apartment, my shoes only just finished drying this morning. It was fun though. I was going to attach a picture of me when we got back when I was completely soaked but we took the pictures on Elder Rupp's camera and he forgot to bring it today. It was pretty fun though, well not really but we were laughing the whole way back as we biked through the rain.
The area is going good now. When I got here it was pretty dead and we had like 10 lessons last week, this week we've whipped it back into shape and we've doubled our lessons. There are lots of opportunities to baptize people here. Quite a few part member families who aren't baptized for stupid reasons like not married, don't care, work on sundays, afraid of offending extended family, offended by members of the ward. Dumb reasons that can prove difficult to overcome but I'm not too worried about it. I have high hopes for this area it may very well prove to be my most fruitful are so far. From the part-member families in our area alone is an easy half dozen or so.
Uhh.... I'm not sure what else I have to say... Oh yeah, so I guess I hit my year mark this last Thursday. It came out of nowhere, took me by surprise. I'm going downhill now and it's going terribly fast, since that Thursday time has flown, actually it slowed down on sunday at church. Those 3 hours still feel like 6 hours. I don't really feel different, I don't know how if I've even changed or not, I probably have but don't realize it. The only difference that I can detect between me now and me a year ago is that now I have the ability to power nap, and don't have too much trouble getting to sleep at night anymore since I'm exhausted all of the time.
Well that's all I have to write about today. Aidan's art thing looks cool, so that picture of the face is his? I thought for sure it couldn't be his because their weren't any snails in it. Aidan looks a lot older, he looks a lot like me and that's kind of scary. Okay, I'm tired of typing. Oh wait, one more thing. So I have a new favorite spicy snack, they're called Zakkis, it's a mexican thing, these spicy little corn chip things that are chile-lime flavoured, actually they come in multiple flavours but the 'fuego' ones are the best that are chile-lime. They definitely beat Hot-Cheetos. It never ceases to amaze me that EVERYTHING taste better with chile and lime, the mexicans surely made an epoch making discovery. So get some sometime soon, you ought to be able to find them at Wal-Mart or any gas station. I love you all, hasta luego.
-- Elder Rice
Ragnarok
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
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
Pastoriando La Iguana
July 19, 2010
Hello family.
Well not much to report this week. Our only investigator, the one who lived with the less active family that we were doing our family scripture study with, unexpectedly took off for Mexico to see his mother for some reason or another. They say he will be gone for a month or so. That's kind of a bummer, we were making so much progress with him now we shall have to start at level 0 again when he gets back. So in addition to the ceaseless finding we do every week we've been doing a lot of service with the english elders (that's what english missionaries usually do, they don't have many people to teach and they rarely tract so they just do service, visit active members, and teach and baptize 9 year old children of less active families). This week we've mowed countless lawns of countless old single ladies of the Magnolia 2nd Ward. Though these past couple Saturdays we've done some fun service. The ward is building a house for this single lady in their ward and we go every saturday with the english missionaries to help out. It's pretty fun, hammering nails into wood, using drills and other power tools, (expect for saws). Standing around in the sun watching other people do stuff since there are too many people working on a tiny house. Oh well, it beats tracting in the middle of the day. I've really come to appreciate manual labor on my mission, it's always nice to work mindlessly where you don't have to speak to anyone.
Actually some rather interesting did happen this week. There was a 3 day meeting for all of the mission leaders about a special "new curriculum" from the 1st Presidency. It was way weird, a meeting that long is unheard of. There were rumors going around of an addition to Preach My Gospel or something along those lines. During those 3 days we were stuck with Elder Lewis, and we "Tex-Mex'd" our areas. We call it Tex-Mexing when english and spanish missionaries go together somewhere to save miles or something or another, and we go preach to the Texans and the Mexicans, hence Tex-Mex. So we were in this threesome for three days and it was way weird. Tracting was horribly awkward with 3 people and we gave up on that pretty fast. We went around to his appointments and visited English speaking people and I remembered that I don't like Texans that much. We had a dinner appointment with one member family, an older couple and it was very awkward and quiet, and the food was plain there wasn't very much of it while my companion (who is a rather liberal person) had a terse conversation with the Husband (who works for an oil company like all rich Texans) about cars powered by alternative energy. It was way lame, whenever a hispanic member invites you over to eat it's always a huge party and everyone is eating (good food) and laughing and just having a jolly good time.
