Get ready, there's an elephant up here!" "Wow, you are so heavy!

Querida Familia y Amigos,

A veces, no me gusta como no puedo escribir esta carta completamente en espanol porque casi todos los recipientes no podria entender. ): Y tambien, mi espanol todavia no esta perfecto.

This week was so weird. Mostly just the weekend, I guess. So, Friday, we finished packing Hermana LeBaron's cosas before we started weekly planning, and then we needed duct tape, so we went to Safeway (shh, don't tell anyone), and while we were there, Elder Largent (or Elder Merrill? I don't remember which one), the AP, called (because we'd called them earlier to find out where I was going Sunday night-transfers because Hermana LeBaron needed to go to the mission home Sunday night, and I needed a companion) to let us know that plan.

I answered, and didn't put it on speaker because, hey, were in a Safeway parking lot when we should have been weekly planning. Entonces, conteste, "Hola, habla Hermana Miller." y el dijo, "... Sister Miller?"

That's how all conversations with English over the phone start. (:

Anyway, he was like, "So, we were calling to let you know to pack all of your stuff, you're being transferred." "NO!" "What?" "Nothing. Continue."

So, I'm being transferred. Actually, right now, I'm in Oak Harbor with Sister Birch, a former visa waiter (her visa got denied, but her companion is on a plan right now to Brazil). But I'm not going to stay English all transfer, don't worry. I still have to go to transfers tomorrow to get my new companion and go who knows where.

Why am I being transferred away when Hermana LeBaron is going home and Bellingham was just whitewashed in February? The area's being closed down and given to the Elderes of Bellingham. Elder Smith and whoever his new companion is going to be (as Elder Woody is also heading home) will cover their area and the sisters area.

Sister Birch is great. Her Portuguese is decent, so we Spanish and Portuguese to each other and we can almost understand everything that's said. Oak Harbor is beautiful.

I'm ready to go back to teaching in Spanish and having members that only Spanish. (:

Love you all! Next week, I'll tell you who my new companion is and where I am!

Amor,

Hermana Miller

Trials of Learning: Sometimes English Slang = Spanish Cuss Words and Vice Versa

Querido Familia y Amigos,

 I realized that I've been forgetting to send pictures lately, so I included some right now before I even started.

This week was good. The story that goes with the title (that I'm sure is the only reason you opened the email this week, wanting to learn the really bad Spanish words) started last Monday, but it wasn't brought to my attention until last night, so you have to wait and hope that I remember to tell you at the end of this email. (: But the vice versa part, I will tell you first, because that's actually a story from a few weeks ago that I forgot to tell you.

So, we had dinner with a recent convert. We just ate at the table outside, where we have the lessons, because no female lives in his house, only other single males (well, now one of his room mates, his mom is staying with them for the summer to work, then she'll go back to Nicaragua). So he is bringing the food out, and he tells us he has good news. He has a new room mate.

At first we're like, "Whatever, that's cool. You never let us talk to/teach your room mates, so that's cool." Then he tells us that his new friend will be joining us for dinner. Then we're excited, like, "Yeah, member present and new investigator!" Then Sergio comes out, and we learn that he's from Nicaragua, and that he's actually a member. I may have mentioned him before.

So, we have dinner, we talk, we laugh, we share a scripture, we leave.

That night, the recent convert (who, by the way, really likes Hermana LeBaron), texts us and says, "Que es dos mas dos?" I didn't understand, but Hermana LeBaron got really ticked off and went to go take a shower.

The next morning, she tells me what it meant (you know, other that "What is two plus two?"). He was asking us if the dinner the night before was a group date. Which irritated me, too, but moving on. Hermana LeBaron said, "He is such a --!" I dropped my hair dryer, and just stared at her like, "Did you really just say that?" It had been a really long time since I'd heard that particular cuss word, it's so bad that people don't even say it to annoying missionaries that knock on their door when they're busy or Catholic.

Apparently, this cuss word, in Spanish (of course) is the same word, just with an o or a on the end, according the the gender of the person you're calling this, but it's used the same way we say, "No, haha, you're dumb." or algo asi.

So, that.

Umm... Que paso este semana... We went on exchanges twice, once with the STL's and once with the Mount Vernon sisters. The first one was kind of hard for me, because Sister Wayman and Alyssa don't Spanish, so I was saying all the things. But in a noche de hogar (family home evening) with a less active family, Sister Wayman shared her testimony in Spanish, which she'd had me translate that morning. It was really good.

But after Alyssa left, we had a member present with another member, we invited this family of 7 to be baptized, they said they wouldn't be ready by that date, and the member agreed, then we couldn't convince them that they could, because the member agreed that they wouldn't. Ugh.

The exchange on Thursday went better, because Hermana Bain can Spanish. So that was all good. We had dinner with a member that lives way up in the mountains and has a cool tower in her house. So, we're super low on miles now, and we have to go to Mount Vernon for zone meeting on Wednesday...

We contacted this man on Thursday, and it was a good contact, but because Hermana LeBaron wasn't there, I was going to wait until next transfer (next week) to follow up on him. But we had a lesson with another investigator, and the contact was there!! We taught him, and now he's a new investigator. (: I'm so glad the Lord knows better than I do.

Ummm... So, the story, then. Monday, Salvador texted us, asked us a question, and I responded, "Nope." I don't remember what the question was. He didn't text us back that day, and whenever I was texting, he wouldn't respond, he wouldn't talk to me on the phone, and I was like, "What is this?" while Hermana LeBaron was trying not to laugh right next to me. Remember that Hermana LeBaron is from Tijuana, Mexico, and that Spanish is her first language.

So, Salvador took us to Cottage Meeting last night, with Sergio, and the mom of the other room mate (apparently, all of her children that are still living in Nicaragua are members of the church, and she went to all of their baptisms, and even though she is supportive, she has no desire to join. Yet.).

After it ended, before we started the long drive back to Lynden, in the chaos of missionaries, investigators, and recent converts, I lost everyone, and was starting to freak out because the mass amount of people in one house, so I went outside where there was less chaos, but still people, pulled out my purse sized Book of Mormon that Hermana Bingham gave me, and read on the grass. Then Salvador and Maria (the mom) came up and asked me to take pictures for them. Afterwards, Maria went to go sit somewhere, and I asked Salvador what was going on. He told me he was offended because I swore at him on Monday. Moral of the story, nope pronounced with the Spanish pronunciation is a really bad word, and you should never say it or text it to a Mexican, or you could lose a friend for a week or even more.

Ummm, el fin. Les amo mucho!

Zone Conference

 Cosas I got for my birthday/the stuff that was in the packages. One of which was really moldy bread.

Also, missionary cut outs we found in the church.

Sometimes Hermana LeBaron takes selfies with my camera

Araña, araña! I HATE SPIDERS

Querida Familia y Amigos,

First, a shout out to Kelton and his friends that graduated this week (and any of my friends that were still in high school... I forgot if there were any... But I do love you!) , and to Krystal who turned old yesterday-I mean 24. (: Love you guys!

Also, I'd like to express gratitud to mis hermanos, Kelton and Jessie. They're the best. At home, they'd just come when I'd call-sometimes literally, like, via cell phone-to save my life. I would call them like, "KELTON (JESSIE), COME SAVE ME!! I NEED YOUR HELP!!" and they would come running (well, usually walking, or taking their time) to save me. Usually, they'd get to my room and be like, "What's wrong?!" And I'd point at this huge spider (you know, those huge ones that are about as big as the end of a pencil), and they would just roll their eyes and kill it. I'm so grateful to them for this, and I love them so much.

I don't know what it is, but on my mission, my fear of spiders has grown so much. Like, a ton. And my companion, a recent convert we visit a lot, y los elderes have been teasing me about it a lot. They're always like, "Araña, araña!

Yesterday, there was an araña in our apartment. I was freaking out. I was like, "Hermana!! Matala! Kill it!!" and she was just like, "No, you kill it." and then, when I didn't (I was seriously freaking out, okay?), she got a paper towel, used a pencil to get it to crawl onto the paper towel, then proceeded to chase me around the apartment (paper towel and araña in hand) to get me to kill it. By the time she cornered me on top on the dryer, the spider itself was freaking out and was using it's spidey senses to hang off the paper towel almost to the floor, which is a lot scarier than just a spider on a paper towel.

I. Wanted. To. Die. I was so scared. I had to take a shower (after she finally flushed it down the toilet), even though it was language study time.

But other than that, this week was alright. We didn't get a lot done. Monday, after p-hours, we took Salvador (the recent convert) and his new room mate (who just moved here from Nicaragua and is not only a member, but a sumosacerdote -- what?! How did we get so blessed?! We'd been praying for more sumosacerdotes so that the group can finally become a rama, but we didn't think it'd progress much in our time here) to FHE with the Singles Ward, Tuesday we had a doctors appointment in Mount Vernon, Wednesday was Zone Conference, which is five hours (but I won the obedience contest :D), Thursday Hermana LeBaron was super sick and we had to stay in, Friday was weekly planning, and Saturday was a baptism, then the birthday party for the niño that was baptized, then the group activity (which we are expected to go to, and it'd be severely offensive if we don't), so not a lot got done this week. ):

For the baptism, Hermana LeBaron, Elder Woody, Elder Smith, and I sang Cuando Me Bautice (When I Am Baptized). Umm, except Hermana LeBaron (who's Mexican and went to a Spanish ward her whole life), we had never sung that song before in Spanish. I feel like we severely butchered it, but thankfully, the Spirit was there, so it was fine.

Yesterday was Fast Sunday (pero ya saben eso). I may have mentioned another day that every other week, the group meets with the English ward for sacrament, and the other weeks, we meet in the relief society room. Well, this week, we somehow had 6 investigators at church (that's high even for a week where we're able to go out and work a lot), and it was such a blessing that we met in Spanish, because I feel like it's harder for them to understand the English ward weeks, even with the translation devices.

All of the testimonies were super awesome. I bore mine, even, and holy cow. The Spanish was just there. Well, no. Understand, okay? This isn't conceited or anything, others tell me this all the time. My Spanish is really good, especially for only having been out 6 months. But when I'm nervous (for example, sometimes in lessons, or in front of 12 hispanics and 3 guerros who Spanish really well [that's the size of our group when we have the 6 investigators at church; the 3 guerros are the elders and the group mission leader]), my Spanish doesn't work very well, because I'm so afraid of messing up and communicating false doctrine or something, which is ridiculous, because I know enough Spanish to not do that. But when I was bearing my testimony, my Spanish worked. I didn't forget any of the words I wanted to use, and it was super awesome.

And I realized something afterwords, as I was looking around at the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Nicaraguans, El Salvadorans, Columbians, and thinking of Peruvians, Puerto Ricans, and Chileans I have met here. I am so blessed to be here and meet this wide range of people. Sometimes I wish I was in another country so I wouldn't have to hear English all the time and my Spanish would improve, but I am so blessed to be here. In Washington. If I were in Mexico, I would only work with Mexicans. If I were in Peru, I would only work with Peruvians, and so on. Estoy agradecido a tener este oportunidad de conocer gente de tantos paises.

Les amo mucho!

Hermana Miller