August 30, 2010
What's up family...?
Well this has been another rather mundane week. It did go by really fast though, when all you do is work hard the weeks get faster and boring-er as well. I'm starting to get tired of the monotony. That and we're not really teaching anyone, just finding, finding, finding, and more finding. Talking to everyone we see and trying to teach them. Which means weeks of hearing "Oh, I don't have a set schedule", "I might be here, I might not", "Maybe, I work from 4 AM to 2 AM". Most of which are straight up lies, they're just trying to get rid of us without being too rude. I wish that people would just tell us straight up if they wanted us to come by or not. Well then that would mean they would be white people and not hispanics and they'd be way rude about it as well. Oh well. Who knows though, we found some pretty cool people this week that might have some promise, among them are a couple of guys from Peru, the first Peruvians I've met so far. There aren't too many of them out here.
Sunday was Stake Conference and that was a lot of fun. Our stake, the Houston West Spanish Stake, is huge. It covers half of our mission and extends down in the Texas Houston South Mission as well, there were a lot of missionaries there from the other mission. The Stake Center itself is actually out of our mission boundaries it's way down in Central Houston. It was fun mostly because you get to see people from old wards that you served in before. I talked to people from my previous wards; Woodlands 3rd and Oakcrest. It was fun, and seeing other missionaries too.
Well... That's about all I have to say, my time is rather limited since all four of us are taking turns on this computer right now. The local community college in which we usually e-mail at was packed today and everyone was registering for classes and fixing schedules and whatnot, they kicked out everyone who wasn't messing with their classes. So we're using this one computer in some other Elders' apartment complex's little lobby thingy. Which is just as well since I don't have too much to say today. This is the last week of the transfer and I don't expect either myself or my companion to be going anywhere so not that exciting. Okay that's all, hope you all are having back in school, especially Alyssa since she's no longer in the agency-robbing school system anymore. Love you all, PEACE!
-- Elder Rice
Bochornoso
S'up fam
This week I actually took some pictures. They're not all that amazing, it's just suburbs nothing particularly interesting, and one of Elder Rupp. Well we've been luckily this week as the temperature has dropped a bit. The week before last week it was hitting 100 everyday but this last week it was usually like 90-95. Not too bad, and on Saturday it was only 89. But I'm still as tired as ever, the humidity is still as strong as ever and I've been tired this whole week. It's pretty funny actually. Yesterday at church we had one of the Stake Presidency, the 1st counselor I believe, in sacrament meeting and during one of the talks both Elder Rupp had checked out and were sound asleep. Elder Rupp can sleep sitting up though, his head was just drooped forward. I was in my usual position with my head on my hands on my knees. We were sitting in the back row of the main section so I would have thought that nobody would give us much notice but this dude from the stake noticed and during someone's talk he sent one of the deacons that sits up on the stand behind the organ to come and poke us awake. I sat up and looked up and saw the 1st counselor there and just was sitting there smiling at us. Lame... I wanted to tell him to go ride his bike around all day all week and even before church and then go to church and stay awake. We were dead tired. Church starts at 2:00 so we have time earlier in the day to go out and see people, and we had an appointment that was pretty far away at 11:00 and it fell through of course. So had already been biking around for several hours before church then we got back and showered just in time for the sister missionaries to come pick us up to go to church. Everyone thought it was funny though, after sacrament meeting everyone was giving us crap about how we had fallen asleep. Oh well, it's just funny more than anything else.
That's really the only amusing thing that's happened this week. Our one investigator with baptismal date dropped us so we're back to nothing. We've just been biking around and talking to everyone we see. That's the nice thing about being on full bike as well. We don't have to knock doors, we just have to talk to people we ride by, it's much less awkward and people are less rude being in neutral territory.
Well we got a Zone Conference this week, and now they're supposed to be 6 hours long so I don't know if I'm going to make it, and Elder Kikuchi or something, from the Quorum of the 70 will be there so I'm going to have try really hard not to fall asleep or President will have my head. We're supposed to have memorized D&C 4 and "The Standard of Truth" for Zone Conference. I don't have either memorized, though I know D&C 4 pretty well, but I don't even know what "The Standard of Truth" is, I've never heard of it. Oh well, some other missionaries and myself heard that if you mouth the word 'watermelon' or 'potato chip' it looks like your saying exactly what everyone else around you is saying so that's our plan. I assume we're all going to recite it so I'm not too worried.
