Aye Yaway!

Mi familia! Gracias por los e-mails y todo lo que hacen para mi!Yo les amo muchisimo! Well we had a pretty good week! As always, right? Of course! Not too many appointments fell through, so that's always good.

We saw David a couple of times, and he still isn't reading. Hmmm. I'm not sure how to help people get it. He himself admitted that when he reads everyday, that he's happier. Things are better. And when he stops those little things, everything goes downhill pretty fast. So...we'll see. Neither he nor Vanessa was able to come to church on Sunday. But on Saturday he seemed a little happier, a little less down. He even told us a story where he referred to himself as a Mormon. That was something he always used to do, but we hadn't heard for a long time. We like it. As long as he understands he still has to be baptized for it to count! Hay un poquito progresso. Pero hay progresso!

We also have a new family we're teaching. The Spanish elders knocked into them and passed them to us: the Gonzalez family, a mom and three girls. Mom was busy last week with work, but we taught the girls twice and invited the two oldest to be baptized, and they said yes. August 30. I thought it would be a good b-day present for me, if I'm still here then. This week we'll invite their mom to be baptized too. It's great because they actually have family who are members in the mission next to us and the teenage daughter, Jordan, has gone to mutual there, and years ago they went to church. We're excited!

It was just a good week because we were able to get in contact with a lot of people and set appointments that haven't happened for a while. The La Habra ward is really good with doing the ward mission process that Elder Perry has set out. North Hills is starting to catch on. They tried in the past to get us some names, but they didn't work, but now they've given us a bunch of new ones. And now we're really excited about the potential of working some more in that area. We're still knocking in the North Hills area a lot, and I know that success will come out of that somehow. It's all about that faith! It's exciting because our mission continues to do really well. A couple of weeks ago we had more baptisms than they had all of 2008. Yeah!

On Saturday we did exchanges. S. Lewis went to Yorba Linda/Placentia with S. Chriswell, and one of the new sisters, S. Peterson, came here with us. It went really well! And this week we ate tongue. Mmmm! We were eating with some recent converts, the Reyes. And they made us tacos. I've heard lots about tacos de lengua, but somehow I never had the pleasure of having them while I was in Santa Ana. I looked down at the tacos and thought the meat was an interesting gray color. Then I almost immediately saw the taste buds! Mmm! I looked at my companeras and they didn't seem to know. They said, "Oh, its beef." So I let them think that, because really, there was no choice. We had to eat them. Funny though, because the kids at one point mentioned "Oh, she wants to eat more lengua," and I looked at Sister Lewis and she had finally realized it. Ha ha ha! Then we told S. Patten later. Honestly though, other that some sinew type stuff, tongue is the weirdest thing I've eaten. It's not bad. All mental. Just weird to see taste buds. What else? Oh yeah. A couple of times I've been told that I have an accent. A couple of times people think I'm European, and the others they think I'm Midwestern. Just yesterday a ward member guessed I was from Minnesota. Interesting. Who knew! Oh yes, also exciting news to me. Another recent convert, Alex, who is 25, mentioned one time that her grandma "abuelita" used to be a housekeeper for one of the Beatles who had a home in LA. Crazy! But she couldn't remember for which Beatle, even when I told her it was important for her to remember. Oh well. That's the closest I've ever gotten to a Beatle! We played badminton today, and I think I should join a professional league. Oh yeah, and we gave talks yesterday in sacrament. I talked about the joys of being a missionary and talked about Ammon. He was a funny guy; he was always fainting when he got excited.

This week we have a lot planned and scheduled and we're all excited to work hard and find more people to teach and improve our numbers. Not that they completely show success, but high numbers are encouraging!

I love love love you all so much! It's wonderful to be a missionary and I pray for you all and know that you're praying for me! I hope everything is going well! Thanks for everything!