Hola familia and friends!!!
I'm finally out in the field! It is great, I'm really loving it. I finally have interesting things to email. So we drove out to Reu last week and met with president and all that. President seems really great, hes animated and excited for us. He and his wife are from Nicaragua, and hes like 44 or so. My trainer is Hermana Lindsay Stevens. She is really great! Shes from Sacramento CA and only has 2 changes left on her mission, and well be together for the next 2 changes - a change is 6 weeks - so I will 'kill her', or send her home. She has pretty much perfect Spanish and is really patient with me. She really is like my mom because she totally takes care of me and knows how to do everything that we have to do, both for missionary work and for just living. I really appreciate all her help. Shes really easy to get along with and we're already good buddies. So I'm excited to be with her for 12 weeks.
Gosh there are like a million things I could write about this place, I don't even know where to start. We live in kind of like the back of someones house, in one giant room. When I first got there I couldn't believe we were going to be living there, but now I like it. we have 2 beds with decent mattresses, 2 bars for hanging clothes, 2 desks, a little fridge, a few fold out tables, a bunson burner stove thing, and a little bathroom. And that's all ha ha. But i like it, its clean and bug-free for the most part. Outside we have a pila and a clothes line. A pila is something that pretty much all people in central America have who have a little bit of money. Ill try to explain it, but you should just google it if you want to understand. It functions as the dishwasher, sink, and laundry station. there are 3 basins, the middle one has a faucet, and you fill the middle one full of water and keep it pretty full all the time. One side is for drying dishes, and the other is for washing dishes and clothes. there is a drain on that side and the bottom of the basin is wavy? like a washboard, and you rub your clothes on that with the bar of laundry soap. to wash dishes, you scrub them on that side and rinse them with water from the center basin. that was probably a really confusing description, so just google it ha ha if you re curious.
We have 2 means of transportation around here -- bus and tuk-tuk. the 'buses' here are actually giant vans, basically astro vans only with an extra row of seating, they are like the most ghetto old vans in the world, I have no idea how they are still running, and they run all day and cram as many people as possible on them when they need to, but luckily I haven't been too squished yet. tuk-tuks are like taxis, they're like golf carts but with only 3 wheels, one in front and 2 in back, and they cruise around the roads. they're more expensive, so we don't use them much. All the drivers here are crazy and there are no laws or regulations or anything, so its always wild driving ha ha.
Food -- we eat breakfast at our house, like cereal or whatever, and then lunch at this members house, she's our cook, and its almost always good. Dinner kind of depends on if people invite us over or if were hungry. Everything has been fine except for last night when we were served a huge plate of spaghetti noodles with a ton of this cream-mayonaisse stuff on top! It was so nasty, I gagged a few times but got it all down with a smile ha ha. It was really nasty agh, I still feel kinda sick from that...oh well...
A few more things about the culture -- there are animals everywhere, dogs, chickens, ducks, pigs, turkeys, dogs, a few cows, rabbits. People sometimes ask me things like if both my parents are gringos, and why am I so short, americans are supposedly really tall, and how tall are my parents and stuff like that. Its funny ha ha.
My comp and I have 2 wards we're in, which is unusual around here, most missionaries just have one ward or branch. Its kind of hard because one church starts at 8 and the other starts at 9, so we're cruising around in tuk-tuk alot on Sunday. We've taught some nice lessons and things, but we don't really have any progressing investigators yet because my comp and her old comp had a bunch of baptisms last week and so we're kind of starting over, if that makes sense. We're praying really hard for a family to find and teach, and I think that we'll have a great week this week and get some stuff done. My Spanish is coming along. I can understand almost everything people say - unless they're talking about something crazy - and I can get my point across usually. I have lots of improving to do, but the Spanish is going fine, can't complain.
So that was a giant email, sorry if it was ridiculous but I was just so excited to finally have some cool things to say! Hopefully next week Ill have some cool things about missionary work to share ha ha. Anyways, I hope y'all are doing well! Oh, and I can get emails and email whoever, so email me if you want and have time! Thanks for all y'alls support. I'm really really grateful to be out here serving a mission. It's the best thing you can do! I am learning so much! I am so happy to be sharing the gospel with these people. these people have absolutely nothing and I know they need the gospel of Jesus Christ so much. I know that the gospel is true and that Christ is our Savior and that we can do anything through him. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. I know that Heavenly Father guides us today by means of a living prophet. I am so grateful for all I have. Have a great week!!
Hermana Gilland
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