Snow, Menudo and Salmon Fishing

Snow Day!!

Hey family, Happy February! I cannot believe how fast the time is going. The transfer is already half way over, and then it's March. How crazy. It feels like it should be Spring in no time, but we had more than a foot of snow on Tuesday night alone. the cars were grounded all day, so we were home all day. ALL day. It snowed hard from 11 am til after we went to bed, they didn't want us out driving. Apparently in the last week there have been three pretty bad crashes in the mission. Don't worry, not me. But they made it sound like it was a pretty big miracle that no one got hurt. They said it would be close to $100,000 worth of damage. Obviously, that's a pretty big deal, and they are really uptight about how much we drive right now. They will probably cut a lot of miles so that everyone has to bike and walk more. It's kind of daunting considering that we easily cover 40-50 miles every day. The crashes are contributed to reckless driving, so they are cracking down pretty hard. I'm a good driver, and I know how to drive in the snow, but it does get pretty slippery if you go too fast. It's also been warmer the last few days, close to forty, so everything melts, and then freezes overnight. The nice thing is that they have a killer plow system here, and so the roads are always pretty clear unless you're driving as its snowing. 

  

So Tuesday was pretty boring. We had another lesson with Marina on Monday night. We stopped by at the time she said and she still wasn't home, so we came by later and we were able to teach a short lesson on the Book of Mormon.  It went pretty well, and she was excited to start reading. we are going again tonight, and we hope she really started reading!

Wednesday night we had menudo. I don't even think I can describe it, you might need to google it. Basically menudo is a soup with tripe or intestines as the main meat. The menudo we had was basically pure intestines. They clean it really well, but my goodness, it still tastes like what you would expect intestines to taste like. The texture is nasty. There are like hard chewy pieces, and then soft (still chewy) pieces, that have the cilia things on them, and then just like nasty stringy pieces. Gross. But Sis R and I both managed to get down a full bowl, which apparently is pretty impressive. Menudo is kind of infamous in the missionary community. The trick is tons of onion and tons of salsa. Bread also helped sort of. It was pretty nasty, I wasn't sure I could finish. But I also feel like it's one of those classic mission experiences that makes a good story. Oh and the other thing is, This family LOVES menudo. The dad in particular was explaining all the ways they make it, that you can get it anywhere in Mexico, that it was WAY better than barbecue, things like that. Fun/disgusting experience. 

Don't get too excited about the salmon fishing thing, I just had a member who was asking me about the salmon fishing, so I need some answers:) What are the months of salmon fishing? What kind of bait do you use? How big are they on average? Tell me all the stories. It was funny because we were talking in Spanish and I was trying to describe things that I know really well, and that are really familiar to me, but I just don't know how to say it in Spanish. He was asking like what kind of animals are there where I'm from, what kind of trees, if there are lakes, rivers, what kind of fish there are, things like that. It was fun because it's stuff I love to talk about, but I basically had to learn a whole new vocabulary.

Here's a story you'll laugh at. There is this lady in our branch who was in St Paul for a while, but she's back and Sunday was her first Sunday back. I hadn't met her, but I had heard her name, usually said with a little bit of exasperation and "oh great" type attitude. You know the type. so we're in Sunday school, more than halfway through. The door opens, and there's this loud "buenos dias hermanos!" from the back but like super dramatic and grand entrance.. and then she proceeds to go around the room and give every single person a hug and say hi. Every. person. And the best part was that most of the people had the "oh no not this lady" face, and put on that "oh honey" face when they would talk to her. She is just really loud all the time. Even during the sacrament I could hear her voice. It was just funny seeing the reaction when she came in the room. Sad, but still funny. 

Here's something random that I've been working on: standing up straight. Brother Cupkie reminds me constantly, and I've been trying to put some effort in because I actually think it would be good. Challenge to sisters:))

We also rewatched the missionary broadcast this week. It was interesting to watch and take notes and then compare my notes from last time. I've summarized it into 5 things that I want to implement in my teaching. 

   1. Plan better

   2. Teach part member and less-active families using the actual lessons in Preach my Gospel,

   3, Teach more simply

   4. Listen and Observe more in teaching

   5. Testify of Christ in every lesson. 

I think that these are some pretty easy ways to improve my teaching, and I think it's just going back to the very fundamentals of Preach My Gospel. 

So some questions for you! I've been thinking this week about post-mission school and work options. I think it's probably a little early for me to think about it too much, but I don't want to miss deadlines and such. Originally I had planned to go straight back to school, but I was thinking that I didn't really ask you about that plan. Would that be a problem, would it be better for me to work for a while first? Because I have not very much money. I have also decided that I would love to be an RA again at least the first semester I'm back. Easy housing, good job. But again the school thing, because I'm sure you thought about this, but Ryan will be on a mission, Sara and I in school, and I would be totally willing to pay what I've got, but I would also like to do it myself. But that would mean work first. I don't know. Lots of thoughts. I also am not sure if BYU lets you defer longer than you said you would, so I'll have to look. Or you can. Just what are your opinions? And like I said, I'm not in a huge hurry, I just need to figure out some deadlines and stuff. 

Also, what happen to the Woodward and Seiler babies? Have they had them yet? I was just thinking about that and realized I can't remember how long it's been since I found out about that.

Have a great week! Send me pictures from Maui!
Love, Emily