It's Cold Here!

Familia!!!

Things in West New York are going just splendidly, as always. It is very very cold, however... No me gusta. Ugh. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. It is chilling to the bone. The weather really wasn't that bad until this week. Thursday was the first day that I really noticed being uncomfortably cold. We went to the statue of liberty that day... but more about that later!! :)

Sorry I didn't really send an email last week... I don't know what happened to my email time. It goes by so fast. I don't know if we spent the full allotted time because we were craving empinadas and we figured, hey, you only live in West New York once... The place where you can buy authentic food from every single country. I love the food here sooo much. I know Katie and Julie would love it too. I think of you two every time I eat something delicious and I wish I could share it with you. There is this spicy Colombian lady that we visit. She is a less active, but she really wants to come to church, but she has to work... Just like everyone here. Everyone is addicted to work. It's kind of sad actually... But anyways, we go and read in the book of Mormon with her a couple of times a week. She absolutely loves it. She calls me a pollito.. Which means a chick, because I just follow Sister Martin around like a little pollito. hahahha. But a while ago she made this stuff for us called agua panela. OH MY WORD SO GOOD. I don't even know how to explain it... Its kind of like hot chocolate, but its not chocolate. I don't know, it was good though. Sister Martin and I keep talking about it, we want more. I am finding that stuff when I get home and I'm gonna make it for y'all. I'm also addicted to pan de bono, which is kind of like sweet rolls with cheese baked in it... That is a really bad description, but it is soooo good. Whenever I feel frustrated I'm just like, "Sister Martin, I need some pan de bono and Colombiana". hahahaha. My goal in life is to be Hispanic.

We have been working with the Elders in our ward  A LOT the last two weeks. I don't know if Ive told you all very much about them, but we have 4 Elders serving in our ward with us. They have all been here for a while, so they know the members really well and stuff. They are so awesome, I love em. We really have been feeling like there has been a lack of unity with the missionaries and the  members and we have been trying to figure out how to motivate our ward mission leader to work with us more. We got a lot of inspiration this week at zone conference. After conference we met at the church and had this huge meeting for a couple of hours and we came up with a plan, for the work of salvation. We really hope to motivate the members to work with us more. We aren't here for ourselves. We are here to serve them and to build up their ward. We cant do it without their help. Then last night, we had an appointment with Monica, so we asked a couple in our ward, the Cuc's to come as a team up. Monica cancelled so we just decided to teach the Cuc's. We introduced our ward plan and they were way excited! They got into it and they were giving us some great advice. I really think we are going to be doing some good work in the next month. MMM... also, the Cuc's brought us really yummy cake and tortas. MMM Best tortas ever. FOOD!! (mom, they are trying to add you and me on FaceBook so they can tag pictures of me, so accept them pretty please :)

Ok, I have to tell you this funny story about the elders. Like 4 weeks ago they some tuna leftovers in a plastic container, they forgot about it and found it in the car about a week later... So when they went to dump it out, it smelled absolutely terrible, as you can imagine. Of course, them having the maturity of 19 year old boys, turned it into a game/contest kind of like "Hey if you don't smell this tuna, you're not a man".hahahahha so funny.... So they just keep it in the van now and threaten the zone that they are going to have to smell it if they don't do the zone goal... And then when we go to zone conferences or places with other missionaries, they make all the elders smell it.... It's so funny. Then, One day during our correlation meeting, Elder Blanco just let the WML have it and was criticizing him a lot... All constructive of course... But, we were in the van driving home and we were trying to come up with a team name for the missionaries in the West New York ward. We came up with the Tony Slayers, or the Tuna smellers... then we started combining them so it was either the Tony smellers or the tuna slayers.. WE decided on the tuna slayers.. So we are the West New York tuna slayers....

Working with elders is never boring... And that's all i have to say about that.

