Well I think it goes without even saying that I most certainly say hello! I'm a missionary that's what I do. but often after that I have to be bailed out by Elder Durrant. Poor guy, his spanish is good, but it's just 3 months good.
The phone is our real challenge. Just the word phone makes me flinch. I don't know about all missions, but here it's a rule that the phone must always be on speaker phone. And on speaker it's hard enough to tell what people are saying in ENGLISH. But when they jabber away in spanish, it all goes down the drain. Por ejemplo: the other day we were talking to a guy, and he kept saying some really long sentence and the ONLY word I got was tamale. So it was something like "safjaefeofiaeflaefjaoeifaef tamale aldksfjaoefijlaekfjaelf." Turns out it was "tomar", a totally different word but you get the picture. We kept looking at each other like what? and then asked him to repeat what he was saying. Yeah it's rough.
Contacting on the street is fun though! For us it's about 70 spanish, 30 english. So LOTS of spanish speakers here. I can do alright if they talk slowly. Too bad that nobody talks slowly. Some of the members do because they understand how hard of a time we have. Church was good again! My first fast sunday. Sacrament meeting is last...lame. The classes are hard because I don't understand much, they talk too fast. But sacrament meeting is always good. I passed yesterday, and Elder Durrant blessed. The deacon sitting next to me was the bishop's son. They had little cards showing me where I would walk and stuff. He was taking it serious, he told me and then was like "Ok tell me where you're gonna go?" I was laughing inside, saying cute little deacon doesn't think I know. But then while passing I actually did mess up, missed the priests bench. BE HUMBLE. We also bore our testimonies, and that was great.
And restaurants. Has anyone ever had a pupusa? It's a salvadorian thing. But they are really good! It's like a corn-flour-pita-pocket-thing with cheese and meat and what not. Most people here are from El Salvador, Guatemala, or Mexico. Sometimes Chile or other. My first day here we were talking to this american guy about our age. We asked if he had ever met missionaries before. He said no, but he saw some in a game once. Inside I was like what kind of game has missionaries? After a little bit of talking, we found out he was thinking of "mercenaries". HAHA I got a good kick out of that. We are not murderers.
One thing that confused me forever is when we ask how someone is doing, they say "Bien, gracias a dios." (Doing well, thanks to god.) But I thought forever they were saying "Doing well, thank you goodbye." I asked Elder Durrant why does everyone say goodbye to us?
Amber, the prego lady is doing SO WELL. Still hasn't had the baby, but she's due this week. Little bit worried about that but spiritually she is in heaven. We taught her chastity the other day, it was great she took it well and had a lot of questions. The other night we stopped by and shared a scripture quick. She stopped us in the middle and just went off on how much she enjoyed us teacher her. She said we are the ONLY ones that really care and give, everyone else takes. She said how happy she is becoming and she reads a lot. She still swears sometimes, and has troubles in life, but really seeing the happiness and change has inspired me. She came to church last week when I played the piano and said she cried when I played. She is great.
Dont' have time to explain, but scripture of the week is Alma 37:46. Read it, and abide by it!
Goodbye, love from Elder Wilcox.
PS my P-day IS on monday, it was just on wednesday because of the mission conference.
me and elder durrant at a new missionary training.
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