This past week was so fun!!!! Thanksgiving was such a blast! We basically spent all day with a bunch of different families the ward. They are so cute!!! And we ate, A LOT. We had four dinners haha. It was crazy. But I survived.
I'm being transferred out of Madera!!! I'm so sad. I'm sad because I love the people here so much!! I have met such such amazing people and I'm sad I don't get more time to connect with them (see end of email for a list of all the things I love about Madera). BUT I am super excited because IM TRAINING! So my new area is Farmersville and I will be in a trio. That means that I will have two companions and one will be a new missionary from the MTC (Missionary Training Center) and the other is actually one of the girls that I was in the MTC with not too long ago haha. It is a little crazy because I just got out of training so I hardly feel qualified Haha. But!!! The Lord qualifies the unqualified in His work! So I know it'll be awesome.
Our church has a I dont know what you would call it "campaign" that we do every December that's called "Light the World". It is a way to encourage people both within the church and in the community to serve one another!!! It is so great and it starts December 1st!!! You all should check it out! Essentially it just gives people inspiration for how they can share the light that comes this time of the year!!! Here is the link: https://www.mormon.org/
I love you all! Have a great week!!!
Why I love Madera:
1. It is nicknamed Little Oaxaca because nearly everyone is Oaxaca, Mexico
2. Oaxaca is purely native Aztecs so many of the people speak Aztec languages like mixteco or zapateco and there are like 3 dialects within those two. It's crazy because Spanish is some of these people's second language!!!!!
3. Every weekend the bouncy houses come out. Even in winter. The same goes for parties, the go big here.
4. Random people give us uvas!
5. Everyone here works in the fields. With the changing of the seasons people travel up to 2 hours for work.
6. So many almond orchards and grape vines!!!!! I LOVE it.
7. The signs here are in Spanish first, and the small print is English
8. People who move here from Mexico can live here over 20 years and never have to learn English because everyone speaks Spanish
9. A member made us homemade pozole. I think I could have sat in the pot he made it in, it was so big.
10. Claudia and Carlos are so Mexican that they went to a Chinese restaurant and Carlos was genuinely concerned he wouldn't be able to eat a meal without tortillas
11. My first meal in madera was a pasta/spaghetti of sorts, with tostadas on the side. No meal is complete without tortillas of some form or another.
12. Even the burger place has agua fresca.
13. The ward cooked 11 turkeys in the ground for the ward Thanksgiving party.
14. Everything grows here!!!!! Grapes, almonds, olives, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, dates, todo!
15. People have their own fruit trees in their backyard (that's the dream).
16. The people here love mole. They put mole in pazole, tamales, tortillas, everything!!!
17. People are so generous!!!! Maria gave us woven flowers and dia de los muertos bread (and this was only our second time talking to her)
18. Tortillas and salsa at every meal no matter how American all the other food is.
19. One of the Hermanos in the ward said he really cut back on his tortilla intake when he got married. Instead of 30 or 40 at every meal, now he only eats 15 or 20.
20. Hermana Nava was like my madera mom when I got sick. She is so thoughtful! And hilarious. She taught us a lot about life.
21. Hermana giron knocks doors to find people for us to teach.
22. There was a two week period where I had a pomegranate a day.
23. La actividad de la día de acción de gracias, hicieron una "stuffing" tan mexicana. And with all the insides of the turkeys.
24. La mixteca ice cream. Best ice cream every!!!!! Some of the best flavors: chili mango, leche quemada, coco, and at least 7 random flavors of fruits I've never heard of. You really can't go wrong.
25. Fruit stand man Max. They have fruit stands everywhere especially on the weekends. And they are soooooo good. Topped with tajin and chamoy.
26. Our neighbor plays banda o mariachi music every morning. We always know when it's coming because we can hear the bluetooth turn on.
