Returning Home!

Monday, January 27, 2014

Chancho! I Need to Borrow Some Sweats!

Holllllaaaaaaaaaa,
Well. I can't believe how fast the time flies. I remember telling my companion a month ago that "January is always the fastest month for me." And boom! It's already the end of January...whatishappeningtomyliiiiife
I have to tell you something funny that happened this week. The library closes here when it's cold or snowy, so we had to call earlier this week to see if it was open so we could go email. But I have problems talking on the phone. If I don't think out what I'm going to say beforehand, I end up saying something really stupid. Well, I called the library and didn't really think through what I was going to say if someone answered. And sure enough, someone answered, "Harrison County Library, how can I help you?" And me, being the brilliant person I am, said, "Hi, is the library open today?" My comp was laughing her butt of because I made a "DUH" face before I even finished the sentence. The lady on the phone said, "....yes" and I just said thanks and hung up. Oi. Please love me. 

Our Hermana Training Leaders started an English fast on Saturday and it goes til this Wednesday. I'm going nuts. Hopefully I get this language down soon. I read something this morning that I really need to remember: "Just as we should not lower the standards that the Lord has established for the conduct of His servants, we are also not authorized to raise them.... Be sure that you do not have higher standards for yourself or others than the Lord has established." - Cecil O. Samuelson (GO COUGS!!)
Hispanics like to make you eat a lot, let me tell you that. And when you finish the pile of food they give you, they want to give you a second plate, and when you say no, they say something to you in Spanish and I just have to go with it because I don't know what they said and I can't argue back because I can't speak Spanish. I think I ate 8 tacos and drank two bottles of water last night. Woof. But it was soooo good. We get lots of good food. I hope I can cook better when I get back.
We had kind of a cool experience this week with our Cuban. We had an appointment with him during the week that he ended up not being able to come to. So we kind of just brushed it off, thinking nothing was going to happen. But then he turned around and calledus to set up an appointment this weekend. Our people are so funny. Just when we think nothing is progressing, something goofy happens that makes us turn our thoughts around. It's kind of funny. I think our Cuban knows more than we do sometimes. We've just got to get him to live the Word of Wisdom....
What else happened this week.....
It snowed a lot this week. We got like 6 inches one day. It's all melted now cause the last couple days have been pretty warm. We have to clean our poor little car today since Zone Conference is this week. Our car is looking really trashy. Lots of mud and black stuff. I will never buy a white car after the mission.
Well! Not much else to report from my side. Just working working working. Thank you to everyone who's been asking about me... Also, I'm going to write Robbie & Michelle (and the baby!) today! I can't wait to see more pictures! :) LOVE YOU ALL!
Hermana Porter

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

GUESS WHO HAS A BAP DATE?!