Thursday night Elder Hurd came back from the mysterious meeting and he was forbidden to say anything about it to us peasant missionaries of such low standing and we had to wait till the zone meeting of the next day to find out what this was all about. So on friday we go to zone meeting and they're going to be making quite a few changes to the mission. This "New Curriculum" is indeed from the 1st Presidency and they're implementing this throughout all missions in the world. And it is indeed some new material for Preach My Gospel, actually it's not really new, it's pretty much just everything you need to know about being a missionary summarized into 8 bullet points. That's all we know now, they're going to begin teaching this "new curriculum" this week in district meeting. They're also making some major calender changes. Zone Conferences will now be held only 4 times a year (as opposed to every transfer), and they will 6 hours long (ack!). Interviews with the mission President will also be held only 4 times a year rather than every transfer. 3 Day meetings such as this one will be held every other month for all mission leaders and trainers (yuck!), and the mission President is actually going to be out on the front lines with us. Out teaching with us, coming to our district meetings, etc. They're getting the mission president more involved in the work and they want him to be teaching us on a more personal basis. Now I'm not sure what President Hansen will do with us (seeing as though he doesn't speak spanish) but it seems like a good idea. However I don't like the idea of these huge meetings at all. Sitting in a meeting is the most tiring thing for me. Tracting all day doesn't make me nearly as tired as sitting in the same spot for an extended period of time in a suit. I'm also more motivated to be less obedient and less diligent so I won't ever be a district or zone leader so I won't have to go to these 3 day meetings. Har, just kidding, I had to throw that 'just kidding' on there because I know someone will try reprimand me in their next letter to me. I think that sarcasm may be somewhat difficult to detect in a wall of text.
Okay, I'm tired of typing now. I think I'll throw in that questionnaire for the ward newsletter that mom sent me. I had a lot of fun writing about Mexican food:
What church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Seminary, it provided a foundation for my knowledge of the scriptures and of the doctrines of the Church in general.
What non-church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Hanging out with people not of our faith. It's rather strange and awkward at first when you find yourself spending the majority of your time with people who's beliefs are very different from yours. I'm glad that I knew a few non-members at home and worked with them. I've seen the difference between me and those who have also grown up in Utah without ever having talked with a non-member, they're far more awkward.
What is your favorite Latino food?
This is a hard one. I've decided that of all Latino food, Mexican food is definitely the best. Then again it's most of what I've eaten. Central American food (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.) is far more simple, not very spicy, and does not have much variety. My favorite foods I've eaten are Sopes, a sope is a thick flour tortilla soaked in lime juice with pinched sides, it's fried and is rather thick and firm but not not brittle. On top of it they put almost anything, usually they put chicken with a green or red salsa with crumbled mexican cheese, and crema (basically a celestialized version of sour cream).
Also good are Tacos al Pastor, or Tacos de Trompo. Which is pork cooked in a special manner, they have this big huge metal cylinder thing they call a Trompo (spinning top), about 2-3 feet in diamter and about 4 feet high. They run this pole through the middle of it with a handle on the pole, it's basically a vertical spit inside a tube. You skewer the pork on there and layer it with pineapple. In the bottom of the Trompo is a bunch of hot charcoal and you let it sit in there for a while slowly turning the spit. Then you open it up, use a knife to carve off the outermost layers of this big stack of pork and pineapple, then close it again and let the remaining meat cook some more. Then you put it on some tortillas with lime juice, onions, cilantro and salsa. Most of the time you don't even need the salsa, it's that good. They are to die for and they are the best tacos I've ever eaten in my entire life.
Okay one more, this one I only just had recently but they are Elotes, which you all would recognize from Nacho Libre, that corn that that one guy always has and the one that he throws in the other guys eye in that one absurdly hilarious part. It's really simple and I've been thinking about making some lately. It's corn on the cob, boiled. Then you smear the whole thing with mayonnaise, sprinkle queso fresco all over it and then this special chile/lime powder all over it. It's very good, not very healthy at all, but very tasty, it's a popular street food in Mexico.