Zone Conference- Wow. My first zone conference was on Friday and it was such a good experience. There was like 3 zones together for a conference with President Jeppson and the assistants. Sister Jeppson gave a funny training on eating healthy... She was dressed up like a hot dog. I wish you guys could meet her. She is just the sweetest thing and she is so funny. President Jeppson is soooo in love, its adorable and really funny sometimes. President Jeppson likes to get out his guitar and sing to us and sometimes they sing together, it is waaayyy too cute. President Jeppson is the best speaker. I love hearing him speak. He gets so passionate and he is so inspired as to what we need to hear. We got so much revelation for our area. I'm going to be really sad when they leave in July... But I'm sure I will love the new President and wife too... But it will just be different. We played a game called zoom... In honor of the tiwi's (the car safety device things)... I totally won. hahahha it was funny. We also celebrated the birthdays for November, so both sister martin and I got to go up and be sung to.

OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS MY LAST WEEK OF BEING A TEENAGER!! How weird is that.. Next Monday I'm going to be 20. That is so weird, I cant even think about it. I'm so excited for my birthday though. Everyone here remembers when it is. Its so cute, everyone's so loving. 

My Birthday package from Mom and Rod. WOW! The elders were jealous.

WHAT IS THIS!!!

LA GUITARRA!!! GRACIAS - ME GUSTA MUCH!!

Liberty Island- Ok, I just have to say that Elder and Sister Dunning are just the cutest thing. Sister Dunning was just determined to get us there because after next week the missionaries aren't going to go anymore because it will be too cold. But she was so determined that she and Elder Dunning just drove us there themselves because they couldn't find any other sisters who could come and go with us. It was so much fun to drive down there with them. We only live like 15 miles from Ellis Island, but it took us like an hour and a half to get there because the traffic was so bad. ughhhh. (and you all think Phoenix traffic is bad). haha But they told us the story of how they got married, which is quite humorous because it is their second marriage and Sister Dunning was playing hard to get and Elder Dunning was trying to pretend like he didn't care. SO FUNNY. Sister Martin and I were just in the back cracking up. We have so many inside jokes about them now. I love it. Whenever we need to smile we just quote them.

(after Sister Dunning totally dissing Elder Dunning and telling embarrassing things)

Sister Dunning: Ok so here comes the good part.

Elder Dunning: Oh, so now there's a good part to this story?

Sister Dunning: Yes, you were leaving.

ahahhahaha. IT doesn't sound that funny right now, but I swear it was the funniest thing I've ever heard!

On the ferry

Anyways. We missed the first boat to liberty island because of the traffic, but it turned out to be a good thing. We met sister Insong and sister Holyoak at Ellis Island and we had about an hour to kill until the next boat came. 

Ellis Island

The museum at Ellis Island is still closed right now because they kind of had to restore it after the hurricane, but it is opening back up this week I think.. But we were taking pictures by the sign and we noticed that one of the doors was propped open. We went to peak inside and one of the janitors saw us and told us that we could come in and look around. It was so cool!! We got to see all of the museum even though it was closed. Such a cool place. I want to bring you guys there when I get home. 

The Museum

Then the boat came and we went to Liberty Island. We worked in this booth, where we entered in peoples names and what country they are from so they could get a certificate. It was really fun. Out of the Hundreds of people we helped probably only like 15% were from the U.S. There was people from France, Germany, Finland, China, Japan, India, Honduras, Peru, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Mexico, England.. you name it, they were there. We got to use our Spanish a lot, as you can imagine. It was sad though because we aren't allowed to proselyte there. We got an hour lunch break so we ate at the little cafeteria there and had fun shopping at the gift shop...  you all may or may not be getting fun souvenirs in the mail. :) 

There it is!

Cutest little compy comp ever!

Then... The fun part... We missed our boat to go back AGAIN. But it was all good. We got time to actually walk around the island and take pictures by the statue of liberty. We learned a lot about it, it was very interesting. Good times. It was a very good day over all, even though it was terribly cold... Ugh the breeze from the ocean was so awful.

The Front

And here it is!

Well, I'm here and I'm working and I'm happy. I'm eating and I'm trying to stay warm. I have everything that I need :)

Love you all!