Okay... Anything else?... Ummm.... Oh so mom you want to know if need anything. I actually could use some more of that home made granola cereal that you sent that one time. It was really good, and I don't know some random stuff, random munchies, and some stamps. I've lost my stockpile of stamps and and out access to the post office is limited. It really stinks not having a car, you can never go where you want for P-Days or anything, you have to either convince those that are driving to go to where you want or hope that everything you need is in Wal-Mart. And In general, Mom, I need a more high-energy diet so if you could let me know of what sort of foods and things I could make to help out with that it would be amazing. Okay, I'm done, oh and I guess school starts sometime soon, have fun with that. I love you all, peace out.
--Elder Rice
This week I actually took some pictures. They're not all that amazing, it's just suburbs nothing particularly interesting, and one of Elder Rupp. Well we've been luckily this week as the temperature has dropped a bit. The week before last week it was hitting 100 everyday but this last week it was usually like 90-95. Not too bad, and on Saturday it was only 89. But I'm still as tired as ever, the humidity is still as strong as ever and I've been tired this whole week. It's pretty funny actually. Yesterday at church we had one of the Stake Presidency, the 1st counselor I believe, in sacrament meeting and during one of the talks both Elder Rupp had checked out and were sound asleep. Elder Rupp can sleep sitting up though, his head was just drooped forward. I was in my usual position with my head on my hands on my knees. We were sitting in the back row of the main section so I would have thought that nobody would give us much notice but this dude from the stake noticed and during someone's talk he sent one of the deacons that sits up on the stand behind the organ to come and poke us awake. I sat up and looked up and saw the 1st counselor there and just was sitting there smiling at us. Lame... I wanted to tell him to go ride his bike around all day all week and even before church and then go to church and stay awake. We were dead tired. Church starts at 2:00 so we have time earlier in the day to go out and see people, and we had an appointment that was pretty far away at 11:00 and it fell through of course. So had already been biking around for several hours before church then we got back and showered just in time for the sister missionaries to come pick us up to go to church. Everyone thought it was funny though, after sacrament meeting everyone was giving us crap about how we had fallen asleep. Oh well, it's just funny more than anything else.
That's really the only amusing thing that's happened this week. Our one investigator with baptismal date dropped us so we're back to nothing. We've just been biking around and talking to everyone we see. That's the nice thing about being on full bike as well. We don't have to knock doors, we just have to talk to people we ride by, it's much less awkward and people are less rude being in neutral territory.
Well we got a Zone Conference this week, and now they're supposed to be 6 hours long so I don't know if I'm going to make it, and Elder Kikuchi or something, from the Quorum of the 70 will be there so I'm going to have try really hard not to fall asleep or President will have my head. We're supposed to have memorized D&C 4 and "The Standard of Truth" for Zone Conference. I don't have either memorized, though I know D&C 4 pretty well, but I don't even know what "The Standard of Truth" is, I've never heard of it. Oh well, some other missionaries and myself heard that if you mouth the word 'watermelon' or 'potato chip' it looks like your saying exactly what everyone else around you is saying so that's our plan. I assume we're all going to recite it so I'm not too worried.
Okay... Anything else?... Ummm.... Oh so mom you want to know if need anything. I actually could use some more of that home made granola cereal that you sent that one time. It was really good, and I don't know some random stuff, random munchies, and some stamps. I've lost my stockpile of stamps and and out access to the post office is limited. It really stinks not having a car, you can never go where you want for P-Days or anything, you have to either convince those that are driving to go to where you want or hope that everything you need is in Wal-Mart. And In general, Mom, I need a more high-energy diet so if you could let me know of what sort of foods and things I could make to help out with that it would be amazing. Okay, I'm done, oh and I guess school starts sometime soon, have fun with that. I love you all, peace out.
--Elder Rice
Chevere
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)