What is your favorite food to prepare on your own?
I'm not sure, I get bored of making the same thing over and over again, a few months ago I made a lot of fried rice but I got tired of it so lately I've just been making just simple things like tomato soup, macaroni & cheese, and omelets, but I always add things like spinach, bell peppers, beans, corn, etc. I've been trying to keep my diet varied with lots of vegetables. And no soda, because every time we get into some one's door they always give us soda, hispanics love soda and drink it like it's water, they never drink milk nor fruit juice. (Well they do drink Tampico type juices which will be like 5% juice).
Was learning spanish hard for you especially after knowing German really well?
It kind of was at first. The way I see it, being multi-lingual ls like those claw game machines. You have two buckets, your native language which is huge and your foreign language bucket which is much smaller. When your speaking and you suddenly can't think of a word the claw goes into the foreign language bucket and grabs something. Early on in the MTC the claw would go down and grab a German word because then my German vocabulary was far more extensive than my spanish vocabulary, so the odds were that I was more likely to spit out a German word while wanting a Spanish one. Now it's the other way around, now that my Spanish is pretty good and I've pretty much forgotten German the foreign language bucket has overflowed and even spilled into my english bucket. Sometimes when we end up teaching english people I cannot for the life of me remember some gospel terms in english. In one particular incident I spent 3 minutes trying to remember the word for the atonement in english. It was kind of embarrassing, of all words to forget I forgot the word for the most important thing that ever happened. But overall I say that learning German did help me out a lot, I already knew how to tackle a task such as learning another language.
What advice would give to the young men in our ward to help them prepare for a mission? What about the primary children?
I would say that you need to find a good reason for going on a mission, a reason that actually means something to you. If you just go because that's what everyone expects of you... I'd doubt that'd your conviction would be that strong. Also get a job and get a little taste of working hard and being miserable some of the time. Because there will come many days when you are just completely miserable, so get used to laughing such things off.
What can a young man do to best prepare for dealing with dogs as a missionary?
Don't be afraid, they say that animals can smell your fear and that seems to be mostly true, just show the dog who's higher in the food chain and ignore it. Don't stop and stare at it just keep on walking and ignore it as if it wasn't there. After a while you start to be able to tell which dogs are push-overs, and which dogs are genuinely dangerous. And never run, they can always outrun you.
I love you all, peace out.
-- Elder Rice
Hello family.
Well not much to report this week. Our only investigator, the one who lived with the less active family that we were doing our family scripture study with, unexpectedly took off for Mexico to see his mother for some reason or another. They say he will be gone for a month or so. That's kind of a bummer, we were making so much progress with him now we shall have to start at level 0 again when he gets back. So in addition to the ceaseless finding we do every week we've been doing a lot of service with the english elders (that's what english missionaries usually do, they don't have many people to teach and they rarely tract so they just do service, visit active members, and teach and baptize 9 year old children of less active families). This week we've mowed countless lawns of countless old single ladies of the Magnolia 2nd Ward. Though these past couple Saturdays we've done some fun service. The ward is building a house for this single lady in their ward and we go every saturday with the english missionaries to help out. It's pretty fun, hammering nails into wood, using drills and other power tools, (expect for saws). Standing around in the sun watching other people do stuff since there are too many people working on a tiny house. Oh well, it beats tracting in the middle of the day. I've really come to appreciate manual labor on my mission, it's always nice to work mindlessly where you don't have to speak to anyone.
Actually some rather interesting did happen this week. There was a 3 day meeting for all of the mission leaders about a special "new curriculum" from the 1st Presidency. It was way weird, a meeting that long is unheard of. There were rumors going around of an addition to Preach My Gospel or something along those lines. During those 3 days we were stuck with Elder Lewis, and we "Tex-Mex'd" our areas. We call it Tex-Mexing when english and spanish missionaries go together somewhere to save miles or something or another, and we go preach to the Texans and the Mexicans, hence Tex-Mex. So we were in this threesome for three days and it was way weird. Tracting was horribly awkward with 3 people and we gave up on that pretty fast. We went around to his appointments and visited English speaking people and I remembered that I don't like Texans that much. We had a dinner appointment with one member family, an older couple and it was very awkward and quiet, and the food was plain there wasn't very much of it while my companion (who is a rather liberal person) had a terse conversation with the Husband (who works for an oil company like all rich Texans) about cars powered by alternative energy. It was way lame, whenever a hispanic member invites you over to eat it's always a huge party and everyone is eating (good food) and laughing and just having a jolly good time.
