Ward differences....

We got fed three times this week, which is way more than normal. It is all thanks to the Elders in my district. They took the food calendar around and acted super pathetic like they were starving and everyone was like, "Aww, pobrecitos!" (Poor things!) and now like a bunch of people signed up. But still it isn't as much as a lot of places. A lot of areas get fed at least once a day. Which I actually don't think I would want. But still.

Prayers really do work Dad! That is a great testimony builder. I have a similar experience here. I hate it when it is just so hot and stuff, so I've been praying for it to cool down and to rain lots and stuff and it has been probably only like 70 degrees for the most part and raining a little every day for the past week - ever since I started praying for it! Sweet, huh?

Want to hear a story? I thought so. 

So our ward is crazy. And it like runs on missionaries. For some reason, the bishop only trusts like a few families. There are like ten people that have like 5 callings and give all the talks and prayers (Also missionaries do every week) and then like thirty or so active, great people that really need a calling or something to do and have nothing. It is weird. Oh and the Bishop barely speaks Spanish, he is American.

But anyways. So this crazy white lady that doesn't speak Spanish that is only in the ward because her husband is the ward clerk is a Relief Society teacher. Now, relief society has some very... Interesting teachers. One of the lessons, for instance went like this: She started out by saying she hadn't read the lesson. She started the lesson, then a little ways in she asked, "How many of you actually read the lesson?" And nobody raised their hand, and she started fake crying, and started like chastising everyone because she couldn't believe she had to teach such unrighteous people. She was like, "I have read this whole book and I am so close to the Lord because of it. I call you all to repentance!" 

And so on and so forth. That is a typical lesson for this teacher.

Now, back to (The white lady). 

So the lesson was on this great talk from last general conference by Elder Bednar, called "We Believe in being Chaste."

She started out the lesson by showing people the STD pamphlets she had brought because she used to teach teenagers about this and stuff and telling people to take them so they could give them to every youth they knew pretty much and "educate them."

Oh, PS, Hermana Brown was translating this into Spanish for her as she was talking, so be sure that I did not misunderstand. Unfortunately.

Then, she started talking about Adam and Eve. And she went into this hypothetical thing, saying, "If Adam and Eve and been able to have children in the Garden of Eden, they would have gotten back to Heavenly Father, right?" and everyone sort of just like mumbled and Sister Jones was like, "So whose plan was it that everyone get back to live with Heavenly Father? Whose plan?" And everyone was just like, "...God's plan?" And she's like, "No! That's Satan's plan! Satan wanted everyone to get back to live with God in the Celestial kingdom!"

So there was some nice false doctrine going on (poor Hermana Brown was doing her best to subtly signal that this was wrong) and then Sister Jones started like ranting about the youth, and how boys are scum ("Every boy with go as far as the girl lets him go!") and stuff, and how parents don't know what their children are doing, and how they are just always trying to get away from their parents so they can hang out with boys and horrible things always happen.

Then she like calls out this guy by name. This poor kid that just left on his mission to Brazil, and she was like, "You all know him, he spoke in Stake Conference last month.  He came up to my daughter at a school dance and asked her if she wanted to go make out." Now, I don't believe this at all because her daughter is extremely shy and not that type of person at all. I doubt she was even at a dance, that's not really the type of thing she likes to do. 

Then she starts going off about how girls need to go to college with a useful major and not go to college to get married and waste your money and get an "MRS degree" because if they do that, they are just going to end up pregnant and on welfare every time. 

So yeah, that is a typical lesson for her. 

...

Well, at least we know everyone that comes must be REALLY faithful. 

But anyways, I'm running out of time. We hope to have another person on date soon, we're just waiting for her to get married to her less active (He's coming back now though) husband. They were waiting on his mom to be able to get papers to come here, and they brought her to church yesterday!! So hopefully on tuesday she'll tell us their ready to get married and baptized. Her name is Paty, by the way. She wants to get baptized so bad. She has been waiting so long for it and just waiting on Rafael and his mom and hopefully she'll finally be able to set a date!

Well, the church is still true. Love you all! Have a great day!

Hermana Emily Ann Pratt

My Schedule and other little tidbits

I've heard Utah is having like the hottest summer ever. Is it true? It can't be as hot as here though. Actually on the days it rains it isn't super hot (except it is) but on the days it doesn't it just makes you want to melt. 

