WEEK 5: Hurricane Tortilla???

HELLO!!!

Disclaimer: I don't even know what format I wrote this email in, it's a little scattered and chaotic. Hopefully one of these days I'll figure out how I want to format these, I'm just trying out different ways to write these. But anyway, onto this week.....

We have had the CRAZIEST storms this week!!! Monsoon season is no joke, and I'm absolutely obsessed with it. The days are still a roasting 110⁰ with not a single cloud in the sky, until the late afternoon when dark clouds appear on the horizon. The clouds move in over the valley and by the time the sun has set and it's dark, the lightning starts. It's constant, and is so far away that it illuminates the clouds. When I say it's like a strobe light, I'm not kidding. And it's all around on every side. And then by 9:30 or 10pm, the wind picks up and the rain starts absutely POURING. It's torrential, and the lighting lights up the entire sky for literal hours at a time without any breaks. And as it moves over you, the thunderclaps get so loud. It is absolutely stunning and completely incredible. Sister Wood went to BYU Hawaii and said that the tropical storms they would get were about as intense as the monsoons we've had. And I love it. 

We had homeade Japanese chicken curry for dinner this week, cortesy of the Yang family, and wow. It. was. incredible. I love curry so much already, and this was SCRUMPTIOUS!! 10/10, definitely my favorite meal I've had so far. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life. 

Song of the Week: My Jesus by Anne Wilson

Miracle of the Week: We put two people on date for baptism this week!!! WOOT WOOT!! Ariana and Randy are siblings, and they're our neighbors! Their mom got baptized recently, and they decided they also want to work towards it and take the lessons with us. We are so excited, they're so adorable and I love them so much! Randy being put on date is our big miracle this week! His sister Ariana has always been more receptive to us, but up until this week he would always hide or refuse to leave his room when we would come over. But when we stopped by, he was so talkative and participated in the lesson. And when we asked if they wanted to work towards baptism, he lit up and immediately said yes! He is an angel boy and we are so excited for the both of them!!

Weird Experience of the Week: I held a rat this week. We went to dinner at a member's house, and their little daughter has pet rats and asked us if we wanted to hold them. So we did. It was a weird experience, and I definitely don't like rats anymore than I did before. But I was told to do something every single day that pushes me out of my comfort zone, so I held a rat on my shoulder. Their names were Princess Diana and Audry, as in Audry Hepburn. I hope that's not offensive to those iconic women.

It's been a good week! I hit my one month mark this week, which feels weird. Time is already flying by so quickly. Last week was long, but everyone promised me that after the first week it would just zoom. And that's already happening, it's so crazy! I'm so happy to be here. I love it so much, and the people are incredible. 

PICTURES

-Pictures from my first day! Selfie with Sister Rodarte and all the new sisters, and a group picture at the temple.

- We LOVE when people are nice and give us cold water bottles!!!

- Pre storm

- We had our first exchange this week, with another trio of sisters. So there were 6 girls in our small apartment, and it was chaos but so much fun. I love them all!

- Shoutout to my grandma for giving me this sunhat, I use it almost every single day!

- The dogs peeking over the fence might actually be my favorite picture I've taken so far.

- Me and Randy!! (And their pet, Gecky the Gecko).

- The palm tree photo is the front yard of one of the families we're working with, and I'm obsessed with it.

- Clear American has the best sparkling water in the entire world!!!! I know that my love for sparkling water is a red flag for most people, but this drink is scrumptious and everyone needs to try it immediately. We had dinner with a family and they introduced it to us and we haven't been the same since. We've already been through two cases of it... GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW ITS SO GOOD. 

- Mid storm rain bucket

- We all took pictures holding the rats, but the picture of Audry the rat crossing Sister Mudrow and Sister Wood's shoulder is just too funny to not include.