Thursday night Elder Hurd came back from the mysterious meeting and he was forbidden to say anything about it to us peasant missionaries of such low standing and we had to wait till the zone meeting of the next day to find out what this was all about. So on friday we go to zone meeting and they're going to be making quite a few changes to the mission. This "New Curriculum" is indeed from the 1st Presidency and they're implementing this throughout all missions in the world. And it is indeed some new material for Preach My Gospel, actually it's not really new, it's pretty much just everything you need to know about being a missionary summarized into 8 bullet points. That's all we know now, they're going to begin teaching this "new curriculum" this week in district meeting. They're also making some major calender changes. Zone Conferences will now be held only 4 times a year (as opposed to every transfer), and they will 6 hours long (ack!). Interviews with the mission President will also be held only 4 times a year rather than every transfer. 3 Day meetings such as this one will be held every other month for all mission leaders and trainers (yuck!), and the mission President is actually going to be out on the front lines with us. Out teaching with us, coming to our district meetings, etc. They're getting the mission president more involved in the work and they want him to be teaching us on a more personal basis. Now I'm not sure what President Hansen will do with us (seeing as though he doesn't speak spanish) but it seems like a good idea. However I don't like the idea of these huge meetings at all. Sitting in a meeting is the most tiring thing for me. Tracting all day doesn't make me nearly as tired as sitting in the same spot for an extended period of time in a suit. I'm also more motivated to be less obedient and less diligent so I won't ever be a district or zone leader so I won't have to go to these 3 day meetings. Har, just kidding, I had to throw that 'just kidding' on there because I know someone will try reprimand me in their next letter to me. I think that sarcasm may be somewhat difficult to detect in a wall of text.
Okay, I'm tired of typing now. I think I'll throw in that questionnaire for the ward newsletter that mom sent me. I had a lot of fun writing about Mexican food:
What church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Seminary, it provided a foundation for my knowledge of the scriptures and of the doctrines of the Church in general.
What non-church activities were the best preparation for your mission?
Hanging out with people not of our faith. It's rather strange and awkward at first when you find yourself spending the majority of your time with people who's beliefs are very different from yours. I'm glad that I knew a few non-members at home and worked with them. I've seen the difference between me and those who have also grown up in Utah without ever having talked with a non-member, they're far more awkward.
What is your favorite Latino food?
This is a hard one. I've decided that of all Latino food, Mexican food is definitely the best. Then again it's most of what I've eaten. Central American food (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, etc.) is far more simple, not very spicy, and does not have much variety. My favorite foods I've eaten are Sopes, a sope is a thick flour tortilla soaked in lime juice with pinched sides, it's fried and is rather thick and firm but not not brittle. On top of it they put almost anything, usually they put chicken with a green or red salsa with crumbled mexican cheese, and crema (basically a celestialized version of sour cream).
Also good are Tacos al Pastor, or Tacos de Trompo. Which is pork cooked in a special manner, they have this big huge metal cylinder thing they call a Trompo (spinning top), about 2-3 feet in diamter and about 4 feet high. They run this pole through the middle of it with a handle on the pole, it's basically a vertical spit inside a tube. You skewer the pork on there and layer it with pineapple. In the bottom of the Trompo is a bunch of hot charcoal and you let it sit in there for a while slowly turning the spit. Then you open it up, use a knife to carve off the outermost layers of this big stack of pork and pineapple, then close it again and let the remaining meat cook some more. Then you put it on some tortillas with lime juice, onions, cilantro and salsa. Most of the time you don't even need the salsa, it's that good. They are to die for and they are the best tacos I've ever eaten in my entire life.