Yes, there are tons of Subways (the fast food place) here. They are usually smaller, not as many stand-alone buildings, but they are still everywhere you look. In any place you could ever possibly want a sandwich, they put a subway. Actually, that's a lie. But if you want to eat a sandwich every mile or so you drive, Subway's got it covered.

Hahaha that is so funny with the bees! Dad, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to side with Mom on her version of the story, despite your Knight and Day references. I can't remember half of the things you mention. My memories of everything like that are slipping. Including my memory of how to speak English (I just tried to spell that Inglish), which is bothering me. Things should just be spelled phonetically. I do agree that bees are filth though. They have ridiculously large and filthy colored ones here. Like black and red ones with their abdomens separated from their thoraxes with filthy strings of filth connecting them.

There is another spider that lives on our garage door that is also ridiculously large. It is kind of shaped like Frederick, but like three times bigger. We named it Kohor. And I imagine it speaking in the voice that Kohor has in the Testaments, trying to entice bugs into the house of Kohor. And then he eats them. It is such a large spider. But apparently not as large as the ones that infested the house before I got there. From what Hermana Brown describes, I think they were Brown Recluses. The house was uninhabited for 3 years before the missionaries started living in it. There was all sorts of terrors lurking there.

Thursday was car-fast day for the mission. We got a member to drive us to one appointment, but then she had to go somewhere so she dropped us off to visit someone like three miles from our house. They weren't home. So we walked all the way home in the blistering heat on roads with no sidewalks. I thought for sure I was going to get run over. Then we walked to a family's house who are in El Salvador for a few weeks and we're taking care of their plants and back. That was another mile or two. Lovely. I had zero liquid in my bones. Oh well. Who needs it?

So you said you wanted to know my daily routine, right? Well, here it is. 

I get up at 6:30 (ugh), exercise (well actually I'm not usually awake enough to do anything so I just do like stretches and stuff and sometimes sit ups) and then shower and stuff. We do personal study for an hour, companionship study for two hours because I'm getting trained (normally it is one hour) and then language study, then lunch. Then we go to various appointments/stalk referrals we got because it is harder to just tract out hispanics in America. Luckily my area has lots. But still. 

Then if we have time we go home for dinner, if not we just usually skip it because we don't have that much food. Unless we have a member dinner, which is often extremely unpredictable if it isn't scheduled. We only get like four or five a month, which is pretty low for our mission. It seems like people usually only feed us on the days we already ate stuff at our house. Every time. 

That is another problem. Our budget they give us for food and stuff is with the expectation that we get fed a lot more than we actually do, so we never have enough money in this area.  I have enough for food, but nothing else. Like soap and those other luxuries. Oh well. 

Then we usually come back and plan for the next day and go to bed. Lovely, isn't it?

So turns out that baby was named after me.  They blessed her yesterday and when I heard the name I just got the biggest smirk mid-prayer, sitting all by myself. I was sitting by someone, but they had to leave for something. 

The church is true! It is the best to help other people see it too :) I've been reading Jesus the Christ and it is fantastic to learn more about Him and His life. I've also started reading the New Testament today.  It is great.

Oh ps I have like two minutes left but all of you go read/listen to "They Saw Our Day." It is soooo crazy and it gives me goosebumps! It is about Indian tribes and various other people who have predictions of our day and like the second coming and histories and stuff and it is crazy cool. It is from a Mormon but given to non Mormon audiences so he doesn't actually relate it to the Book of Mormon but it totally is.

Love you all! Buenos Dias!

Hermana Pratt

Emily and Osman, Sofia and their daughter Michelle.  They are recent converts/ward missionaries

 that they visit a lot.  They are Kenyn's parents (see previous post)

Hermana Stoddard and a lion statue

Another Lion statue!

This week we've taught some lessons. I'm feeling more confident about my Spanish so I try to talk a little more. It doesn't always go well, but I'm working on it. When people ask me things I always have to ask them to repeat it and I understand them about half the time. Which is pretty good, I think.

Not a ton has happened. We taught Enrique the word of wisdom and he loved it! He told us he doesn't drink much, and he doesn't smoke except when his friends offer him one, but he says he'll stop that. He also doesn't drink soda, which is really unusual for a Hispanic. They all come from countries where you can't drink the water so they think you shouldn't drink it here either so they mostly drink soda and juice. But still. It's good. He's going to be out of town for two weeks, so we moved his date to the 31st of August. 

