Parte dos!!

4/11/16

So as far as the area goes, it's huge. I don't know what it is exactly but I goes if you look at a map, almost into Crown Heights and the Flatlands but to be totally honest we don't know where it ends.  
They didn't have sister missionaries in this area until last transfer.  My comp and her last comp (who is home in Spain now actually!!) were the first ones to kind of begin to build this area. I honestly do not even think I am in the United States sometimes.  Every white person is either Russian or Italian (yet we have no missionaries in this mission speaking those languages) and there are "chinos" everywhere.  And literally everybody and their dog smokes... Apparently word of wisdom and chastity are the hard hitters in the mission work.  Anyway...the area is crazy.  I was kind of frustrated at first thinking we need to be doing more cause we spend all day on transportation getting places. We taught four lessons last week together and that is awesome for us here! So, it's different than I expected haha but it always is:) I think this may be planting season. We're all laborers in the field, but that doesn't always mean your job is as a harvester.  Sometimes I think we forget that in order for there to be something to harvest there has to have been something planted! So, we may just get
to do some planting here for a while, maybe this is our enduring period is what we always joke about haha. But really though, our members are AMAZING, the investigators we do have are solid, the area
is amazing, so the fact that transportation is our biggest struggle really is not that big of a problem haha. We did get to talk to some people on the subway the last few days though, so it's been good.  ️

Just cause it popped in my head and goes with the fact that missionary work isn't easy and will never be easy, if you don't know the talk "Missionary Work and the Atonement" by Elder Holland (I think it was in the 2001 Oct Liahona possibly) you need to read it!! It's awesome. There's a video that goes with it too that they showed us at the CCM and it was AWESOME. Not sure how to find it though, but read the talk cause it's amazing.

Anyway, Sunday was interesting to say the least. First time going to a Spanish ward and it was crazy. I understood a decent amount but I was so overwhelmed. We don't speak Spanish or hear it hardly at all until we get to Fifth Avenue or church where we are then surrounded by Spanish speakers literally everywhere. It's awesome. I had to pray in Sunday School and they said the obispo will probably ask me to bear my testimony next week *sweats*   other than that...

Tuesday's and Thursday's we teach English class to Spanish speakers at 8:00 every week, and then Wednesday's we have service where our whole zone meets up at Prospect Park and we do service there. So that was super fun!! Oh and Tuesdays we have district meetings too. Lots of meetings haha, oh and this Friday we have a zone training meeting.  Yeah, lots of meetings but they're good:) We played soccer with the members on Saturday too (the Midwood Ward got dissolved so they have
to come to Dyker now, so we're doing soccer every Saturday to try and get them to get to know the Dyker ward) so that was WAY fun!! That'll be a regular thing so I'll get some good conditioning in every week at least once haha!!

I also got a pretty sick sliver when we were doing service so that was fun.  I probably broke every rule ever when I just very carefully pulled the inch long thing out of my pointer finger haha. It was
almost completely in there...it didn't bleed too much but it hurt pretty bad for a few days. Now you can barely see where it was so I think I'm good.

OH MAN!! FOOD! Can't believe I never told y'all about this. Well, you know I ate fish at the CCM, but I also ate ribs (yes with the bone and it was very messy). But then our last meal at the CCM was chicken wings. So...I ate that too! Bones and all. I mean I didn't eat the bones but you know what I mean   They were so messy! I was just following what Hermana Spencer did haha! She like had to show me how to bite it but then I didn't know what I was supposed to eat and what I wasn't supposed to eat, so I just kinda ate everything.  Stoker and Cafe were so proud.  BUT...Saturday guess what was for lunch.... Sushi. Yup. So I ate sushi for lunch. As in, not like I just ate one piece.  I ate sushi, with chopsticks (now THAT was a struggle) and all, that was lunch by a member (it was like this super fancy Korean place or something). So yeah. We're branching out a little bit as far as food goes.   Oh and we ate with the sister training leaders on Friday for dinner so they made us Fijian food cause one of them is from Fiji. That was good. Oh and the fact that my compañera is from Ethiopia means I'll probably try some of that food at some point!

Que mas... Well, I think that's got about everything as far as major details go haha! I'm going to go reply to the email you sent me dad! And the preguntas from mom, so more details will probably come still hahahah!! Love you guys!!!!!!!!!!  ️ ️ ️ ️ ️ ️ ️ ️

Mucho amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley