hola

Familia,

I don't even know what week I'm on now, but I do know that I'm close to my half way mark. If there's one feeling that's scary on a mission it's feeling like time is running out and the countdown has started.

CA has been fun this week. It's definitely summer. It's funny because the mornings are always chilly and cold and I study with 10 layers on still and then by the end of it all the extra layers are off and I'm hot! It's been good though.
They have these trucks here on the side of the road where you can just order a bag of fresh fruit, whichever fruit you want (that they have) and then you can put chili or salt on top. We've lived off that this past week. It's soo good. very Mexican. I love going up to them and talking to them in Spanish. Actually, I think that's my favorite thing in general, when people see us and think we're super wuera, and then we speak Spanish to them! (Especially when they didn't think I understood the conversation they just had with each other... or when they try to get us to go away by saying they don't speak English- that excuse gets shut down pretty quickly!) Also- everywhere we go people give us water! By the end of the day we each have about 5 partially drunken water bottles. I won't have to worry about being dehydrated this summer, maybe finding enough bathrooms though.

One thing I do not love about CA is the BUGS. We went to dinner at a member's house this week and I was washing my hands int their bathroom and saw this thing crawling around their toothbrush cup. I looked in and their was a HUGE cockroach in their. Seriously, it was huge!!! I've seen tons of cockroaches in people's houses before, but usually they're smallish. This one was like at least a good 3 inches long and and inch fat (not including it's 2 inch antenna things). Well, I thought I'd be nice and get rid of it for them because after all, who wants a cockroach climbing all over your toothbrushes, right? that's nasty. so I started pulling the toothbrushes out so I could dump the roach into the toilet. He didn't get the memo that I was trying to kill him (or he did) because as I was going to grab on of the last toothbrushes he came out super close to me. he went to the side of the sink where I couldn't get too him before I could kill him. those suckers are fast! I about died.  this is probably a pathetic story for anyone who's lived outside of the US, but ugh it was gross gross gross. Cockroach: 1   Hna. LaPierre: 0   Next time.

This Friday, we did a no car Friday where we walked the entire day. Besides the blisters that I got, it was actually a really great finding opportunity. We went to a Latina supermarket to talk to people and get food to eat and there was this man sitting outside. I felt really impressed to talk to him after making several awkward eye contacts with him. We started talking. He's a labor worker, from Mexico and lives here with his 3 sons and grandaughter and he was really interested in hearing about our message. He gave us his address and phone number and we had a lesson with him last night. [when, outside of a mission, would you every hear of anyone giving some random person their address and phone number after talking to them outside a grocery store?! ] He is very excited to learn and super anxious to meet with us. We're excited. It's exciting to see the evolution of the work here since I first got here. It's changing so much and I love it.

I'm about to get kicked off.

I love you, Hna. LaPierre