Perks of Being a White Girl

Perks of Being a White Girl

June 2, 2014

 

OK, I know the subject of this email might not sound very missionary-like, but it was a whole lot shorter than "People just randomly stop and talk to me and my companion(s) when we're waiting somewhere or just walking simply because I'm white and stick out, but that's a good thing because we want to talk to lots of people anyways!" That was just too long. Plus I got to semi use a pop culture reference (I don't have a lot of opportunities for that here. Weird) But seriously, SO many times this week. But, all but one of them have led to a contact/referral nearby. It's seriously been awesome to see.

 

OK, highlights:

-I bought yogurt one night for breakfast in the morning, but turns out it was pudding. I’m still working on my Spanish....

-I saw a man in his house using a brick for a pillow.

-My companion told a less active to turn to Adán, chapter 4....she meant Génesis. I just about died laughing.

-I had lunch in a house built for midgets! It was deceptive though, because the house appeared TOTALLY normal, until you got to the bathroom and sat on the toilet and your knees were almost to the wall.

-I saw a dead cat and a dead rooster in the road (On different occasions).

-I promise I do more than just look at dead animals.

-People like to use their English on me, no matter how much(or little) they know. In the past three weeks I have been asked far too many times, "Are you boring?" They meant bored...I hope.

-Brothers and sisters are the same everywhere. We had lunch with a family yesterday and for dessert we had Oreos. When the brother went to put them away, the sister held her hand out for one and said "wait, I didn't get one." He grabbed her hand, shook it, and said "Nice to meet you." They're 24 and 26.

-For the first time in my life I had the thought "I want an umbrella hat." Wait, not true; the first time since I saw Bill Murray with one in the movie Space Jam.

 

Other than these and other adventures (like the tree that a bunch of cockroaches kept falling out of) this week has been hot and full of humidity and humility. At least I'm trying to be humble. It's not so easy. That's why Heavenly Father sent me here – to sweat the pride out of me.

Also, because I know it's super important, here's me ghetto-eating a waffle the district leaders made (it’s ghetto because we had paper towels for plates and no forks. Woot woot).

 

 

 

 

 

Also again, turns out that I am rubbish at washing clothes by hand, but I still feel super proud of me for doing it. (And also I hope they are actually clean).

 

Love you all!!!

 

Hermana Anderson

 

Ogre Feet

Ogre Feet

May 26, 2014

Okay, talk about a crazy week (I’m pretty sure I’m going to say that every week…)

 

Highlights:

-I have eaten more sushi/California rolls here this past week than the rest of my whole life (granted I didn´t eat very much before, so it´s only mildly impressive, considering I ate it twice this week).

-I saw a dead rat in the street. Don´t worry, I looked with my eyes, not my hands.

-Parrots might be the very worst possible idea as a pet. They are loud, and fight, and are loud, and need lots of space, and are loud, and poop on your floor, and try to bite you, and did I mention that they´re loud??

-Every day when I come home I look at my legs and feet and think "Oh! I got a little tan!" Then after my shower I'm white again.

-My companion's family sent her candy so she shared it with everyone at our district meeting. Turns out, it was spicy! Spicy candy! The whole time I was eating it I just sat there and thought "Even the candy is spicy, who does that?!?!?!!!" (Sage, if you don't laugh hysterically at that we're not friends).

-I had my first companion exchange! For those of you that aren´t mission lingo savvy, that means we switched companions for roughly 24 hours. We got lost! Like four times! And we took the bus around the city – twice! By accident! Yay, Mexican adventures!

-At one point when we were lost on the bus I looked out the window and saw a woman wearing a football helmet and pulling a dumpster. You read that correctly. Hna Shiraiki and I just laughed hysterically and said "What?? Where are we living right now??" (Hna Shiraiki is Japanese, from Hawaii, started her English degree at BYU, and is super-duper awesome. Plus she speaks English with me. I love English :-D ).

 

OK ...  ogre feet: Remember how I said that my foot was mysteriously large and we thought it was a bug bite? Eh, not so much. My feet kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger still. Yay – just what a girl likes. So, long story short, we went to the hospital to see the mission doctor. He said it was most likely a lot of things – dehydration, climate change, all the heat, all the walking – but also a circulation problem, since I´m so tall and whatnot. So he gave me some meds to help my veins relax and work better, told me to keep doing the elevation thing, and to wear “medicas de compresion,” or basically really tight nylons. It´s a bajillion degrees here and I have to wear tights. Boo. (I´m still working on the not whining thing. Baby steps, baby steps) But, my feet are getting better! Still not totally normal, but better!!

 

Seriously, paint those things green and call me Hermana Fiona. 

