I'm jealous that you get to go to Girls Camp together without me! Go and some cool hikes, play card games, and pull pranks in my honor, please! So the news on the visas is that they're starting to come! I DON'T have mine yet, but as of last Thursday Herm. Hales and like 5 other Elders including Elders Fullmer and Magdaluyo (from our MTC district) have theirs. Supposedly a lot of the visa-waiters will be leaving on June 17th and if I get mine before then I could leave on that day too. But even if I don't go then, it shouldn't be too soon after that that I go!
As far as transfers go............................................................H. Hales and I are still together!! We're super excited. The only thing that will be a change for us in the house is that Herm. Marcum is getting moved to Hyrum for her LAST transfer, and Hermana Gaines is staying here and training Hermana Vergara (even though they've both been out the same amount of time). Herm. Vergara was in the English program before though, so now she gets to switch over to Spanish. We're so pumped to have her in the house now because she's probably one of our favorite sisters in the mission and we're all really good friends with her already! She's from Mexico but she lived in Utah for 5 years so she speaks both English and Spanish fluently, and she's just so funny and loveable. It's sad to see Marcum go, but it's also good to have a little bit of a change. It's a bit crazy though because Herm. Kreutzer will be the only one in the house who has been out for more than 2 transfers, which is stressing her out a little. But it'll be fun! So yeah, I'll probs be here until I leave to Mendoza. I'm really happy that I get to stay in our branch and that H. Hales and I get to stay here and continue to help the people that we've met here progress.
Speaking of the people in our area, they're doing well and we met some new potentials this week. We actually started teaching two different white, non Spanish-speaking ladies because they're in the Elders' area but they handed them over to us because they're husbands/boyfriends are always working so they're never able to get in and have lessons with them. One of the ladies is named Jenna, who's a really young mom with a two year old and twin babies. We've only had one real lesson with her so far but she committed to a baptismal date on the first lesson, which was exciting!
The other lady is named Michelle, and we're so grateful that we have the opportunity to get to teach her because she's gone through some pretty rough things in the past couple of years. The first tragedy that happened was that she accidentally drove over her 4 year old son and killed him, then a couple of months later her husband lost half of his leg in an accident at work, and then a little while after that she was diagnosed with M.S. and is in constant pain, and then on top of that she has a two year old (who was born with only one kidney) who she can't really take care of because of her illness and so her mom had to move in with her so she could help her with him. It's kind of a heart-breaking story, but the missionaries happened to call her on the anniversary of her son's death a couple months ago and so she decided that she wanted to learn more, take the lessons, and eventually get baptized so that she can be with her son and the rest of her family forever. It's going to be really amazing to be able to bring her peace and joy through the Gospel and watch the change that takes place in her.
We also had a couple lessons that were a little bit more difficult. We met these three young Mexican girls one day when we were knocking apartments and they told us to come back another day when their mom was home. So we went back this week and were able to meet the mom... she's loca. I'm not exaggerating when I say that we've never had an actual conversation with her where she hasn't been literally screaming at us & at her daughters the entire time. Apparently she's a convert and she and her oldest (12 year old) daughter got baptized a few years ago in Ogden and then moved here but haven't really been going because they don't like the ward. So she was yelling at us and mostly her girls about all of this random stuff like the fact how her daughters aren't going to get baptized because they're afraid of water and she doesn't want to deal with it because they'll just cry, and then she went off about how she wants to go to church but she doesn't because her girls don't stay in there classes and about how we're the last missionaries that are allowed to come over because if her girls don't listen this time she's done with us forever.. and she yelled about some other stuff too. So then we told her that since she doesn't like her ward that she should try out the Spanish branch because she said that her daughters know Spanish and she wants them to be better at it, but we really didn't expect her to come. A couple days later, we find out that the English Sisters had been over there teaching them (well, getting yelled at) for weeks, which the lady had neglected to tell us. On Sunday, though, much to our surprise, this lady shows up to our branch with her daughters. Long story short, her daughters really don't speak Spanish so our Branch Pres. had a meeting with her and advised her to stick with her English ward, so we have one more lesson with her daughters tonight and then we're just going to let the English sisters take over for good. Anyways, the point is that she was probably the most difficult person that Hales & I have had to work with and we're relieved not to have to deal with her craziness anymore after tonight.
This week we also had another lesson with this 20 year old girl named Dulce who I talked about a tiny bit last time. Her living situation is kind of...unique.. because she's living with her boyfriend and their baby in her parents' house (who have a two year old and a 10 year old), along with her 19 year old sister and her boyfriend who also have a brand new baby and then with her 23 year old sister too. Yeah. But she's really sweet and her Spanish-speaking boyfriend has met with the Elders a bit before and liked it but Dulce was always too tired to hear the lessons even though she wanted to. Anyways, so H. Hales and Vergara found her when they were on exchanges (I was in the English program with Marin at the time) and she was really excited to let us come over and teach. Like I told you in the last email, the first lesson didn't really happen because she loves talking, but the second time we were able to teach her and it went really well. We brought Beatriz Avila, the recent convert girl who's about the same age as Dulce, and she helped a ton because she had a lot of things in common with Dulce (besides the baby & boyfriend part). She also has a baptism date though, so we're hopeful that she'll continue to progress and get the answers she's looking for.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that I got to go to my first baptism this Saturday! It was for this 16 year old named Juan who H. Kreutzer and Conrad had been working with for a while. He's grown and changed so much since they've been working with him because he used to just stare at the floor and barely talk in their lessons, and he had really long hair that covered his eyes. But he's been opening up more and more as they've taught him and he actually cut his hair a little bit the day before his baptism and was smiling bigger than they've ever seen him smile before. The baptism went really well and I guess he wants to serve a mission now! Being a missionary is amazing because of things like that even though sometimes we get yelled at, rejected, and our lessons fall through.
Another thing I wanted to tell you about even though I'm sure you've already heard about it is that a district in our mission (they're in Hooper) got iPads and iPhones a couple weeks ago. I guess there's 3 districts in the world right now that have them as sort of a trial-run. The iPads are replacing daily planners and area books, and now I guess they're even supposed to spend 1 hour of each day proselyting/teaching on Facebook.. Yeah I'm not exactly sure how that works or how successful it will be, but I think the online planners and area books would be super useful and so hopefully it goes well. They said that if it does go well that every missionary serving in the U.S. will have iPads and iPhones. I'm obviously not going to be in Utah still when that happens, but it'll be cool to see. Herm. Hales and I were talking the other day about how our missions are like no one else's because we are some of the very first under 21 year old sisters, we're serving both state-side and foreign, we basically trained ourselves, and we'll most likely be some of the last that use paper planners and that are out in the field before everything gets crazy with all of the new sister missionaries, new rules, and new missions being made. It's just kind of cool to think about that and that some day I'll be able to tell my kids and grand-kids about it too.
So that's about it as far as this week goes. I'll send some more pictures next week if you tell me all about girls camp and send some pictures too. Have fun and be safe, I love you!
<3, Hermana Crawford
PS- I didn't get the letter you mailed yet, but it will probably come later today or tomorrow (:
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