I don't know when it happened, but all of a sudden I know Spanish!

July 21, 2014

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So I  don't know if you're purposely being ironic when you ask if I'm "warming up" to Izamal yet or not, but yes I am getting used to it here. The church is still destroyed but we had a family home evening with the whole ward Saturday night in the basketball court (The only part of the chapel that wasn't destroyed) and it was way fun! The ward is super cool. .

Umm well HP is still homesick and she talks about home A LOT which I understand but its kinda hard to focus and its sorta making me homesick too. And I should be a better trainer and focus us more on the work and stuff but we have way too much fun telling stories about home and stuff. Yeah I know everything about all her friends and family and everything. It’s a problem. We're working on it. HP.. hmmm. she's not extraordinarily tall, but she is tallish for a gringa, and so here she's like a giant. Huge contrast to HT who is tiny. Anyway so everyone comments on that like "esta bien grandota su compañera!" [your companion sure is tall!] and she's like.. ok... and courtesy laughs. Which I know ALL ABOUT.  Whenever you don't know what someone is saying (like 95% of the time) you just kinda laugh and smile. Hahah it’s pretty funny and I know exactly how she feels.

 Cool bug zapper racket. we were pretty entertained with this one..

 I don't know when it happened, but all of a sudden I know Spanish!  It’s weird to be listening to someone who like mumbles or talks really fast and totally understand what they're saying when before it literally sounded like gibberish. And if you think about about it and listen, you shouldn't be able to understand what they're saying, but then my Mexican superspanishpowers kick in and I'm like YES I get it!!!! Actually there's something to be said about that, my Spanish progression took a huge leap FIRST when HG left me and I was left in charge (Sorta) of my first area, and then another huge leap when I had to train, and again when I had to train someone who knows no Spanish. And now there is very little that I don't understand.  I really think it has to do with this "Who the Lord calls, he qualifies" thing.  Literally, every time that I noticed a difference in what I understood of Spanish, it was when I was put in a leadership position.  So that’s kinda cool.

Ok so another thing about HP. We have this one investigator who always says that HP looks like the virgin Maria.. she's always like "you have the face of a little virgincita!" and she's like "hahaha *courtesy laugh* yeahh..." but she's thinking thats super weird, what exactly is the face of a virgin?

Oh hey! Yesterday we were eating in the house of this guy A- he's this super old guy who is strangely super in shape and looks older than his mother who is an old investigator of ours... but he's awesome and we love him ‘cause he always wants to go with us on visits, and he walks around with us with his sunglasses and his Sunday shirt and fancy jeans, and he has like this saunter. It’s cool. So much swagger. In this old skinny Mexican guy. ANYWHO so nobody in his family is a member, and it just so happened that when we went to eat, his WHOLE huge family was there visiting, and a lot of them are deaf. I went to shake the hand and kiss this one lady (I think she's A’s niece) and I'm like "Buenas tardes!" and she points to her ear and shakes her head so I know she can't hear. Then as we're eating I notice her in the other room with this guy and this little girl all signing and I couldn't understand what they were saying cause 1- I forgot almost all my sign language and 2- Mexican sign language is way different than English. But then later she came into the room to sign to this other lady something, and I kinda picked out a little bit, so I asked her if she was talking about someone falling out of a tree and she was like "Yeah! How'd you know?" and I explained that I knew ASL, but it had been a long time. But then I started trying to sign, and I started remembering some signs! I started signing to the lady how I took ASL in school and she totally understood!  And then she told me that her son was coming later and he studies ASL so he knows the English sign language!  He came right as we were about to leave with his cousin who is half deaf, and his dad who is all deaf.  So anyway they all freak out and tell him to try to sign to me, and so we're there in the middle of like 70 people all watching us trying to sign to each other. It was really cool cause keep in mind, there is not just one, but 2 language barriers between us right now. And we're like kinda understanding  each other!!! But mine was really broken and he was signing really fast. But still! He was telling us about how they live in Cancun but are staying here in a hotel and I think he either wanted my phone number or to know if I had like a video phone skype thing, and I just showed him our crappy brick phone and he was like oh ok. Then he wanted to take a picture so we got a picture of me with all this family who is deaf. It was wayy cool but kinda frustrating that I couldn't remember more!

Deaf kids!!! Oh my gosh coolest experience ever!!!! 

In other news, we went on visits with this girl V in our ward, and she has a car so her mom was like, "Oh you guys can take the car cause V knows how to drive" so we're like sweet ok! And we're just making small talk and HP asks V how old she is, and all casually she tells us she's 13.......... And HP thinks it’s a joke, cause she looks like she maybe could be 16 or something, but she’s like no I'm serious! Her uncle is there with us too and he says  yeah its true she’s 13! And she is driving this car that we are in. So I'm cool ‘cause things are just different here, so I say Oh what is the driving age here?  And they're like "16" and we're like ummmm......?  But her uncle says  “ But V is a really good driver don't worry!  She's been driving for like 2 years now!”  And we're like what??? But actually it’s not that surprising cause we see these kids that look like they're 12 driving motorcycles around all the time, but it was just weird. And they say nothing matters here cause it’s a pueblecito [small town] and if we were in Merida it would be a problem but here no.  Like if the police pulled her over nothing would happen.  So hey Miranda come on over here and Dad can teach you how to drive!  It'll be super great.

So cool story.  Remember how I told you that our house is super tiny? Well yeah also there is something living in our wall. We'll be studying or planning or something and we'll hear this scratching on the wall, that like goes all along the wall and into our bathroom. And it’s LOUD!  And at first we thought it was maybe our neighbors cause they have kids I think and they're right up close next to our house so maybe it was them. But then one day we're leaving the house and HP flips out and is like "LOOK!!" and there’s this HUGE iguana crawling into this hole in the side of our house. Sooo now we know what the scratching is. And I'm just waiting for the day that this fat lizard breaks through the wall and starts crawling around our room.  That'll be an exciting day.

Adorable little kid Fernando of this family that we eat with every Saturday. The Ku family. They rock and their food is to DIE FOR. He's modeling some broken hipster glasses that I found that morning.

So the sister training leaders came to work with us on Friday and that was fun 'cause we got a lot of really good feedback and tips on how we can do better and I feel like I learned a lot! But holy cow they intimidate me. Hermana T is the señor comp and she's like the oldest hermana in the mission or something and she's crazy strict and I was so afraid I was going to do something wrong and she was going to scold me. And she only did once in the whole day so that was successful. But Mexicans are crazy!!  The whole day Hermana C (the other on, I've probably talked about her before cause she was in my last zone) had her hair down, and tights and Hma T had this long dress on, and her bangs all down on her forehead, and they were both like fine… not even sweating.  And HP and I are sitting here sweating buckets, shortest sleeves allowable and hair all piled up on the top of our head, and  needing to carry around sweat rags the whole day. (pretty much all the missionaries have to carry around sweat rags except for the Mexican hermanas who are used to the heat. I always told myself that I wouldn't sink to that level cause that’s gross but I finally broke down and bought one...)  But whatever. 

Ok that’s all the time I have for today!  I wrote a lot!  Send me pictures!  Ok that's all- love you bye!!!

HS