July 7, 2014

Hello family!

Happy late 4th of July! Hope you all had good, safe fun :) We had to be inside by 6pm for safety but before that we celebrated the American way! We went and got hot dogs for lunch and picked up a slurpee on our way home. Then the member that was supposed to give us dinner that night went out of town but she ordered us pizza for dinner. Overall it was a very unhealthy, greasy holiday. What's more American than that?!  I have to admit, it's a little awkward celebrating American Independence with a bunch of Mexicans/Hispanics. But they love any reason to have a fiesta so all was well :)

In other news, I'm getting a new companion on Wednesday. It transfer time again, crazy that six weeks have gone by already. Hermana Thomas is headed to San Bernardino and my new companion will be Hermana Martinez. 

Hermana Martinez goes home soon and I've met her a few times. She's from Puerto Rico and is tiny but a definitely a fire ball! I'm excited to see how we work together. This is the first time I've stayed in an area and gotten a new companion, up until now I've always been the one to move! So we'll see how I do when I have to take over!

Yesterday we had what we thought was a great idea! Until we carried it out. We decided to walk after church. Walk everywhere. And since church ends at 2pm that meant walking at the very hottest part of the day. (115 yesterday). We thought we were going to die. Finally we decided to ask someone for water. They took one look at us and handed us a cold water bottle. Then we got to talk to them for a little bit! Needless to say we got in an extra workout.

And since we've been walking a lot, we've met a lot of really interesting people. I love my mission!

Oh, and the heat? This is nothing. They said August is when it really gets bad. So I'll be here for the worst of it. It's just as hot as Arizona but I feel it more here since I'm out walking in a skirt all the time. And it's more humid here. Humidity is NOT my friend.

Everything else here is going well. We have a baptism coming up in a few weeks. Her name is Alondra and she is 10. Her mom is a member of the church but she hasn't been active for a long time. But since we've started working with them, the mom is coming back to church and is now active! and Alondra is really excited for her baptism :)

The other two we are working really closely with are Edith and Lucy. They seemed like they were really close to baptism when I got here but now they're feeling some doubts so we're still teaching them and trying to help them in any way we can.

Also, our mission is starting something called "JustServe" which is where we are going to start working with the leaders in the communities where we're serving and do community service 8-10 hours a week! Especially since the hours of 1-4 are really hard to find people at home because they're working or al school, we will take that time to do community service during the week then go teach people when they're at home! We haven't done anything with it yet because they're still trying to kick it off and find service projects for us to do. But I'm excited!

Wish me luck on this next week and on my new companion. I'll let you know how everything goes!

Love,

Hermana Granado

Pictures:

1. Hot Dogs on the 4th

2. Hermana Magnusson, who is my companion for one day a week when we do exchanges

3. Me and Hermana Thomas at the ward talent show after a long, long day of walking

4. The 4th of July - red, white and blue. (with Hermana Zamora and Hermana Pesqueira who are also serving in the same ward as me and Hermana Thomas)