May 20, 2013
Hola, familia y amigos!
Mom,
I'm going to print
off your email and reply to it by hand, because I don't have too much
time for
email right now, but thank you! Also, there are tons of other
experiences I want to share, but really just don't have the time for!
I'm sorry, but I love you and will try o include them in my handwritten
letter!
Thanks to everyone who's
written me and made effort to stay in contact! I really do appreciate it!
I had a flood of emails today, so I'm sorry if I didn't get to respond to
yours yet, but I'll email you next week, or I could possibly be writing you by
hand instead!
So this week has been
quite the experience. My first week in the field! I'm currently in
Kenner, which is just right outside of New Orleans, in the suburbs. It's
surprisingly green here, but super hot. My companion (Hermana Walker) and
I are on bikes, so that makes it seem even hotter. My mission president
(President Wall) makes a concerted effort to have all of the sisters in cars,
but since there are so many visa waiting missionaries here right now, things
are a bit unusual. I'm technically in a quadpanionship, bu we don't do
any work together. We share an apartment and have one car, so technically
my companion and I are assigned to be on bikes all the time, but we
occasionally get access to the car. It's kind of unusual, but I guess all
of the biking will stave off any potential weight gain. haha.
Our ward here is very
small... I couldn't tell you how many people are in it, but when you look out
in the congregation, it looks about 30-40% missionaries... there are 16
missionaries in my ward! The ward covers a pretty large area, too.
It's a pretty unusual situation, but we're trying to make the best of it
and still reach out to the members. Most of the people in the ward are
from Honduras, with a few people from Mexico, too.
We don't have dinner
with the members too often (on account of the sheer number of missionaries, as
well as the fact that many of them are not as financially stable), but
yesterday we had dinner with the Paz family, which was wonderful. They're
from Honduras. They made us a traditional dish called baleatas... so
good! I haven't had any southern cooking yet and probably won't from any
of the members, but I'm sure the other missionaries and I will have some before
I leave.
It's been a little weird
because the two trainers in my quadpanionship were companions beforehand, so
they have to divide the work up between the two companionships now. That
means we don't have a lot of people to work with right now, but we've been
trying to find more people and to reach out to members and less active members
as well. It's been hard, but it's been good.
The other day we had a
pretty cool experience. We were biking home at about 8:30 and had about 6
miles to ride before we got home, and our appointment for the evening had
fallen through. It was a pretty slow day, but we biked past a bus stop
and a woman saw us and waved us down, calling out "Mormonas!"
We turned around and talked to her. It turns out she had read the
entire Book of Mormon before, so we set up an appointment to visit with her the
next day. It was cool to see that we really are placed in certain
locations at certain times to help people. Hopefully we'll be able to
visit with her soon.
Well things have been
very busy here and we're working hard to further the work. I love you all
and hope you're well. Thank you for your prayers and support.
Love,
Hermana Walton
P.S. We might be
moving soon, but here's my address for right now:
Hermana Lauren Walton
3350 Grand Lake Blvd.
Apt. A204
Kenner, LA 70065
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