Rain and the Three Marias

Hello! Today after laundry and grocery shopping, and before we went to play ultimate Frisbee with our zone, we had a miracle! It rained! I hope everyone is appreciating the rain they get to have! And a p-day with rain is just perfect! My official second transfer is going great-claro que si! Last week on p-day we actually went and did something, so that was fun. Usually everyone is unfortunately a little lame and wants to sit around in the apartment all day. But I demanded that we go do something, so we went and walked around what's called the "orange circle" which is like a much much better Provo center street, but in a circle. They have a lot of fun antique stores and little boutiques and places where you can just buy cupcakes. Ha ha. Orange is really a fun city; I would bring people back here to visit for sure. Maybe all the family that is going to be here in two weeks should come to Orange! It's just down the street from Disneyland. Weird that they'll be here!

We had a lot of great lessons last week, and a lot of members cancelled on coming with us. But it's interesting how it works out and it's usually better that it was just us teaching. We even found a miracle. We were out knocking this apartment building and while my companeras were talking to one woman, this other woman kind of walks up and I said hi to her and she asked if we were Mormons and I said yes and asked if she's spoken to missionaries before. We found out sister missionaries had been teaching her like twice a week something like 10 or 15 years ago but they were transferred out and she moved and yeah, here we are. We ended up sitting in her apartment finding and offering to teach her again and she told us all about her-she's from Venezuela and has cousins that are members in our stake and friends her are members in Utah. And she gave us chocolate and told us she was going to make us dinner this week and she's just excited to have us come again. And so are we! Her name is miracle Maria. Then we are teaching Maria de la paz (that's really her name, of the peace) who is really interested and Maria de los tomales (our name for her because she sells tomales in the park) who is also very interested. We have to keep our Marias straight. We also had a couple of days last week that were sort of random because nothing really worked out the way we planned. But hey, we had like an entire two weeks straight of amazing days. And I've found that as long as you plan well, it doesn't matter how everything turns out, but somehow the original planning just prepares you for whatever. It's a good thing! We did some service as a district down in Santa Ana on Saturday that was really fun. We got put in this group of Humanitarian workers that were ALL Muslim and we gave food to the homeless. This service group even did some recitations from the Koran and sang and everything and I LOVED it! It was like being back in Jerusalem. Especially because I was the only blonde. Hma Fatkin says that down in Irvine there are tons of Persians and Afghanis and Muslims and Indians and I'm really excited for when I inevitably serve down there! But for now the Spanish is great.
Speaking of Spanish, I do think my language has improved. I don't know how because we hardly ever get to really have language study, and it's not like we're speaking it all day long, but it's coming along. And that's good.
Araceli and Cibelly came to church again this week. Yeah! And the husband even dropped them off! And Hermana Mendez' husband was there too. But Eulalio and the Mendozas weren't there. We're going to have to have a little, loving talk with Eulalio about church again because now we will have to move his baptismal date so that he can attend church enough times. Some of these people you just want to shake! Because you know that they've received an answer, they just don't get how important it is to act on that answer! And I suppose that's why we're here too, to help them recognized what's happening and what they need to do. Oh well. He was going to get baptized on my four month mission anniversary, but it will be a week later now! It is going to be a great week! I can feel it already!
Oh, funny thing from last week. Sometimes Hma Fatkin says funny things that don't make sense, both in English and Spanish and H Ochoa and I look at each other and try not to laugh. But we were going to eat at someone's house and she was praying before we went in and said "gracias por sus deseos de ayudar y comer los misioneros." She meant to thank the members for the help and for feeding the missionaries. But instead we are now grateful that the members want to eat us. It only took about a 3 second silence after the prayer before H Ochoa and I busted up. Good times on the mission-the laughing is so important! I'm not sure I have much more to say! The mission is great and it's starting to really speed up-ah! My ward is amazing and my companionship is wonderful and everything is just going great! Thank you family again for you love and prayers! I hope everyone is doing wonderfully and is happy and enjoying the last days of September! Is it snowing yet? Ha ha! Love you!

Hermana Emily