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