I ate cow foot this weekend.
I had to tell you all first thing because this was quite a traumatic experience for me and it´s best that I get it off my chest right from the get go. A lady in our ward has been wanting to have us over for ¨pata de vaca¨ for quite some time and seeing as this is our last weekend of this transfer, we decided we couldn´t refuse the offer any longer. I believe I mentioned something about mondongo in my last letter (stomach of a cow) and how horrible that was. Yeah, it´s got nothin´on the cow´s foot. Let me just say that right now. I told my companion that I need a diagram of a cow so that I can point out what I consider acceptable to ingest.
I know I spend a lot of time talking about food in my letters but that´s the culture here: food. Who has it, what are they cooking and how much of it have you eaten? That is the regular topic of conversation. And occasionally we get around to the Gospel :) (that was a joke).
I hope you all enjoyed your Pioneer Day weekend. I got to speak in church again yesterday on the subject of (you guessed it) missionary work, but I related it to the pioneers and the duty we have to leave behind a legacy worthy of emulation for our posterity (i didn´t use those words exactly. the spanish vocab´s still a little limited.). We have a serious problem with inactivity in my area so I challenged the members to be courageous and bear testimony of the things they know to be true, even if they ¨don´t have time¨ to do anything else. I hope someone listened. That´s always my hope.
Well, we´re going to find out tonight if I stay here in David or if once again I´ll be shipped to some different area, but my comp´s been here for 6 months, so I think we know the outcome. But I´ve said that before. We´ll see! A donde me mandes, iré, Señor.
There´s a whole lot of work to do here, so I´m hoping and praying I get to stay and keep going with it. I love this place and I´m grateful to the Lord for the opportunity to serve here.
Glad to hear the surgery went well, Ben! Anyone else have news?
Well I´m off! I´ll write more in August :) (WHOA.)
love you all,
Hna. Brewster
(someday she will send us pics of her actually IN Panama...)
Monday, July 26, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Sopresas!
Hola Familia Mía,
I´m going to try something new here and write to you all BEFORE I read your emails, thus ensuring that all of the interesting/fascinating details I have to compart will be shared :). We´ll see how this goes.
I can´t believe it but we are already in our last week of this transfer. I´m not even going to try to guess at what´s going to happen next transfer as far as where I´ll be and who my companion will be because so far I´ve been thrown some pretty crazy curveballs. That´s one thing I´m learning from the mission--expect the unexpected. For example, we´ve been struggling to get members and converts to church this transfer (let alone investigators) but yesterday we had a rather pleasant surprise. Our assistance climbed dramatically, most of our recent converts showed up AND we had FOUR investigators show up on their own for the full three hour block, including the familia Jimenez (the Australian man with his Mexican wife--remember them?) and the husband of one of our recent converts. Every Sunday the missionaries are supposed to get up at 5 a.m. for what´s called ëscuadrones¨, which is where we go around and pick up investigators or other less active members for church with the help of people in our ward. (We haven´t seen much success with this but we´re hoping it catches on.) Yesterday morning we called one of our converts, Luis, to see if he still wanted us to pick him up for church. We were pretty bummed when he told us he was sick and couldn´t make it. Apparently our invitation to church works like a curse for people because something always happens to them--they get sick, something in their house breaks or there´s some sort of other emergency. Anywho...we ended up making the long walk to church by ourselves like always. After a disappointing morning, you can imagine how happy we were to find 4 investigators in the chapel! Ít´s little things like that that make your day here. That´s what I´m learning more than anything, really. I may not see grand changes within 6 weeks but little by little people are changing their lives for the better. We may even see some baptisms in the next transfer. I just hope I get to stay here! Seriously, I love the people here. (In my next email, remind me to tell you about la familia Leon-Carrera and Hermana Manuela. They´re some special investigators of ours.)
As for me, I promise you I´m a long way off from perfection but I´m learning to have patience with myself--and even have some fun in the process :). (Last p'day we played soccer in the rain for about 2 hours and got SOAKED. It was awesome. Enjoyed every minute of it.) My health´s been pretty good with the minor exception of what seems to be a small case of food poisoning this past weekend. I´m pretty sure the culprit was something called ¨mondongo¨which, I have recently learned, is the stomach of a cow. Eating that is something akin to eating a cooked rubber ducky...with fur. It is every bit as disgusting as it sounds. But when the members sit down in front of you and watch you eat every bite, what can you do? Luckily that bit of fun only lasted for a day...back to normal now! I actually missed plain old rice and chicken after that.
So that´s my report for now. Next week I should have even better things to say.
love you all and keep prayin!
love,
Hna. Brewster
I´m going to try something new here and write to you all BEFORE I read your emails, thus ensuring that all of the interesting/fascinating details I have to compart will be shared :). We´ll see how this goes.
I can´t believe it but we are already in our last week of this transfer. I´m not even going to try to guess at what´s going to happen next transfer as far as where I´ll be and who my companion will be because so far I´ve been thrown some pretty crazy curveballs. That´s one thing I´m learning from the mission--expect the unexpected. For example, we´ve been struggling to get members and converts to church this transfer (let alone investigators) but yesterday we had a rather pleasant surprise. Our assistance climbed dramatically, most of our recent converts showed up AND we had FOUR investigators show up on their own for the full three hour block, including the familia Jimenez (the Australian man with his Mexican wife--remember them?) and the husband of one of our recent converts. Every Sunday the missionaries are supposed to get up at 5 a.m. for what´s called ëscuadrones¨, which is where we go around and pick up investigators or other less active members for church with the help of people in our ward. (We haven´t seen much success with this but we´re hoping it catches on.) Yesterday morning we called one of our converts, Luis, to see if he still wanted us to pick him up for church. We were pretty bummed when he told us he was sick and couldn´t make it. Apparently our invitation to church works like a curse for people because something always happens to them--they get sick, something in their house breaks or there´s some sort of other emergency. Anywho...we ended up making the long walk to church by ourselves like always. After a disappointing morning, you can imagine how happy we were to find 4 investigators in the chapel! Ít´s little things like that that make your day here. That´s what I´m learning more than anything, really. I may not see grand changes within 6 weeks but little by little people are changing their lives for the better. We may even see some baptisms in the next transfer. I just hope I get to stay here! Seriously, I love the people here. (In my next email, remind me to tell you about la familia Leon-Carrera and Hermana Manuela. They´re some special investigators of ours.)
As for me, I promise you I´m a long way off from perfection but I´m learning to have patience with myself--and even have some fun in the process :). (Last p'day we played soccer in the rain for about 2 hours and got SOAKED. It was awesome. Enjoyed every minute of it.) My health´s been pretty good with the minor exception of what seems to be a small case of food poisoning this past weekend. I´m pretty sure the culprit was something called ¨mondongo¨which, I have recently learned, is the stomach of a cow. Eating that is something akin to eating a cooked rubber ducky...with fur. It is every bit as disgusting as it sounds. But when the members sit down in front of you and watch you eat every bite, what can you do? Luckily that bit of fun only lasted for a day...back to normal now! I actually missed plain old rice and chicken after that.
So that´s my report for now. Next week I should have even better things to say.
love you all and keep prayin!
love,
Hna. Brewster
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