Okay one more, this one I only just had recently but they are Elotes, which you all would recognize from Nacho Libre, that corn that that one guy always has and the one that he throws in the other guys eye in that one absurdly hilarious part. It's really simple and I've been thinking about making some lately. It's corn on the cob, boiled. Then you smear the whole thing with mayonnaise, sprinkle queso fresco all over it and then this special chile/lime powder all over it. It's very good, not very healthy at all, but very tasty, it's a popular street food in Mexico.
What is your favorite food to prepare on your own?
I'm not sure, I get bored of making the same thing over and over again, a few months ago I made a lot of fried rice but I got tired of it so lately I've just been making just simple things like tomato soup, macaroni & cheese, and omelets, but I always add things like spinach, bell peppers, beans, corn, etc. I've been trying to keep my diet varied with lots of vegetables. And no soda, because every time we get into some one's door they always give us soda, hispanics love soda and drink it like it's water, they never drink milk nor fruit juice. (Well they do drink Tampico type juices which will be like 5% juice).
Was learning spanish hard for you especially after knowing German really well?
It kind of was at first. The way I see it, being multi-lingual ls like those claw game machines. You have two buckets, your native language which is huge and your foreign language bucket which is much smaller. When your speaking and you suddenly can't think of a word the claw goes into the foreign language bucket and grabs something. Early on in the MTC the claw would go down and grab a German word because then my German vocabulary was far more extensive than my spanish vocabulary, so the odds were that I was more likely to spit out a German word while wanting a Spanish one. Now it's the other way around, now that my Spanish is pretty good and I've pretty much forgotten German the foreign language bucket has overflowed and even spilled into my english bucket. Sometimes when we end up teaching english people I cannot for the life of me remember some gospel terms in english. In one particular incident I spent 3 minutes trying to remember the word for the atonement in english. It was kind of embarrassing, of all words to forget I forgot the word for the most important thing that ever happened. But overall I say that learning German did help me out a lot, I already knew how to tackle a task such as learning another language.
What advice would give to the young men in our ward to help them prepare for a mission? What about the primary children?
I would say that you need to find a good reason for going on a mission, a reason that actually means something to you. If you just go because that's what everyone expects of you... I'd doubt that'd your conviction would be that strong. Also get a job and get a little taste of working hard and being miserable some of the time. Because there will come many days when you are just completely miserable, so get used to laughing such things off.
What can a young man do to best prepare for dealing with dogs as a missionary?
Don't be afraid, they say that animals can smell your fear and that seems to be mostly true, just show the dog who's higher in the food chain and ignore it. Don't stop and stare at it just keep on walking and ignore it as if it wasn't there. After a while you start to be able to tell which dogs are push-overs, and which dogs are genuinely dangerous. And never run, they can always outrun you.
I love you all, peace out.
-- Elder Rice
Bostesa
July 12, 2010
Hello Family.
This week was yet another slow week, at least the World Cup is finally over, maybe we'll be able to teach people now and maybe the members will actually start coming to Church. It's been raining quite a bit as well but we haven't seen any flooding of any kind. We're pretty sure that our area is getting closed down. Kind of a shame since it was just opened but, it's not just because of the lack of work but also because the Branch itself is moving to a new building! It was originally supposed to go down to a chapel somewhere near the Houston Temple. But that's not going to work so they're thinking about renting a building somewhere in Tomball, TX. Which is the "city" just south of where I am in Magnolia. Who knows what will happen, all we have to go on are rumors and things. So hopefully in a couple of weeks I will be in a new area. I'm getting real tired of being out in the sticks. I want to go down south within Houston itself, somewhere where there are actually lots of hispanics. Where I am right now is pretty much straight out of King of the Hill. In fact I was just telling Adam in an e-mail that if you want to try and catch of glimpse of what my mission has been like just combine King of the Hill with Nacho Libre.
So, once again this week was slow, lots of tracting and little teaching, yet it was a great week as we've witnessed a couple of miracles. The first involves an investigator who lives with a less active family. We tried to teach him last transfer but he had absolutely no interest whatsoever, the sincere testimonies from us and the family simply bounced off of him. So we thought out of the box and came up with a new tactic. We decided to start a family scripture study with them. We go over every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night and read one chapter from the Book Of Mormon and discuss it a little bit. We started in 1 Nephi chapter 1 and are going through the story of Nephi. And wow it's worked out great, if I've learned anything on my mission recently it's that I've realized more fully the power of the Book of Mormon. This guy is getting way into it now, into the story and the gospel principles found in the stories are sinking in. I have high hopes for him.