I love studying the scriptures! The past few days I've read 3rd and 4th Nephi, Mormon, and most of Ether today. It is really sad but also really interesting to see how much the cycle accelerated all the sudden because the Nephites turned away from God. Don't do that. But I loved reading about Christ (always) and like the 3 Nephites and stuff. Crazy to think about.

This is right by Martin's house. He is super cool. He's a member that was less active for a little while but now he's back and he is hilarious. It is tradition for all the missionaries to take their picture next to it. I don't think the people in that house know about it...

Lovely seahorse statue - there are a million weird lawn statues here

 So we have a problem with our sink. And our dishwasher. Whenever we use one, the other one backs up. This time though, my companions were at a meeting because they are the sister training leaders and I was with the English sisters we live with and one of them put dish soap in the dishwasher instead of dishwasher soap. Fail.

The second one is the front of the thing on our key ring to the church. 

the other one is the back. In case you can't tell, someone is running over a baby with a lawnmower and its foot is being hacked off. Isn't that something you'd want to have on your key ring?

Who knew otters climbed? Not me. 

Feeding a giraffe at the zoo!

                                               I was talking to a parrot. It was talking back.

This is Kenyn. He is five and one of the most adorable little kids ever. We gave him our nametags and he put them all on and was so proud of himself and had the biggest grin on his face. He is very funny. He knows a bit of english but mostly Spanish so it is funny to hear him speak English because they are just random phrases he learned from his brother Daniel who we teach in English or from TV. His parents are awesome too.

HEEEEYYYYYY!!!!!! (To be said in my customary "hey" voice)

Just after we got assigned our companions and areas and such, we had a lesson like half an hour after the meeting ended, at the same church.  The investigators's name is Enrique.  He's had one lesson before and apparently didn't seem that interested, but he went to church on Sunday and now he's way interested. You're never going to believe this, but I challenged him to baptism after we watched The Restoration video, and he said he wants to!  He said he wants to read the Book of Mormon first and learn more, but he's preparing to be baptized on August 17th.  Super exciting!

We're going to the zoo today!!! And Panda Express!! Best day ever. 

This week has been good! I love knocking doors, which is apparently unusual, but oh well. Too bad. I still like it. Except when it is super hot outside, which is usually. But when it cools down it is awesome.

So we've been getting some rain here. And when it rains here, it is like torrential. It is so cool. One second it will be overcast, the next it is like someone turned a fire hose on. Luckily we are car missionaries, not foot or bike missionaries. But still. Oh well.

Well, I don't have much else to say about this week. I will probably have more next week, but yeah. I'm super hungry and it is distracting me. Oh well. Too bad. 

It's been a great week though! The church is still true. Don't worry. I've been reading Hymns lately and the Lyrics to them are awesome. I also sometimes translate Spanish hymns and that is really lovely too.

So my Spanish is coming. I like it. I can understand people a lot of the time. And sometimes respond. Usually it makes sense (hopefully).

A "cute bug"

Emily and a "lovely lion"  Apparently there are lots of lions in Virginia!

Emily & Annie Fitt at the MTC Bookstore - Annie is in our ward and has her mission call to Washington State, leaving in October! 

At the mission home

So in our study room window, between the screen and the glass, we have a pet spider.  His name is Frederick.  Apparently he's been there for like a month.  He is pretty much nocturnal, so before bed you can always watch him catching and wrapping various bugs and eating them.  I woke up and watched him wrap and eat a moth thing that was like three times his size.  Beneath his web are lots of dry corpses.  In this picture he is eating a large wasp.

Hermana Pratt & Hermana Dangerfield just before leaving the MTC

A Real Missionary at Last!!

Sneak preview: I may or may not have gotten a child named after me my second day in the mission. Also I challenged someone to baptism my first day. 

So my companions are Hermana Brown and Hermana Williams. They are both really great companions and they are really good and patient trainers.  I didn't think I'd be in a trio so soon but I actually kind of like it. It is good because you get more ideas, more free rein (like, for instance, in just a normal two-person companionship, you can't teach one person of the opposite gender inside, and with three you can, so we don't have to bring a member to every lesson) and it is just overall more interesting. 