27. One of the families in the ward calls us missionaries the "Wolfpack". Everytime we see him he makes us howl with him (he has a sick handle bar mustache and I don't think he has teeth so need less to say I don't understand him very well but I do understand the howling hahaha)
28. When they announced that the members weren't going to feed us anymore the Vazquez family was not happy Haha. Lucio asked who decided that, if it was the prophet. Wasn't satisfied until he heard that elder uchtdorf was at the meeting where it was announced to all the mission presidents.
29. One Saturday night we passed by one of our friends we are teaching to see if they could come to church the next day and there were two ladies who we thought were testigos de jehová till they started pulling out Mexican version of Mary kay products. So we got facials instead of teaching a lesson.
30. Its funny how many door contacts we have had with drunk shirtless Mexican men.
2. Oaxaca is purely native Aztecs so many of the people speak Aztec languages like mixteco or zapateco and there are like 3 dialects within those two. It's crazy because Spanish is some of these people's second language!!!!!
3. Every weekend the bouncy houses come out. Even in winter. The same goes for parties, the go big here.
4. Random people give us uvas!
5. Everyone here works in the fields. With the changing of the seasons people travel up to 2 hours for work.
6. So many almond orchards and grape vines!!!!! I LOVE it.
7. The signs here are in Spanish first, and the small print is English
8. People who move here from Mexico can live here over 20 years and never have to learn English because everyone speaks Spanish
9. A member made us homemade pozole. I think I could have sat in the pot he made it in, it was so big.
10. Claudia and Carlos are so Mexican that they went to a Chinese restaurant and Carlos was genuinely concerned he wouldn't be able to eat a meal without tortillas
11. My first meal in madera was a pasta/spaghetti of sorts, with tostadas on the side. No meal is complete without tortillas of some form or another.
12. Even the burger place has agua fresca.
13. The ward cooked 11 turkeys in the ground for the ward Thanksgiving party.
14. Everything grows here!!!!! Grapes, almonds, olives, lemons, oranges, pomegranates, dates, todo!
15. People have their own fruit trees in their backyard (that's the dream).
16. The people here love mole. They put mole in pazole, tamales, tortillas, everything!!!
17. People are so generous!!!! Maria gave us woven flowers and dia de los muertos bread (and this was only our second time talking to her)
18. Tortillas and salsa at every meal no matter how American all the other food is.
19. One of the Hermanos in the ward said he really cut back on his tortilla intake when he got married. Instead of 30 or 40 at every meal, now he only eats 15 or 20.
20. Hermana Nava was like my madera mom when I got sick. She is so thoughtful! And hilarious. She taught us a lot about life.
21. Hermana giron knocks doors to find people for us to teach.
22. There was a two week period where I had a pomegranate a day.
23. La actividad de la día de acción de gracias, hicieron una "stuffing" tan mexicana. And with all the insides of the turkeys.
24. La mixteca ice cream. Best ice cream every!!!!! Some of the best flavors: chili mango, leche quemada, coco, and at least 7 random flavors of fruits I've never heard of. You really can't go wrong.
25. Fruit stand man Max. They have fruit stands everywhere especially on the weekends. And they are soooooo good. Topped with tajin and chamoy.
26. Our neighbor plays banda o mariachi music every morning. We always know when it's coming because we can hear the bluetooth turn on.
27. One of the families in the ward calls us missionaries the "Wolfpack". Everytime we see him he makes us howl with him (he has a sick handle bar mustache and I don't think he has teeth so need less to say I don't understand him very well but I do understand the howling hahaha)
28. When they announced that the members weren't going to feed us anymore the Vazquez family was not happy Haha. Lucio asked who decided that, if it was the prophet. Wasn't satisfied until he heard that elder uchtdorf was at the meeting where it was announced to all the mission presidents.
29. One Saturday night we passed by one of our friends we are teaching to see if they could come to church the next day and there were two ladies who we thought were testigos de jehová till they started pulling out Mexican version of Mary kay products. So we got facials instead of teaching a lesson.
30. Its funny how many door contacts we have had with drunk shirtless Mexican men.
Fotos:
1-4 Thanksgiving dinners
5-6 sad goodbyes
7 HERMANA MALMSTROM MI AMOR