 

For some reason there was a whole lot of walking and knocking this week, but not a bunch of teaching.  However, since we had an investigator at church we got to stay all three hours! Hooray!! (Mission rules are that if you don´t have an investigator, after Sacrament Meeting you get out and work. We are not messing around down here. As you can see in this photo of me and my companion):

 

This is hard, but this is great. Learning lots, having really powerful experiences, and for sure figuring out how to depend on the Lord, not on myself.

 

Love you all!!!!

Hermana Anderson

 

Sudar All Day Long

Sudar All Day Long

 May 19, 2014

 Hey everyone! It´s preparation day, yay!!

OK, "sudar" means to sweat, and let me tell you, I´ve been sweating. Friday or Saturday it was 107 and I seriously cried. Its only May; I´m coming home a melted Dallyn-cicle, for reals.

It´s been a super crazy week! Here are some quick highlights:

 

-I was bitten by a dog (a member’s Chihuahua, so no big deal. There were like three drops of blood and it was my fault).

-We tried to rescue a blind kitten without touching it. It was super gross –don´t touch it! – but super sad, so we couldn´t just leave it. We tricked it into walking into someone’s yards with a fence. I hope a dog didn´t eat it.

-For some reason I will sweat on my whole body except my face. This has confused more than one person, including me.

-Colors are awesome. Pink and orange and lime green and electric blue are perfectly acceptable house colors here.

-There is a window in our shower that leads to the kitchen. That way, if you´re hungry while showering, you can ask your companion very nicely to hand you something. Not that I´ve done that. No, really, I haven´t. But I have definitely thought about it.

-I´ve been called gringa, gringrita, and gringita bonita a LOT.

-Someone told me that I looked like a Barbie (a first for me) because I am so “cute, tall and skinny.”

-One foot is mysteriously swollen and I don´t know why. Maybe from an insect bite? The Mission President´s wife is looking into it. It doesn’t hurt; it´s just super unflattering kankel-ville.

-The people here are super-prepared. Not even joking.

-I extended my first baptismal invite!---and she had no idea what I said.  #languagebarrierprobs

-A drunken man practically proposed to me. He kept saying I was the most beautiful in the world, wouldn´t let go of my hand, kept stroking it and was just all around too drunk. We gave him and his friend pass-along cards with the church address on it. Then I used hand sanitizer, then washed my hands, then used sanitizer again.

-Mexican ice cream is the best. I´m fairly certain there´s not much more to it than frozen water and flavoring, but it is seriously the most delicious frozen thing I´ve ever had in my life.

-Apparently Anderson is not an easy name for everyone to say.

-People talk way too fast. And quiet. And have funny voices. The great thing is, I´m white – super white – so no one really expects me to know Spanish. They will slow down, repeat themselves, and use whatever English they know.

-The days are stupid hot but the nights are absolutely perfect.

-I had my first mission fast! Super-duper draining, but blessings most certainly have come from it already!

-Lime and salt is actually pretty delicious (no, there was no tequila with it, calm down).

-Some of the sidewalks are really broken up here, so I just pretend that for that one second I´m actually in the mountains hiking.

-Humming hymns is like magic: it´s less hot when you do.

-I have a new appreciation for the hymn line “there is sunshine in my soul today, more glorious and bright than shines in any earthly sky” Not even joking. It´s a whole new world down here.

There´s more, but that´s all I can think of right now. I am in Ciudad Obregon itself, and my companion is Hermana Ortiz. She is a cute little lady from Mexico City. Emphasis on little. I´m pretty sure she doesn´t even come up to my shoulder. Plus she used to be a ballerina, so every once in a while when I´m sitting next to her I feel like a great, big, lumbering Viking for the first time ever. No joke. She´s been out more than a year and is the bee’s knees. She´s smart, kind, intelligent, and really organized – pretty, and pretty much the perfect trainer for me! Heavenly Father just knows me so well.

 

This is super-duper, really, really hard. No joke. But it is also really, REALLY awesome. And really hot (did I mention the Dallyn-cicle thing?). In some ways I totally feel prepared, but in others, haha! … not even close. But, considering how abnormal my MTC time and arrival here was, I´m supposed to be RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. So I´ll just smile and keep going.

Oh, for all my friends reading this that have a mission call with a foreign language: practice listening to it. Go to LDS.org and listen to a talk, some scriptures, a lesson, whatever you want, and practice listening. Reading the Book of Mormon before I left was really great and really helpful and you should do that too, but it´s been hard to listen and comprehend Spanish, both here and in the MTC.

I love you all so much!! As difficult as it is, I know that I’m going to love it (if I don´t melt first).

Hermana Anderson