TO ALL THE WORLD!!
Guess who has a baptism date?! :D YEP YEP! JOSUE! This is exciting news y'all! He's praying about it this week, but we're sure it'll happen!! WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So Monday we didn't have pday since it was MLK Jr day, so we decided to schedule an appt. with Josue. And the weather happened to be a warm 52 degrees out. So we had a lesson outside with him, and it went perfectly. I'm pretty sure Heavenly Father set that one up because it couldn't have been more perfect! He was a little against it, but we persisted with patience and he finally agreed to pray about it for a week. We know it'll be happening soon. Josue is just there. He just needs to take that step. I am so excited for him! Our little Josue!!! :D This is what missionary work is about!
Aside from Josue getting baptized soon, I got hit on the other day.
The Elders here have been working with this less-active guy who reminds me a LOT of Sean Simpson (except he has Batman earrings), and I have only met him twice (once on the street and once at church). He called us the other night (no clue how he got our number) and decided it would be a good idea to confess his love for me. He told me (listen to this one) that I was worth waiting 10 years for and that I was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Woof. I told him thanks and awkwardly hung up. I can't escape it!
We got a lot of snow this week. We got some over the weekend, it all melted on Monday, and then we got a TON on Tuesday morning. It was nice n windy too. :) Bundlin' up! Your face freezes up pretty fast out here.
Otherwise, nothing too crazy has been happening. Just workin workin workin, trying to speak Spanish :) I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm progressing much, but I just have to remember that I am learning day by day. I just hope I'm learning at the rate Heavenly Father wants me to learn. I keep thinking how fast time is flying.... TOO FAST.
My companion served in this area in Louisville where a ton of Cubans are (there's a Cuban refuge in Louisville I think), and I kind of want to go there sometime on my mission. Who knows where I'll go these next few months, but I think serving in the city would be awesome. We'll see!
OH! Also! We had a little youth fireside on Sunday night, and all four of us missionaries here got to speak. The elders spoke first, then me and then my companion. It was awesome! I don't know why I felt so nervous, but I just wanted to make sure I was speaking positively and from the heart yknow? I think it went ok! We have some awesome missionaries out here! I can't believe I'm a part of this missionary force that is helping move the work of the Lord forward. It's flying by way too fast, but I'm in awe at how marvelous the Lord is! Sometimes I wonder if I'm making a difference, but then I look at how much the work here in Corydon is changing, and I am in awe at how the Lord works in such small and simple ways. YAY FOR MISSIONARY WORK! Everyone needs to be a missionary! One thing I am learning from my mission is that I will never be the same member I was before. I am going to be involved in missionary work foreverrrrrrrrr. I don't want to be someone who never wants to go on Member Present Lessons or who doesn't feed the missionaries. I know now how to be a better wife and mother and family member. I will have a missionary-centered family!
Oh! Tell Robbie & Michelle CONGRATS!! Baby Easton is so cute!! :D I can't wait to meet him next year! Also, tell Sean Simpson that I want to be a part of the wedding too....maybe I can be the flower girl.
Until next week!

Hermana Porter

Monday, January 13, 2014

"Spanish is so beautiful, and English is...important."

Hollllla!
Sorry I haven't emailed in a while! Lots of craziness going on these past few weeks. We have been teachin' and preachin' like always. Trying to find some Hispanics that we can teach. I have a few cool stories I want to share though!
First was this: yesterday we got home from Church to go eat lunch, and boom, guess what? There's a Mexican guy sitting on the steps to our apartment. He was sitting there with his 4-year-old daughter waiting for her mom to come pick her up. He said he lived in the apartments across the street but he was sitting there because he wanted to sit in the sun. Little did he know, he was really sitting there because we have salvation for him! Woohoo! We talked with him and got a return appointment for tomorrow. Soooollliiiddd. He recognized us because we go to El Nopal ("The Cactus"...it's a Mexican restaurant here) sometimes and he works there. Cool story huh?!
This next one is soooooooooo awesome. Pay attention class.
So, there's this less-active family in our ward right? We see the dad all the time at doctor appointments because we translate for him, but I hadn't met the mom or his kids at all during my first transfer. So this past week we knocked on their door and they happened to be there, and they surprisingly let us in! We had a good night with them getting to know them and befriending them. Then we found out that the next day was the oldest son's 9th birthday. We asked if we could stop by the next day and drop off something for him. So that gave us another chance to get in with them!
Wednesday we went and bought stuff for a cake and made it during our dinner hour, and then we took it over to his house that night and had a little birthday party for him -- just me, Hermana Lawrence, and the family. Then the oldest son (the birthday boy!) came up to Hermana Lawrence and said, "I just really want to thank you...." He then told her that he wasn't going to tell anyone that he was 9 years old now because he didn't have any sort of birthday party that day. He went the whole day without telling anyone it was his birthday, but then he said, "Now I can tell everyone that it was my birthday because you came over and celebrated with me." Our hearts just completely melted. We were just SO grateful that Heavenly Father opened the door for us to find out it was his birthday and that we could do something that seemed so small to us, but Heavenly Father knew it meant everything to him. Heavenly Father loves his kids :)
But yeah that's my life! I don't have much to report again.... lo siento mis hermanos. We have been having a tough time getting our investigators to church these past couple weeks. But we did get our main progressing investigator to go to a fireside with us in Louisville last night. It was so awesome. Lots of testimonies and conversion stories shared. They do these mission-home firesides every month, and the Spanish-speaking missionaries can go if they have an investigator who can come. So the place was full of Hispanic investigators and Spanish-speaking missionaries. It was a blast :)
Spanish and English are so interesting. I feel like with English we have sooooo much for freedom of expression. Like, we can make up words or use them in so many different ways. I'm glad I know English. But Spanish is so simple in the way they phrase things. For example, in English we have like 10 different words for something that stinks -- smelly, stinky, nasty, disgusting, blahhhhh. But in spanish it's just "oile feo" which translates to "it smells bad." There are no words for nasty or smelly.... haha. It's very simple. It's just fun to observe the differences in Spanish in English. English-speakers, we complicate things. I try so hard to translate directly into Spanish and find out that there is no word in Spanish for the one I have in English. Hard to explain. Woooooo for different languages!

