Hi family!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!!!!!! Hope you liked the postcard. Give Grandma a birthday hug for me too ok? And apologize to anyone who's birthday I forget. I'm really horrible at remembering that sort of thing especially right now.
I'll print out some pictures today to send.
I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!
Hello from sunny Hanford! It's getting pretty hot. Feeling like home in Arizona. Hope everyone is in good health and good humor.
Wow, it's been less than a week here? It seems like forever. My new companion is ADOREABLE! She's from Guatemala and comes up to about my shoulder and she didn't speak any English before her mission but she's doing amazing. If we don't know exactly how to communicate we do spanglish plus charades and expressions/sound effects. Then we laugh at ourselves. She teaches me Spanish words and I teach her English words. It's a lot of fun! She really loves the people and is a great teacher. We usually plan to sing a hymn in our lessons. She's almost tone-deaf but she loves to sing. People always love it! A lot of the times when we suggest we sing the hymn at the end people get a surprised look on their faces and are like "Oh, sure! That's actually my favorite hymn!" I love that.
Different areas have all had their certain modes of transportation. Fresno was drive. Atwater was bike. Hanford is WALK! At least with this companion. She loves to walk and I don't mind it either. It's much easier to talk to people that way. Good exercise too. We were walking by one house and some little girls were playing outside. Here's how the conversation went.
Who are you?
We're missionaries.
What are you doing?
We're telling people about Jesus Christ!
Can you tell my mom? It's that house over there with the black truck. Can I show you my house? Mom! Can the girls come in? If we had not gone to that house I think Heavenly Father would have smacked us in the face.
And thus we met Bridget and Danielle. Bridget is five. Her mother wasn't exactly interested but she was very friendly and we were able to share a scripture and prayer with her. She accepted a pass along card with our phone number on it and a possibility of a church tour. Before we left Bridget asked if we were going to come by every day. We told her it would have to be up to her mother. The mom said Pastor Ken probably wouldn't like that very much. :-)
We did have some disappointments meeting people too. We went to the house of an inactive member. They said they were busy. When we asked if there was a time we could come back and visit the father said to us "Actually I hope you don't come back." I wonder what happened that made him dislike us just because we're from the church.
We have had a lot of miracles this week. We were walking around trying to find a street. We walked down one side of the street and ended up talking to a man who had met the missionaries before and said we could come back. Walking back down the street we saw the street we were originally looking for. We looked at each other and said we need to go back to teach that man soon. We also stopped to talk to a lady outside her house. She turned out to be an excommunicated member. She was very friendly (we could share a scripture but she didn't want one from the Book of Mormon) and referred us to one of her neighbors who said when we walked up "Oh! It's been awhile since we've had missionaries!" They had been having the missionaries over a few months ago.
It's been kind of hard for me to know what to say to people. I've grown up in the church and so I've always had the gospel in my life. I remember thinking in middle school about the gospel. I wouldn't know where I'd be without it. It would be like a building that had its foundation pulled out from underneath it if I didn't have the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is what I have built my life on and as long as I have done that I have never fallen. How do I explain that? It's not one set spiritual experience that I know the church is true. It's the way it is. The sky is blue. Ducks go “quack, quack.” If you're covered in mud you need to hose off before you enter the house. Christ lives. He loves us. Heavenly Father has a plan for our lives. He called Joseph Smith as a prophet just as he called prophets in ancient times. I don't know the answers to all the questions people have.
The last couple of days were interesting. There are a bunch of unwritten codes of conduct as missionaries that I thought I knew but apparently not. One of them is you leave your hangers in the apartment you're in and the next person just uses them. I thought the same went for food. I've always made sure there's enough basic food to last the new missionary for the few days before they can buy more food. Apparently that's a personal choice. Don't worry we're fine. A sister who has served a mission helped us out.
One notorious thing about Hanford is the water. I almost took a drink from the tap but my companion stopped me. I'm usually not picky about water but all the tap water here smells really bad. I guess it's ok to wash your hands and everything else but not to drink. One member says once the summer hits and everyone waters their lawn you can really smell it.
I'm excited to be in this area. We've got a lot of great people to teach. I can't remember if there was anything else I wanted to say.
Keep Smiling Everybody! :-)
Hermana Evans
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