Letter#26: green day

Well well, another week gone. We're already halfway through the transfer (again)!

I was thinking back on the week, trying to decide what to talk about...and I realized that this week mostly consisted of a lot of driving. I feel like we were driving from the top of our area all the way down to the bottom all week long. Some lessons I learned this week:

* As a general rule, don't trust Haitians to file your tax return if their "income tax office" also doubles as a video store/long-distance calling center/cologne counter. 

* Never just a person by the amount of piercings in their face (or by the amount of piercings they decide to get done in one day, even if that number is somewhere between 13 and 20)

* If someone in south Florida says they have a ride to church...it probably means they don't.

* This weather is the reason why people live in Florida!

* 20-year-old boys can actually be pretty cool.

* If you serve a mission, God will magnify your talents...por ejemplo, if you used to be a pretty darn good sight-reader (music), you will become an amazing sight-reader!

* You gotta stay focused on the work. The second you start thinking about all the things you'll do when you're home (even if it's as harmless as Sunday naps) is the second everything gets hard.

* Thank goodness I'm in Florida eating milkshakes and chicken nuggets and not eating jiggly black pig skin in Guatemala and having diarrhea afterwards. (It sounds like Austin's having the time of his life, doesn't it...?)

* I just love Haitians. They're super awesome. (Even if I probably wouldn't give them my tax information) Seriously, if I was an elder I'd want to be called creole-speaking. I could just knock doors all day in the Haitian neighborhoods! (Ma frape zi!)

Yup, I'm working on my Creole. They LOVE it if you pop out a phrase in their language, even if you can't say anything else. Right now my Creole is fairly limited to the phrases, "Do you speak Creole?" "Will you follow the example of Jesus (Jezi) and be baptized?" "How are you?/I'm on fire!", "Thank you, goodbye!", and "I'm from Fondubla!" (a place in Haiti where there's a lot of white people). But that's enough to put a smile on their faces :) Don't worry, my Spanish is still coming along, too. We just don't use it very often here in Ft. Laud.

A miracle this week was the fact that this kid Fred came to church! We met him during the week by knocking on his door. He accepted baptism and he was YSA so we went back to see him. First of all, he had approximately 15 more piercings than he'd had in his face three days earlier and clearly hadn't expected (or necessarily wanted) us to come back. We tried to have a lesson with him and it was probably one of the worst (although most entertaining) lessons of my mission...he had been babysitting his nephews and they escaped and started terrorizing the halls of the apartment complex while we were there trying to read a scripture and talk about baptism & such. I'm pretty sure we didn't even say a prayer with the kid. We basically were like, Ok, well...you should come to church tomorrow! And here's a Book of Mormon. Alright peace out. We walked away shaking our heads just thinking...wow...he was soo not interested and we are def not coming back. But that night he texted us and asked what time church was the next day. And he asks us how far it would take him to bike to the church from his apartment. And then when we weren't able to find him a ride in time the next morning, he actually rides the bus to get to church! (That NEVER happens! People here are NOT proactive about getting themselves to church! Although hopefully this is a sign that things are changing...)  I'm pretty sure he even took out some of his piercings. And he came and stayed for all three hours and even came to a social we were having afterwards!  He even put on a button-down shirt and nice pants for the occasion! Oh my, what a surprise! So I guess we had a fine little lesson in judging a book by its cover. So now he's preparing for baptism. Pretty cool.

Anyways, love you all, hope you remembered to wear green yesterday. This last week I hit my "I-go-home-in-exactly-a-year" mark (march 13)...crazy! 

lovelovelove

sista d