It's pretty chilly here, but thank goodness not like last week. BRRRR. 40 degrees is warm to me now haha.
Thank you for all your prayers and help and support! I love you and miss you all and loving hearing from you! I'm soooo excited for Robbie & Michelle too! Congrats on the babyyyy! I will try to find some BYU stuff and send it to him soon! ;) BTW. I saw a car with a Y sticker on it the other day here. WOOOHOO! Utah 0 BYU 1. At least we're winning at something now.
Hermana Porter

Monday, January 6, 2014

Feliz Navidad!

Hola!

Well, not much to report on my front this week! I got to see my familia this week! I loved it! I miss yall, and I'm so glad to see you're all doing well and are still alive! :D I'm sad to hear about the Vick family.... I hope everything is ok for them. That's so sad to hear... :( Also, Congrats to Mikey, and to Scott, and to Ashley Burgess on their marriages! How awesome! :) AND CONGRATS TO CHRISSY AND JOHN!! :D
Christmas was great here! I didn't get homesick like I thought I would! We had lots of families fighting over us haha. We went to the Van Uiterts after District Meeting, and the daughters made us all stockings! Then we played games and had dinner and just talked. It was so fun. Then later we went to the Blackburns, where we had another dinner and got gifts from them! They were so sweet! Then we skyped :) And that was our Christmas!

In Mexico, they celebrate the 24th, which is called La Noche Buena, so lots of our investigators wanted us to hang with them on the 24th. We went to an investigators house and learned how to make ponche :) YUM.

Thanks so much for the gifts! I love them!! And thanks to David & Melissa for sending me some PJs and socks. I LOVE THEM. haha. I love socks. I officially have a drawer just for socks.
So I was sick these last few days, which was no fun. It's just a cold, but woof, I felt like I got hit by a truck yesterday. Then I had to go to Church and give a talk in sacrament and teach two classes....that was fun :) haha. It was so nerve-wracking. My Spanish stinks still, but the members were nice and told me I know quite a lot for just having been in the field for a month. I love Hispanics!
Yesterday we started tracting a new area, and some lady came out of her trailer and started talking to us just as we were walking by, and she ended up telling us that she was looking for a family-oriented church that she could take her family to... WELL WELL WELL. I think she came to the right people! haha. It was a neat experience :)
Funny story! Last night I fell asleep on my knees for over an hour. I started praying at like 10:26, and next thing I know I see my comp getting into bed, and I just started praying, thinking "oh, the alarm must have gone off and it's time to get up"...but I was SO tired, and I looked at the clock and it was 11:38.... I was so confused, and my knees hurt.... ayayay. The life of a missionary!
Hmmmm what else.... we've just been out exploring the area this week, trying to use up our monthly miles. Honestly, we're trying to find where all the other Spanish-speakers are in the area. We need new people to teach. We have our normal teaching pool, but we're having to do a lot more finding this week. Corydon is a hard area because there aren't a lot of Spanish-speakers that we haven't taught.
Well, that's all the info I have for yall this week. Just that my area is awesome, and I don't ever wanna leave, aaaand we have great people here :) I just wish I knew Spanish already! I can't wait to be at that spot where I can say what I want to say without a second thought. But I have to learn to enjoy where I am as much as I can, as hard as it is. I only get to be a greenie once, right?
LOVE YALL! :) Oh, and thank you to the Lindseys for the Christmas picture! They have the cutest kids ever. Thank you for thinking of me! AND Ashley M! Thanks for the Christmas stuff! Love ya girlllll :D
Hermana Porter