The second miracle consists of a less active woman who is an "under-the-radar" member. She's been inactive the last few years of her life. We found her last transfer and she told us of her miraculous conversion story of how some missionaries knocked on her door just before she was going to commit suicide. She expressed her desire to return to church. We invited her to chruch and set up a return appointment. We never saw nor heard from her again for another 2 months until we got a call from her wanting us to come back over. We went over and she told us how her father was about to kick her and her three small children out of his house, she has no job and nowhere to go. Her father gave her a week. She asked us if we knew anywhere she could go. We invited her to church to meet the members who might know of places. Then we emphasized that far more important was her spiritual well being, we told her that the Lord wants to help her, all she has to do is ask and do his will. We challenged her to pray and read the Book of Mormon on a daily basis, she agreed. We went by her two days later and she had read despite not being able to understand what she read, never-the-less she said she felt an inner peace while reading the book. We challenged her to keep reading and to come to church the very next day, we had a member who would pick her up. She agreed, the next morning we got a call from her and she told us that she had run into a friend of her mother who she had not seen for a decade or so. This friend offered her to live in a trailer she owned, free of charge until she got some income going. She was beside herself with excitement and gratitude, as I was on the phone with her I could not help but feel overawed, she had asked the Lord in prayer for somewhere to go and read the Book of Mormon and the very next day she had somewhere to go. It was amazing and I am humbled and grateful that I was able to be the Lord's messenger and to relate to her what he requires of us.
That was an excerpt from my weekly e-mail to President Hansen this morning, that would be why it's sounds a little more "spiritual" than what I usually e-mail to y'all. But yeah, it was really neat seeing stuff like that. We may not have baptized many people here but we have brought quite a few lost sheep back into the fold.
The pictures are of a tiny, tiny frog we found one day while it was raining. And of a big, big spider that we also found. The locals call it a "Yo-Yo Spider" and supposedly they are perfectly harmless, what they do is they put in their hands, close their hands around it. Let it sit in there for a while while it makes a web then you open your hands and fling it out and it'll bounce back. So like a sort of paddle ball action, just bouncing this spider in and out of your hands. We didn't know any of this when we caught it. We caught it as we were helping one of the other Elder's investigators clean out this nasty trailer. It was a scary process catching that thing, it was hanging in this huge web. But we got and took pictures and videos of it before we threw it in a fire-ant hill and watched it get devoured. Still, even if it supposedly harmless I don't think I'd touch that thing. Okay well that's enough for today. Hope you all have a good week, peace....
-- Elder Rice
Ampolla
July 6, 2010
Buenas Tardes Familia.
So first things first. Mom I have your recipe for that mysterious Salsa. However I'm not sure on the portion sizes at all, Hna. Flores didn't seem to think it was important enough to mention how much of each ingredient you need. Anyway it's pretty simple, all you need are Roma Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, and a pepper called "Chile Seco de Arbol". Which means 'dry chili of the tree' I don't think they actually grow on trees but that's what they're called. Anyway you take a Roma Tomato, don't chop it up anything, and you boil it with the chiles for 20 minutes. You don't cut up the chiles either, just throw it all in boiling water. After the twenty minutes is up put the tomato and the chiles in a blender with the garlic and onion and blend it and there you have it. Pretty simple, I'm thinking about trying it myself one day, see if it works. There could be perhaps some crucial details I'm missing but I think I got it all, Salvadorians are way hard to understand, they talk quietly and don't change their tone while speaking, so you can't tell if they're happy or sad or anything they just talk in a dull monotone. I asked Elder Ordaz, my previous companion two transfers ago and he said that even for him it's hard to understand people from El Salvador, that's means I'm in trouble.
