Buenos Dias!

Another week in the mission AND... I got my trunkie papers! That stunk but I guess it had to happen sooner or later, right! I can't believe I already have my flight plan! The clock is ticking and I feel like I still have a TON to do!

We had interviews with President last week. He told me that,next transfer, my trainee's name is Sister Wyatt (if I remember correctly, it was in passing...) I'm kinda nervous to be doing a one-on-one training next transfer. This transfer I've always had Sister Laird to cover for me if I messed up, or vise versa. Anywho, next week is the last "normal" p-day and then the week after that are transfers. I can't believe how fast time flies!

This last weekend, Andrea was baptized. She is so cute and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to teach her. She was so excited and happy about her baptism, and she looked great! Her mom, Karoly, has been a member since she was 8 or 9, BUT the ward clerks can't find her records anywhere; so bishop told her that she might have to be baptized again! If that is the case, we are gonna have to review a few lessons ahead of time! Crazy! Her grandma also came to church for the first time in years and really liked it. Hopefully we will get to see more of them!

We have been working for a while with a family in our ward who has been inactive for over a year. We went over wednesday night and talked with them about their reading assignment we gave them, in Ether 12, about faith. We talked about ways we show faith everyday, and then we all shared one way that we could improve in our faith. They said going to church. So we told them they should set a goal. They said that they would come to church for the first hour before the end of the month. They didn't realize that that meant this Sunday... It was pretty funny because we are missionaries, and there was no getting off the hook after that one. So they walked in on Sunday and it made my day! Especially since...

I had to speak on Sunday. The new bishop (did I mention that we got a new bishop a couple weeks ago?), Bishop Almendariz, invited the sisters to speak. So Thursday night we got a call with the topics, had to prepare lesson plans on Friday and Saturday we had to get ready for Andrea's 10:00 A.M. baptism. We basically had Sunday morning and a little bit of time on Saturday to prepare our talks. It was so crazy and Sister Harris was funny. I was asking, 10 minutes before Sacrament meeting, if they thought that I would be ok only using 2 scriptures in my talk. Sister Harris exclaims passionately "You are thinking WAY TOO HARD... We have to talk in TEN minutes!" I guess you had to be there, but it was so crazy it was funny. I actually felt quite calm and put together on my thoughts, and I enjoyed the whole speaking experience, especially after we spoke with Bishop on Saturday in his office over lunch.

Yes you read that correctly. After the baptism we were cleaning up, and the bishop came up to us and asked us about our talks and who got what topics (I was assigned the topic "If Joseph Smith was a prophet, what is Thomas S Monson?"). He gave us a couple of ideas of what he was looking for and then invited us, while we were still chatting, to go over to his office and eat a simple lunch with him. His wife baked homemade bread, and he had fresh tomatoes from his garden. So we joined him and asked him some questions about some of his plans with the ward, how he met his wife and some of his experiences in the gospel and about his family. He is an AWESOME bishop. He is definitely going to keep this ward progressing forward.

So, to finish this letter off, I would like to end with something New we thought up (thanks to Sister Harris) called C.A.M.E.= Common Awkward Missionary Experiences. (Today's will be longer since it's new and I have to catch up on some...)

1)Car Contacting - Rolling our windows down at a stoplight and inviting people to listen to the missionaries and come to church.

2)Interrupting family barbeques to contact them. Look, we are on a mission! What we have to share is important!

3)Eating while families watch you like fish - Yes, in the Spanish program, it's very rare that they will actually sit down and eat with you! You get used to it, but I can remember how Sister Harris feels.

4)Forgetting to ask if the salsa is "hot" and spooning it into your soup (Sister Harris) and then your companion(s) reaching their spoons into your bowl to help you out before you can protest.

5)Always being covered in a thick layer of sweat due to the heat and nylons.

6)When you don't understand what someone says in Spanish, and you just nod and smile and hope that no one said something about their dog dying. (It get's better but still happens every now and then...)

7)MoTAB... Missionaries can't help but loving MoTab and the cheesy Mormon music! We have made it tradition to drive home with the windows down, MoTab blasting and directing the choir. Wouldn't trade it for anything!

8)People confessing a lot of things to the missionaries. We try to keep it from happening, but it still happens and sometimes its awkward.

9)Probably one of the worst - the awkward fight to not fall asleep during the lessons. It's CRAZY but it happens more often then not, especially in the heat.

10)Missionary tan: Watch tan lines and church shoe tan lines... Yeah, even better than a farmer's tan!

11)Going through companion's closets because your closet is so boring (especially after a year and a half!)

12)Continue to car contacting - Car contacts getting the wrong message and blowing kisses and waving goodbye as he pulled onto the highway. Yes, that just happened last night.

13)Sister Harris using the word "Gringa" from the pulpit yesterday. To some that might be offensive!

14)Preparing our talks the morning of church (see earlier.)

15)Begging for rides. We are running out of miles and we had to drive 20 miles to get to a blitz! I'll explain it to you later!

16)Constantly being mistaken for Jehovah's Witnesses. The Elders don't run into this problem so much, but we do!

Those are a few of our C.A.M.E. moments for the last of couple weeks! Look forward to more, hopefully, at least while I have the sisters to remind me!

October 25th is fine with me to speak. Please just get my topic ahead of time because as you can see, we don't want a repeat of yesterday!

I love you all and I hope you are doing well. Until next week - have a great week!

Love Always-
Hermana Bradfield