The bugs here are large. Including the bees. And wasps. I'm going to die. I've seen a lot of big wasps. Wasps like they don't have in Utah. They are huge and red and their thoraxes and their heads are all nasty and detached and they are just overall filthy creatures. And then, once or twice I've seen these ridiculously large and horrible wasps that are seriously like four or five inches long. They buzz really loud and they are like at least as big as any hummingbird. But with a vengeance for me. I haven't seen any since the first or second day though. I have no doubt they are just massing their forces, and one day I'm just going to step outside and be covered in giant bees and then I'm going to die and then maybe you'll finally believe me about how much bees hate me. Filthy creatures.

A super weird and potentially super dangerous thing - All the doors of our house require a key, not only to get into, but also to get out of. And we only have one key. There is one key that unlocks the back and side door, and one that unlocks the front door. So we're just like locked in until we unlock the doors. Don't worry, I've been mentally running through my door-breaking-down techniques. 

That's not even a joke.

Oh yeah, and we drive a car. Well, I don't drive it. But my companion drives it. There aren't really any sidewalks or crosswalks in Virginia, or even really shoulders on the roads. So it can be kind of dangerous to walk or ride bikes. I still think it would be fun, but I'm a little less eager after seeing that there is almost literally nowhere to ride them except in the road. But people here are not as crazy of drivers as we have in Utah. 

The people here are all so nice! I don't know if it is like Southern Hospitality or what, but even if they don't want to listen to us, they aren't really that mean about it. They respect us, and they respect that we are sent from God, even if they don't believe our religion. There are a lot of Jehovah's witness churches around here. I've seen like five of them, and I haven't seen any actual missionaries of theirs yet, but I've heard there are lots. And like a third of our investigators that we teach are also being or have at some point been taught by the Jehovah's witnesses. Apparently they really don't like us much. I guess it's only because we have the truth and they are jealous....

Well, I know the work is true, and it is super cool to finally be out teaching people about it! It is really cool to talk to people that either just got baptized or are about to be, or even just anyone, about the church.

AHHHH IT IS SO GREAT TO BE A MISSIONARY!!!!!!!

Hermana Pratt and President & Sister Wilson 

Newly arrived in Virginia

Hola! So our district took some pictures on our temple walk last week. I don't think Hermana Fisher is in them, or Hermana Beckstrand, because Hermana Fisher has been sick for like a week. She actually got extended a week because she's still sick. It's super unfortunate. There must be some reason she needs to stay...

Temple Day

District on Temple Day

Notice how everyone looks "normal" except our sweet Emily!

So this picture is of part of the list of side effects from the drugs the doctor gave me that are supposed to help my feet. You probably can't read it, but it says, "Psychic derangements may appear when corticosteroids are used, ranging from euphoria, insomnia, mood swings, personality changes, and severe depression to (my favorite) frank psychotic manifestations. Also, existing emotional instability or psychotic tendencies my be aggravated by corticosteroids."

So, no frank psychotic manifestations yet (for the most part) but if you hear of a missionary just going crazy, you'll know what happened. Haha jk, jk. But I thought it was funny.

Side effect sheet from foot medication

So they just reorganized our branch presidency and guess who is our first (or second, I can't remember) counselor? President Monson's nephew. He talks and moves and stuff just like President Monson, but younger. He looks kind of like him too, but he has no hair. He went to Chile on his mission, and apparently they talk really fast and really slurred there, so he totally Spanished us. Also, he quoted like a million scriptures to us in his testimony last fast Sunday, just from memory. Like long passages. It was crazy.

Yesterday was In-Field Training. It was pretty much the same stuff we've been getting for the past six weeks (work with members, listen to the investigators, find new people, get referrals, etc) but for 10 hours straight. And I was super sore the whole day because I did lunges all around our whole residence, so every time we sat down for like an hour I would be ridiculously sore again. I felt like an old person. Oh well.

I'm so excited for the field! I finally get to go teach real people! In Spanish! I'M SO EXCITED!

Down time...

Hermana Pratt & Hermana Dangerfield out in the real world at a doctor's appointment

Where does Emily gets her photogenic qualities (Ryan & Shawn????)

