Sister Heather Crofts

October 2, 2017

I thought children were innocent

Hey all!

Wahoo this week was loads better than last week! There's still quite a big language barrier between me and everyone we teach, but I'm trying real hard to bridge that gap. There are so many people to teach here!! Most of them are from Mexico, but we have taught a lot of people from Brazil, Guatemala, Uruguay, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, etc. It's not a matter of finding people to teach, it's finding time to teach everyone on our list. This week we had to do a lot of dropping and for this upcoming week we are really focusing on people who will actually progress and it's gonna be sooo good. :) We will be able to visit more of the people who actually need it.

So my cute trio is great. We have Hermana Bowers and Hermana Raymond. Hermana Raymond is from Washington and is trunky training me and finishes her mission in one month! Hermana Bowers is from Idaho and has been out for just under 9 months. Both are really great. They were companions before I came and didn't have the best companionship... so me here, jumping on in... I kinda jumped right into the middle. But this week it has been so good! I kinda forced my friendship upon both of them and now we're all friends YAY! It's difficult teaching in a trio.... I really don't get much talking time and have actually had to jump in during the lessons. They don't speak Spanish to me during the day and I beg them to because I really feel like I should be doing better than I am with the language. One of the ward members Jorge (who is the ultimate fellowshipper and best member missionary ever) he comes to our English classes on Tuesday and Thursday and has taken it upon himself to help me with the language. He's awesome!

Well if anyone is ever having a hard day, I suggest going and hanging out with your grandma or some friendly old folk at a care center. Every Tuesday, we go sing at Goosecreek manor (an assisted living center) and ahhh it is the best. They have such cute little old hearts and make me feel like a million bucks. They just say "Oh darling I love you... Look at how cute you are... etc". A lot of them are pretty sassy too, but ah it's great.

Story time! On the opposite end of the spectrum.. way opposite... On Tuesday, we were walking through a trailer park to go and teach our next lesson. We were stopped by a group of little kids who wanted to talk to us. The 2 girls were about 10 and just wanted us to teach them Spanish and talk to them about what we do. They were real cute. Then there were these 3 little boys! These boys were menaces! Not the cute type of menace that just tries to prank you and thinks it's funny to trip you. Anyway long story short I was being hit on by these 9 year old boys who then kept trying to touch me and hug me and kiss me. Anyway I was violated by a 9 year old. As I’m typing this, I know it sounds dramatic, but it was traumatizing!!

Conference has never been so great. The whole time I was just in awe like wow i needed that. Wow, my investigator needed that. Wow, the church is SO TRUE. We were able to watch it at 2 member’s houses. I watched 2 of the sessions in English and 2 in Spanish.

The people we teach are so loving and willing to listen to us and embrace us. This Latin culture is so fun and I'm really having my eyes opened in so many ways. Many of these people are here working for their family and have visas. There are also a lot of people who don't have papers at all but are just looking for a better life. They just are humble and for the most part have figured out the things that are most important. They love family and everyone is their primo or tio even if they really aren't. One of our investigators told us we can call him Tio. Got family here now.

Well food... the way to my heart. I was told that I would get lots of Southern food... no.... We cook all 3 of our meals every day. Members can only feed us if we have an investigator with us. Occasionally, our investigators pull out lots of food for us. Tamales and tacos and yum. They think it’s completely hilarious to watch us eat spicy food. They totally don’t believe that it is hot!! Anyway this Friday, the member meal policy changes and that means this'll probably be different but we will see. Also this Friday, we become a Facebook mission and a WhatsApp mission. I was a little hesitant at first but now I am soooooo eager to use it. Everyone has it here and it'll make our investigators so much more accessible and seriously I am giddy excited for it. Wahoo.

Con mucho Amor

Hermana Crofts

Comps, Hermana Bowers is tall with curly hair, and Hermana Raymond is the other.

Picture of us at Firestone getting our car fixed... They said it would take 15 minutes and we were there for 2 hours.......... We did all our studying at Firestone this day.