President Bahr, my hand might have punched a bush...

Sorry, this is a long one... :)

What a funny week. Neither of us got transferred but transfer day completely threw off our schedule...and it might have all started when I punched a bush... :) So it was snowing, and we were walking back to our car after an appointment in the morning before transfer conference. Sister Greenwood was with us and I thought it would be fun to throw some snow at her. (For any of you who had a snowball fight with me last winter, I think I came to the conclusion that I should never start a snowball fight because I always end up losing...I'm still the same apparently.) So I see this bush with a bunch of snow on it and go swinging my hand through it to throw some on Sister Greenwood. Something stabbed into my hand, I had a minor freakout, and then we looked and a thorn from the bush had stabbed into my thumb, gotten in pretty deep, and broken off. Sister Greenwood and Hna Evens just laughed at me as they tried to do surgery to get it out but it wouldn't come so they told me to call President Bahr (since he's a doctor). He came to transfer conference all prepared with his tools...and it still didn't come out...so now I have a thorn in my thumb. :) When I read my mom's email about Devon burning his hands, I thought of this story...and mine doesn't even compare to his but Devon, I hope you're doing well. :)

In other news, maybe on a more spiritual note, we have these 2 investigators that we have really started seeing progress this week. I mainly want to tell you about Ranferi. He is this Guatemalan man who we found one day when just everything fell through. He had been taught my missionaries before (we actually found his name in the area book) but stopped taking the lessons because he was just too busy with work and stuff. So we taught him about 3 times this week and the spirit was so strong every time! We were talking about Jospeh Smith and saying the only way he can know for himself is to pray about it and read the Book of Mormon. He said, "I want to read this book. I want to know." That's where it all starts: the desire to believe. He has been reading and will be coming to church next Sunday!

Then we also had our second lesson with this guy named Wilson, an Ecuadorian who speaks incredibly fast and never breathes. He just started rattling off question after question about his reading (which was about life after this, because he had that question last time). His questions were never in a bashing sort of way, thank goodness, he just really sincerely wants to know...EVERYTHING! :) He was raised Catholic but he was like, "Yeah, I don't really believe in that. I think we'll get our bodies again and I think we had to have lived with God before and I think that the bad spirits don't have bodies..." and on and on he went. Haha, he is awesome. Hna Evens just stares at him, having no idea the half of what he's saying, so then I just have to jump in whenever I can and if I breathe, I better be done explaining what I wanted to explain. Haha, I love it. And as I've always said about passing out, breathing is SO overrated. :)

And for exciting food of the week...ceviche (Honduranian style)! DON'T try this at home! So it is basically a raw seafood pico de gallo. It's got raw shrimp, squid, crab, muscles, clams, and other things all soaked in lime juice; then dump that into a bowl with tomatoes, onions, cilantro, more lime juice, and about a pound of salt (no joke, when he put the salt in the bowl, he kept pouring until we basically couldn't see the food under it). But apparently the salt/lime combo kind of cooks the seafood. I picked up a piece of shrimp and was amazed when I could actually see it cooking...yep, lots of salt. And then he served each of us (the elders were there too) an entire plate of it! I just had to swallow a lot of things whole because they were not chewing in my mouth! But hey, I ate all the seafood, I just couldn't finish off the swimming pool of raw onions I had on my plate afterward. Mmmm. That is not something I will be cooking for you after the mission, don't fret.

So, one funny/pitiful, a couple spiritual, and one gross experience. Sounds like a mission, right? Things are going great and I love to be out here doing what I'm doing. I hope everyone is doing well back home. Good luck on you tour, Malcolm! You'll be so close to me! I'll be praying for you lots to be safe and have fun. Remember our deal. Chris, Megan, Victoria, and Claire, thank you so much for the Valentine's package! We will be picking up some ice cream today to go with that amazing hot fudge you sent. You are amazing and Tori is quite the little artist ;)

Take care this week. Remember to live what you believe! It is amazing the number of people we find out here who get turned away from one religion or another because they see hypocrites preaching one thing on Sunday and then living something else during the week. (1 Timothy 4:12) "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Thank you for the wonderful examples you all are to me. I miss you tons but I love you more!

Love,

Hermana Jackson