So this week has been an odd one. For the first half of the week, for like three or four days, Hermana Dangerfield was sick, so neither of us could go to class. That was unfortunate. It was nice to rest, but it gets extremely boring just sitting there all day. I never realized what a luxury it was to be able to just sit down and watch a movie when you're sick. And it was worse because I felt fine, so I was especially bored. But oh well.

Hermana Dangerfield's mom sent us both a package. my part had a nice note in it, some lovely stationary, some candy, and like a HUGE bag of neopolitan taffy. We brought it to class and shared it with the whole district and it still isn't gone.

We went to the health clinic 8 times in three days. 8 times. First one for Hermana Dangerfield to set her appointment, then again later for her appointment. Then I decided to set one while I was there for my foot because I've been having trouble bending my third toe for some reason. Well, I can bend it, it just hurts. So then we went back again for my appointment. The doctor told me he had no idea what was wrong with it, so he could either send me to the podiatrist or just hope it gets better on its own. And that was all Monday.

The next day Hermana Dangerfield still wasn't feeling well so we went back to the health clinic and set another appointment. While we were there one of the secretaries leaned over to another one and was like, "Have you talked to an Emily Pratt lately?" It took me a minute because I haven't heard my first name in like a month, but I was like, "Oh that's me!" and then someone made me fill out some forms and stuff and set an appointment for the next day at 1:30. We left and then later we went back again for Hermana Dangerfield's appointment. It took ages because they had to take some of her blood and stuff. It was probably about an hour just sitting in the waiting room. I was talking to some Elders and on of them had lived in Maryland, which, if you remember your geography, is right by Virginia. Hermana Dangerfield set another appointment for later that day to see the results of her blood test or whatever it was. 

We went back for Hermana Dangerfield's appointment and she was fine.

The next day we went to where the shuttle picks people up at 2:55, after hosting some new missionaries in some thousand degree weather, and went to the foot doctor. There were 8 missionaries in the clinic throughout the time we were there. He took some x-rays of my foot to see if there was a stress fracture, which there wasn't. (Apparently some other bone had been fractured a long time ago though that we never noticed. Who knew. But that wasn't the problem) He said it is probably something with the soft tissue or something. No one really knows. But he gave me a prescription and some instructions to soak it in alternating hot and cold water half an hour twice a day (when I'm supposed to do that I haven't really worked out yet, I only have some time right before bed).

Then we got back and the health clinic was about to close so we ran up there and had them fax the prescription to the BYU health clinic and got some basins to put water in. We got on another shuttle to the place where they filled my prescription and then the shuttle never came to pick us up so we just walked back.

Anyways, that was my adventure of the week. Got to leave the MTC for a while, health clinic 8 times (I may have forgotten to write about a time but oh well) and yeah.

So for the fourth of July we went to a devotional of sorts where we sang some patriotic songs very loudly and then watched 17 Miracles. It was good but super sad. Then we went outside and watched Stadium of Fire from afar. Curfew was extended til 11. It was exciting. Unfortunately we were all super tired yesterday because of it. But oh well.

Our room is really crowded right now because half of the district ahead of us got extended because they are waiting for Visas. They got reassigned to Washington. There are 12 people in our tiny little room! Probably 13 on Tuesday. Ugh.

So today is Hermana Bryan's (our other teacher) last day with us. Her brother is coming home so she is going to Las Vegas for our last week. We got her a journal and are going to write nice stuff in it for her. Our last lesson with Camila (AKA Hermana Bryan) went really well. She is getting baptized (So is Everardo) and we asked her to share her testimony with us and she did; it was really powerful. Simple, but often those are more powerful than the elaborate ones.

I am really excited to finally start teaching real investigators! I cannot wait to get out into the field. I am sick of the MTC but I'm really going to miss my district. They are just like my family. But when I get out there I'll finally be living a real life, outside of the square mile of the MTC! That's exciting. But my testimony has been growing tons and my faith and trust in God has been as well. This is a fantastic experience for me and I'm working on enjoying every minute of it. It is a big challenge, but I'm learning so much and growing so fast! I never knew how much I could cram into my head in such a short amount of time without exploding. The only explanation is divine help.

I love the Gospel and I love teaching it! I can't wait to finally be teaching real people that actually don't know the truth. My Spanish is getting way better, I can understand pretty much the things that people say, and get a point across pretty well.

AHHH this is so exciting! I have to go though. Bye, love you all!