Hermana Medeiros Texas Houston Mission: Week 63-Jersey Shore

"Once again on jersey shore...."
So this week has been really good, kind of busy but good. I loved
general conference it was super good! We ended up having one
investigator Come to the Sunday morning session. The member he came
with had to leave a little early but we have a return appointment and
so we will be able to talk to him then about it. I was super happy to
be able to watch conference in the comfort of my idioma English.
Saturday morning they didn't realize they set it up in Spanish so we
watched elder utchdorfs talk in Spanish. It was a little rough to
understand. I will have to re watch it or read it. We thought they
would show it at our building but at 1050 when we got there the only
people at the church building were just parking there so they could go
to a festival at the iglesia catolica across the street. So we rushed
to another church building and got there right as he began speaking.
There were so many good talks! I am super excited for the new apostles
they all had really good testimonies. I did miss hearing from our
loved apostles elder packer, perry and Scott. Hearing from president
Thomas s monson was such a comfort, I love hearing from him and was so
happy that he spoke.

Anyways to the beginning of the week on Tuesday I went on an exchange
with hermana Rivas who is on her third transfer, we taught two English
classes and had some pretty good lessons. We went and got papusas. In
the restaurant there was a movie on super loud and it was blaring a
ton of swear words, we asked if they could change the movie but they
just turned it down. We tried to eat fast. But it was alps funny
because on the table their salt shakers are beer bottles. Really????
Anyways the exchange was super good.

We exchanged back on Wednesday at English class and after we taught
English class we went and met up with the other hermanas and went on
an exchange with them. This time I stayed in the area and had hermana
gayler my seester! Come with me. We had to drive back to our apartment
and when we got there we realized well j realized that I hadn't gotten
the phone for, hermana sumsion and so we used the office phone of our
apartments to call them and anyways being on an exchange without a
phone is really rough. But anyways we had a good time. We met this
little boy outside of an apartment complex and he followed us around
the rest of the night. I don't remember what his name is but he says
everyone calls him slim shady. He is eight years old. We knocked on so
many doors and even members doors but no one was home! We did our best
though.

We switched back Thursday and that was fun, trying to meet at the same
spot without a phone, luckily we had found a phone to use to confirm
the time and place. It was nice to be back with my companion after so
long. Haha we had a good day Thursday, got to meet some more members
of the ward because we still don't have a ward list or anything!

Friday we had zone meeting and we had to start later than most because
half of us teach English in the morning. So we started at like 12, and
ended around 430. It was really good though. We learned different ways
to extend baptismal date invitations. When it came to layer in the day
we still needed our contacts so we went into a store to get them. I
swear I always get the most awkward situations because I tried to
contact this lady in the store that didn't speak Spanish OR English!
Hna had a fun time laughing, aye aye aye. We got to make papusas that
night with a member and her in laws who aren't members. It was pretty
good, it was funny because one of the elders was there with a member
because they were handing them off to us, anyways the nine year old
wanted to say the prayer to start dinner and he wanted us to hold
hands, well it just so happened that the elder was in between me and
sumsion haha after everyone had grabbed hands and we were holding the
other persons hand we realized we had to hold his hand, it was super
funny.

Saturday was conference and we mainly just did that all day. We got
sugared out because we bought sugar to eat during it.

Then Sunday we tried to get some part member families to come but they
ended up all being busy, that was a bummer but oh well.

Your questions for the week

1. Tell me about your new area now that you’ve had another week to
settle in. It's really good. We have a really big area. I really hope
president puts another set of missionaries in this ward in the coming
transfers. It's just so big and a ton of miles to constantly go across
it. I really like it though. I just don't like the roads. I miss the
roads in Bryan, country life. And now I'm basically in city life.
Freeways everywhere and it actually makes driving stressful. I think I
forgot to say this last week but my first week in this area I
accidentally got on to a toll road. That was awesome....still don't
know if we have to pay or what.

2. Is the ward supportive and helpful with missionary work? I think
so...I mean last Sunday we sent a list around in the priesthood and
relief society so members could put their name and numbers and times
they would be able to go out with us and we got a lot of people on it.

3. Do the members feed you? Yeah, we have been fed almost ever day
this week. They are all super awesome. We have some really great
members in the ward.

4. Have you bonded with anyone yet? I mean maybe? Some of the members
that we've seen more than once which hasn't been that many. It will
all come in time. But I found out today (Sunday) that we have a family
who is related to Blanca Arredondo from woodlands :)

Anyways this week has been really good. I'm really excited to work in
this area. One thing from conference that I loved was when we were
told "works without faith is dead" we are always told that faith
without works is dead but I never really thought about it the other
way around. It's so true as missionaries. We can work as hard as we
want but if we don't have faith nothing is going to come of it.

"Stay tuned for next weeks letter from jersey shore"
Hermana medeiros

(Shalyn is serving in Jersey Village--hence the Jersey Shore references)