"What is Sweat?" Letter 8-10-15

Hermanas Hauck & Piña

Hermana Facials on P-day

That caption/title isn´t supposed to be sarcastic. I feel like the fish in that joke where one fish says to another ¨Water´s nice isn´t it?¨ and the other responds ¨What the heck is water?¨. I live in sweat!! It is suuuuupppppeeerrr hot and we walk all day long. My clothes smell pretty nasty by the time I go home at night. 

This week has been very interesting. I´ve used some pretty sketchy bathrooms, second hand smoked a fair amount and seen at least 20 half naked men (and at least 1 fully naked man). It´s a bit lonely with the language barrier. I can´t really express myself, which is new for me. Thankfully, there´s an American hermana in my zone, who helps me a lot and sometimes talks to me in English. 

The homesickness is probably the hardest part for me right now. I miss you all so much it hurts. BUT (thanks goodness for ¨buts¨) I know that this is a very special and rewarding work so it will get better really soon. 

Monday

After I emailed you all on Monday, I went shopping at Walmart with Hna Piña. We had to walk about a mile home with all of our groceries, but a lady and her son helped us carry the goods there. We talked to them a bit about the Gospel but they weren´t too interested.

Tuesday

Our house is pretty decently big. We have ac only in our room so we spend most of the time in there but we exercise downstairs in the mornings. It’s pretty hot, but all good…more of a work out! We had a district meeting at the chapel, but it was a pretty long walk and we ended up getting lost. Many others from our zone were there too and guess what?  Hna Barton is in my zone!! I was so glad to see her! This night it rained like crazy so we had to navigate through the streets/rivers of Hermosillo to make it home.

Wednesday

We ate lunch with the Rodriguez family today. I was able to understand so much with them! Most of the people here talk super fast and kind of slurred but they were very clear. We did lots of street contacting this day. We´re trying to meet lots of people to teach :)

Thursday

Today we taught Hna Lupita. She is very sweet and mostly receptive to the Gospel, but she has a hard time keeping her commitments. She told me that she´s very impressed with my Spanish, which made me quite proud! We also taught a lady named Gloria Guadelupe. She accepted baptism at the end of the lesson, which was super exciting, but she hasn´t kept her commitment since then so we need to give her a bit of a push.

Walking home I taught Hna Piña ¨A Child´s Prayer¨, which is my favorite primary song, in English. I like humming and whistling as we walk here. The mosquitos here are on steroids or something because some of the many bites that I have received have bruised! I bought more bug spray today.

Friday

While walking to our lunch appointment with some members in our ward, this homeless man was walking behind us talking about candy. It was slightly alarming so we walked pretty fast. It got pretty stormy this day and the wind was blowing really hard. There´s lots of dust in the wind here and it all sticks to my sweaty arms and legs so I get really dirty. :/  I played jump rope with some cute kids in the street this day. It was really nice doing something fun because it´s been a pretty hard week. I ate my first Mexican hot dog, or doga, for dinner. It was very good but verrrry greasy. They put onions and guacamole and a bunch of other stuff on them here.

Saturday

Today we taught Hna Lupita again and her daughter joined us! They are both so sweet and relatable. Not much else happened this day except street contacts and stuff.

Sunday

Both of our investigators who had committed to church attendance didn´t show, which was disappointing, but church was a good experience. No one can play the piano so all the hymns are acapella. Now, these people here in Hermosillo Balderrama have very sweet spirits, but forgive me for saying that they cannot hold pitch for the life of them. It sounds like everyone picks their own melody to sing. It´s kind of cute though :)  My mind hurt by the end of the meetings because I had to listen to so much Spanish without a break. But it’s all good! I´ll get there through the help of Heavenly Father!

Today

We met with the Zone and played some games. It was fun to see Hna Barton again. Then we went shopping. After, a member who is a Mary Kay representative (and very proud of it might I add) gave us facials, which was really nice. 

I love you all very much and hope everything is well at home. I miss you and think of you every single day. 

I hope you all know how blessed we are. Many of the people here in Hermosillo don´t have things like we do. By that I mean both material things like a/c, cars, nice homes, etc., and more important things like a loving family and a knowledge of the Restored Gospel. Brothers and sisters: give lots of thanks to Mom and Dad for teaching us this Gospel!!! They rock!!

Con amor,

Hermana Hauck