Well this week was a pretty good week. We more than doubled our stats from last week, for whatever reason more people opened their doors and let us talk to them. We still don't have any progressing investigators or even any solid ones (ones that will actually be there when we make appointments with them), but none-the-less we are talking to more people and more people are at least more polite than the usual people we've encountered in this area. We're down to the last subdivision in our area and after we've finished tracting that we're not sure what there will be to do. This weekend it rained a lot, for like 3 days straight Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday it rained pretty much the whole time, there wasn't much to do so we've been getting creative. We got tired of all the big nasty roaches that keep turning up all over the place in the apartment and we are clean out of roach killer so we decided to start incinerating them, we'd catch them and spray them with insect repellent and while they'd try to skitter away we'd use a grill lighter and light them up. As they're on fire they start running really fast then in circles for a few seconds before they flip on their backs and die. I've got some pretty funny videos on my camera, probably not the most humane thing to do but we're out of roach killer and smashing makes a huge mess. Though lately we made a rule that no more roaches will be burned within the apartment (the smell of cooked cockroach is NOT a very pleasant smell).
Independence Day was uneventful. Saturday, Sunday, and even yesterday on Monday, President didn't want us out past 7:30 unless we had appointments. Saturday we didn't so we played Risk with the english Elders that night. It was a long game and it was weird playing with people who don't get bored as fast and drop out (like Austin and Aidan). The game finally ended at 12:30 and victory was mine but we were all so sick of it after 4 hours of playing that we didn't feel like it was worth it. Sunday a member invited us over for dinner (a rare event). The Perez (that same family in the picture of our recent convert Carlos) invited us and another family of the ward as well. We had a good time, the food wasn't hispanic at all, the Perez are pretty Americanized (most well-off hispanics usually are) the food was really good though, chicken in some sort of creamy savory sauce with mashed potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and rolls. It was all really good but as I said something not hispanic at all, though we did have horchata to drink. Last night we had an appointment with a part member family. The Davila family is one that is starting to become active again and one guy lives them named Enrique and he is an investigator of ours. He's a nice guy, I like him but he doesn't care at all about religion or anything, Elder Frost and I taught him a couple times but he just sits there bored of out his mind and won't respond. So Elder Manship and I have taken a different approach, we decided that if Enrique is ever going to get baptized the Davlias are going to have to be %100 active, and not just %100 active but they're going to have to be like %100 active white members of the church. So with them we're starting a family scripture study (something unheard of among hispanic members). We go over there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night and read a single chapter out of the Book of Mormon with them (including a reluctant Enrique), taking turns reading verse by verse. And when we finish we discuss the chapter for a few minutes have a prayer and leave. We started with 1 Nefi and are going through it one chapter at a time. I think it's really helping, Enrique won't participate in the discussion but he will read so we're banking on the Book of Mormon here, Preach My Gospel says it's the most powerful tool we have to convert people so we're putting all of our trust in that. It's also helping the Davilas out as well, they've had a lot of problems in the past and are still struggling today to make ends meet and be active members at the same time so hopefully it will help them as much as it does Enrique.
Well that's all that happened last week pretty much. We don't have much lined up for this week other than family scripture study with the Davlias. So that means more and more tracting. Oh and my hair is back to a reasonable length now in case anyone was wondering, it grew back quite fast after I buzzed my head. I don't have any pictures but hopefully next week I'll have some. Okay, hope you all have a good time in -- WAIT a second. I got the package, thanks for the journals mom. And those were some neat pictures of the San Diego Zoo, and is Austin really that big? Though I think his arms and legs still haven't caught up. Aidan looks a lot taller too and skinnier, while Alyssa looks a lot older. Mom and Dad look the same, as well as the dog. Okay now I'm done, hope you all have a good week and don't be too bored.
-- Elder Rice
Buenas Tardes Familia.
So first things first. Mom I have your recipe for that mysterious Salsa. However I'm not sure on the portion sizes at all, Hna. Flores didn't seem to think it was important enough to mention how much of each ingredient you need. Anyway it's pretty simple, all you need are Roma Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, and a pepper called "Chile Seco de Arbol". Which means 'dry chili of the tree' I don't think they actually grow on trees but that's what they're called. Anyway you take a Roma Tomato, don't chop it up anything, and you boil it with the chiles for 20 minutes. You don't cut up the chiles either, just throw it all in boiling water. After the twenty minutes is up put the tomato and the chiles in a blender with the garlic and onion and blend it and there you have it. Pretty simple, I'm thinking about trying it myself one day, see if it works. There could be perhaps some crucial details I'm missing but I think I got it all, Salvadorians are way hard to understand, they talk quietly and don't change their tone while speaking, so you can't tell if they're happy or sad or anything they just talk in a dull monotone. I asked Elder Ordaz, my previous companion two transfers ago and he said that even for him it's hard to understand people from El Salvador, that's means I'm in trouble.
