Hello Family!
Thank you Sarah, Ashley, Amanda, Chase, Dad, Mom, Grandma, Pam, Teresa, and Goompa and Nana for your letters this week. Goompa, I´m glad things are alright. I´m praying for you to get back to lawnmowing ASAP. Jared, HAPPY BIRTHDAY! And Ashley, too, of course. :) Goompa and Nana, I just got your letters on Wednesday. Thank you so much for taking the time to write to me. It really made my day, especially since the day I got them was very stressful--Changes.
That´s right, I´ve been Changed. I am now in Loma Pyta. Loma Pyta is Guaraní for "Red Hill," and the "y" is a very Guaraní sound. You shape your mouth as if you´re going to say "ee," but then you make a "oo" sound in your nose. So it´s more like "Loma Poota." Anyways, I´m here with Hna. Young AND Hna. Brittner. Yep. A trio. I never thought I´d be in a trio but here I am. And guess what? We´re all tall blondes from the United States. Hna. Young is from Washington (we´re not related, sadly), and Hna. Brittner is from California. It is very different. We draw a lot of attention and get whistled at every five seconds. Contacting in the street is so awkward with three really tall people. I had such bad contacting numbers this week, having to take turns with two other Hermanas and having lots of people reject us because we´re "yankees." When we were in one lesson and we introduced ourselves, the man said to me, "You must be latina." Someone thought I was a latina! YAY! I´ve had a lot of people start speaking to me in Guaraní after they hear my Spanish, assuming that since I´m already a pro at Spanish, I must be picking up Guaraní, too. Um...no. Though this week I did start reading the Book of Mormon in Guaraní. I´ve learned quite a bit just doing that, but not enough to go speaking to people in Guaraní. My Guaraní is kind of limited to "and" ("ha") and "church" ("tupao"). :) I´ll get it sometime.
Anyways, being in a trio has been really different. I missed Hna. Tua´one so badly those first few days. Things were just so much FUN with her. Hnas. Young and Brittner are super nice and excellent missionaries, but they were already together before the Change, so they already have a way of living together and inside jokes and a strong friendship that made me feel like a third wheel at times. For example, today was our first P-Day together and I´ve been constantly asking, "So...where are we going?" "Um...what are we doing?" They already have their system down, and I´m so out of the loop. I have no idea where anything is, who anyone is, or what we´re supposed to be doing. Being in a new area is really disorienting. It was so hard to say goodbye to my friends in Mariano. Hna. Sanchez cried, as did Flopi and Blasida... Good news, though, is that I got to take LOADS of pictures. I´m printing a bunch today and sending them to you as soon as possible. Which means you´ll probably get them in October. :)
The teaching is going great, though. Hna. Tua´one taught me really well how to be friendly with the people and get to know them right off the bat. I don´t feel awkward around people at all. Loma Pyta is really nice. The people are super friendly and the area is just a lot nicer. The homes are well-kept, the people take care of themselves, there isn´t any livestock and a surprisingly small number of dogs running around. There are a lot more flowers and trees. The streets don´t kill my feet (the workers took more time to lay the shale down flat, apparently) and people actually put their trash in BINS instead of just tossing it on the road. There´s only kind of sketchy area down by a little river where there´s a neighborhood called a sentamiento (where poor people throw up houses in unclaimed land without having to pay for the property), but even that´s not very bad compared to Mariano. I really like it a lot.
And the ward is AMAZING. There´s an actual WARD. Every single member I´ve met so far has been absolutely amazing. They all have such strong testimonies and you can feel the Spirit in their homes. They do visiting teaching, even! And they love the missionaries. We have a lunch cita every day, having to take turns with some families because so many want to feed us. I´m saving lots of money on groceries as a result. :) They´re also amazing at giving us references. Without us even needing to ask they´ll just come up to us and tell us about someone who needs a visit from us. It´s so great. I love it so much.
They seem to like me, too. On Saturday night, fifteen minutes before lights out, the Bishopric called and asked me to give a talk. Not just go up and introduce myself--give a seven-minute TALK! I said yes, of course, but I was kind of stressed and wishing they´d called me BEFORE I´d wasted an hour reading my Guaraní Book of Mormon to pass the time before I could snuggle under my bedcovers. Sunday morning I put together a fairly good talk, though, about missionary work and how much I love it. It went really well and was a good way to let the ward know more about me right away. They all welcomed me very warmly into the ward and commended me on my good Spanish. :)
The apartment is really nice, too. MUCH bigger, that´s for sure. We have our own little condo thing on an upper floor with a study room, a kitchen, two bathrooms (only one shower, though), a bedroom, and a room for our wardrobes. It´s perfect for three. I bet we could even fit four, actually. There are no bugs, no big shaggy dogs or pigs or ducks, and it´s in a really quiet area. The only issue I have with it is that it´s FREEZING. We have a heater, but it only heats up our bedroom, really, and even then I have to bundle up really well at night to sleep well. I´ve come to really love the long winter garments I though I´d never use. :)
Oh, by the way, Hna. Tua´one is training. We´d all heard a rumor that an Hermana had gotten an unanticipated call to Paraguay and was coming from Argentina. We all thought it was just a rumor, though. Hna. Tua´one and I were so nervous when Changes were coming up, wondering who was going where. Hna. Tua´one was terrified of being sent to an Hermana who she doesn´t get along with. Then we got the call. "Hna. Tua´one, you´re training the new Hermana from Argentina, and Hna. Springer is going to Loma Pyta in a trio." We both thought it was a joke. Hna. Tua´one never thought that President would have her train. She was so in denial, and so nervous that night before. :) Oh, and in case you were wondering, I just laughed when I heard I was going to Loma Pyta. Loma Pyta is RIGHT NEXT TO Mariano. Like, if I walk a little bit too far, I´ll be in my old area. We use the same buses (which is really weird and makes me very nostalgic when we drive though my old neighborhood). It´s like I went from Mesa to Gilbert.
(So if you want to find me on the map, just go south down that big road that goes through Mariano until you reach Super Seis. When you see that road that passes on the north of the Super, go west four blocks and our house is a little white two-story thing on the northeast corner. To make sure you´re on the right block, it´s up and to the left of a little park. I´ll send you a picture of our map so you can pinpoint my location. :)
We don´t really have many investigators to talk about. Hnas. Young and Brittner opened the area for the Hermanas only four weeks ago, so it´s all pretty new for them, too. We do have one girl, though, who´s getting baptized on Saturday. She seems cool, but she only speaks Guaraní, so I don´t know her very well. :) We´ve done a few divisions already, which is so much easier with a trio--we only have to find one ward missionary instead of two! It´s super convenient. Our area´s not very big, but it´s always useful to be in two places at once.
So...yeah. Things really are going well for me. I knew Hnas. Young and Brittner before Changes so we get along just perfect. It´s just a little challenging being the outsider and having to learn everything from scratch again, but I trust President Madariaga, and I trust the Lord, and I know that this is where I need to be right now. I´ve learned great things from all of my past companions, and I know I´m going to have an amazing learning experience with these two, as well. Pray for me, and write me! I love you all so much. Whenever I´m challenged I´m grateful that I can just think about my wonderful family and be reassured that the gospel is true. It´s made us the greatest family ever. Thank you all for your examples of following the prophet and the scriptures. I hope that every day I become a little more like you.
I LOVE YOU!!
---Hna. Springer
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