I Love NJ - Another Great Week!

Another great week!

 

So last week I had almost no time to email, because there was a softball tournament throughout my whole mission, and we had to leave emails early to get to it on time. Each Zone was a team and our Zone Leaders made us all really cool tie-dye shirts for our team to wear at the tournament.

 

We walk so much! I found out that in NJ there are only like 8 sisters in walking areas. And I'm one of them! We are so tired by the end of the day, but at least that means we sleep well!

 

The people in Union City are from EVERYWHERE. It's crazy. All these immigrants move to New York City when they first come to America, but they quickly learn that NYC is super expensive to live in so they move across the river to Jersey. I am keeping a list in my notebook of all the countries that I've met people from. I already have almost every Hispanic country, as well as a few European ones like Serbia, Italy, Bulgaria, and Albania! There are almost no people here who were born in the US.

 

My Spanish is coming along well. It is really hard to understand when people talk really fast (especially Dominicans) but I am getting better. And when people talk slowly or when I read it I can understand most of it. Hermana Galvan helps me a lot. She is fluent in both English and Spanish so that has really helped me. Since she is from Argentina and I am with her all day every day, I am starting to speak Spanish with an Argentinian accent!! In most Hispanic countries, the double L (like in pollo) is pronounced like a "y" sound. But Argentinans say it with a "shh" sound. So without even really realizing it, I've started saying using that same accent. Like when I say "estoy llena" (I'm full), it comes out sounding like "estoy sheno". All the people in the ward love how I'm picking up her accent haha.

 

So Eddy is the 13-year-old that we recently got to start coming back to curch, and Daniel is his friend who is getting baptized in a couple weeks. They have this other friend named John, who is totally awesome. He always listens to us teach his friends, and he had told us that he really wants to get baptized but he knows his mom won't let him because she's Catholic (almost all the Hispanics here are Catholic). Well this week, the three boys came told us they had a surprise for us, and they were so excited to tell us what it was. They were like jumping up and down. It was so cute. They told us that John Paul's mom finally gave him permission to get baptized! We are so excited to keep working with this kid. He is so great and so willing to learn!

 

On Wednesday there was a meeting in Morristown with the Mission President and his family for all the brand new missionaries. They basically just asked us how we are doing. A few of the people who came in at the same time as me are having a pretty rough time, but I feel totally fine! Every day is a challenge but challenges are how we learn and grow!

 

On Thursday we had a really awesome lesson with Pablo and we asked him to be baptized on September 21st and he said yes!! :) Afterwards he took us to get dinner again, but at least this time he didn't buy us roses right? haha

 

Yesterday, Marta (the inactive from Ecuador who we found on the street a few weeks ago) went to church for the first time in who-knows-how-many years. She LOVED it. During Sacrament meeting she would cry whenever she heard a hymn and she remembered hearing it so long ago. She also brought her husband and her daughter to church with her! They are not members and she wants us to start teaching them too. She is so great!

 

Keep the love and support coming!

 

<3 Hermana Harris