Well this week was a pretty good week. We more than doubled our stats from last week, for whatever reason more people opened their doors and let us talk to them. We still don't have any progressing investigators or even any solid ones (ones that will actually be there when we make appointments with them), but none-the-less we are talking to more people and more people are at least more polite than the usual people we've encountered in this area. We're down to the last subdivision in our area and after we've finished tracting that we're not sure what there will be to do. This weekend it rained a lot, for like 3 days straight Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday it rained pretty much the whole time, there wasn't much to do so we've been getting creative. We got tired of all the big nasty roaches that keep turning up all over the place in the apartment and we are clean out of roach killer so we decided to start incinerating them, we'd catch them and spray them with insect repellent and while they'd try to skitter away we'd use a grill lighter and light them up. As they're on fire they start running really fast then in circles for a few seconds before they flip on their backs and die. I've got some pretty funny videos on my camera, probably not the most humane thing to do but we're out of roach killer and smashing makes a huge mess. Though lately we made a rule that no more roaches will be burned within the apartment (the smell of cooked cockroach is NOT a very pleasant smell).
Independence Day was uneventful. Saturday, Sunday, and even yesterday on Monday, President didn't want us out past 7:30 unless we had appointments. Saturday we didn't so we played Risk with the english Elders that night. It was a long game and it was weird playing with people who don't get bored as fast and drop out (like Austin and Aidan). The game finally ended at 12:30 and victory was mine but we were all so sick of it after 4 hours of playing that we didn't feel like it was worth it. Sunday a member invited us over for dinner (a rare event). The Perez (that same family in the picture of our recent convert Carlos) invited us and another family of the ward as well. We had a good time, the food wasn't hispanic at all, the Perez are pretty Americanized (most well-off hispanics usually are) the food was really good though, chicken in some sort of creamy savory sauce with mashed potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and rolls. It was all really good but as I said something not hispanic at all, though we did have horchata to drink. Last night we had an appointment with a part member family. The Davila family is one that is starting to become active again and one guy lives them named Enrique and he is an investigator of ours. He's a nice guy, I like him but he doesn't care at all about religion or anything, Elder Frost and I taught him a couple times but he just sits there bored of out his mind and won't respond. So Elder Manship and I have taken a different approach, we decided that if Enrique is ever going to get baptized the Davlias are going to have to be %100 active, and not just %100 active but they're going to have to be like %100 active white members of the church. So with them we're starting a family scripture study (something unheard of among hispanic members). We go over there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night and read a single chapter out of the Book of Mormon with them (including a reluctant Enrique), taking turns reading verse by verse. And when we finish we discuss the chapter for a few minutes have a prayer and leave. We started with 1 Nefi and are going through it one chapter at a time. I think it's really helping, Enrique won't participate in the discussion but he will read so we're banking on the Book of Mormon here, Preach My Gospel says it's the most powerful tool we have to convert people so we're putting all of our trust in that. It's also helping the Davilas out as well, they've had a lot of problems in the past and are still struggling today to make ends meet and be active members at the same time so hopefully it will help them as much as it does Enrique.
Well that's all that happened last week pretty much. We don't have much lined up for this week other than family scripture study with the Davlias. So that means more and more tracting. Oh and my hair is back to a reasonable length now in case anyone was wondering, it grew back quite fast after I buzzed my head. I don't have any pictures but hopefully next week I'll have some. Okay, hope you all have a good time in -- WAIT a second. I got the package, thanks for the journals mom. And those were some neat pictures of the San Diego Zoo, and is Austin really that big? Though I think his arms and legs still haven't caught up. Aidan looks a lot taller too and skinnier, while Alyssa looks a lot older. Mom and Dad look the same, as well as the dog. Okay now I'm done, hope you all have a good week and don't be too bored.
-- Elder Rice
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