and i'm in NY!

I'm here! I'm really here! It's craziness. And by that I mean the church here in Dyker heights (that's our area in the south part of Long island) is right next to a mini China town and to travel we always take buses or the train (metro). It's nice and dirty. It is nice to be by China town though because the rices are all pretty cheap and so we get food and snacks pretty regularly. There is a Chino bake place that is just a block away from the church with tasty pastries. From Tuesday-Saturday we had already gone there 6 times. yeah, I think it's a hit. haha. I've never been in a church building as often as I am now. We have all our meetings there, we teach English class there Tuesday and Thursdays, we go there to cut out flyers, we were there for general conference, sometimes if a member can't make their D.A.(dinner appointment) they just drop off food at the church and text us and we eat there, and well, yeah, we're there a lot. I'm starting to figure out my way around. I know it's set up in a grid and so it's simple-ish to figure out but it's still a challenge. Train R? Train N? Bus B9? BusB70?? I'll learn soon enough I'm sure.

My companion is from New Jersey but really she is from Mexico. It's cool to have a native speaker because then she really is the best teacher! Her name is Sister Sanchez and while she teaches me spanish I'm teaching her sarcasm...at least that's what the Elders here keep saying. She really isn't that bad...just a little slow sometimes and she never is sarcastic herself. I don't mean to make her sound uptight though, she has a great personality and she is one of the sweetest people ever! She has been in this area for a few months so all the members know her and love her.

The members here, oh bless their hearts. I've meet most of them already and every time I introduce myself I start speaking in Spanish but then they change it to english pretty darn quickly. Me and my white-ness. They do it to Elder Waidmann too so it's not just me, luckily. And yes! I lucked out and Elder Waidmann and I are in the same zone! We see each other on a daily basis and it’s fun to update each other. It's nice to have a familiar face. I know I've only known him for 7 weeks now but when you spend every day together you get to know each other pretty darn well! And here in the mission field they have this family tree thing that they do so Sister Sanchez is my "mom", the District leader is my "dad" and since Elder Waidmann and I were "born" at the same time he is my "step-brother". He is my step-brother because his trainer is his dad and my dad is the D.L. so yeah, only half-brother, but still, that's how our family tree works! And my "dad" is Elder Jensen and you want to know something way weird? He reminds me of Dylan! Maybe it's just because I am in a whole new world so I'm making connections to people I already know to make myself feel at home. Maybe in reality he isn't anything like Dylan but oh well. In my head they are alike. haha.

Investigators! This week we got 3 new investigators. Wow-zers! We have a couple named Angelina and Geurys. Geurys took discussions a while ago from missionaries and we aren't quite sure what happened there. He remembered Gordon B. Hinckley and when I read Moroni 10:3-5 he told me Moroni was the guy with the trumpet on top of the temple. Yeah, he is so ready for this. We taught them about the restoration and are going back on Wednesday to see what they have to say about that. They have an adorable baby named Diego and I just love their family so much! I hope the best for them. We also went to teach a less active lady and her friend, Moises, who sat in on the lesson, told us he wanted to learn more. The cool thing is he speaks english so anytime we get a spanglish person I lead the discussions. When it's all spanish, I leave that to my comp. haha

Guess what else? I taught english class! I had the advanced class, which made it ten times easier, but yeah, I taught it! Of course my companion was in the room with me but she didn't even have to chime in too often. We have about 6 people who come every Tuesday and Thursday and hopefully our numbers go up. They used to have more but had to change the time to English class. We hope once people get into the routine of the 7:30 class more people will start coming again. Then I can have an even bigger class to teach! This English class is for anyone in the community, not just members so later on today we are going to go hang up flyers and try to get the word out even more.

Q & A TIME!!

How was your first day there?
It was great! Some nice man bought our district Quiznos at the airport! Awesome! And then we got a real thrill of a ride with the NY driving style. There was a British Elder who drove the 6 of us (my old district) to the Brooklyner (highest place in Brooklyn) and we had real NY pizza and the prettiest view! I left my camera in the pad but I'll be sure to bring it next time. Such a pretty view! And then, oh man, our mission president dedicated our mission (which he had yet to do) and it was so powerful! I think it gave all of us newbies (there were 24 of us) and a nice extra drive to want to go out and find everyone we could. We then went to the mission president's house, had dessert, had a little meeting, then went to bed.

Did you go contacting your first day?
While we waited for all of the other cars to arrive at the Brooklyner we had about 5ish or 10ish minutes in which Elder Munday was telling us to go street contacting. We were all a little shy and didn't really do it though. We kind of just stood around and talked about how we were nervous. haha

Who's your companion & where is she from?
Sister Sanchez, she's awesome. She's from NJ/Mexico.

Where are you in NY even?!?!
South part of Long Island in Dyker Heights.

How is the Spanish coming along?
uhh....it's not. I say "como esta?" and the other person says "good, and you?" because I'm a white girl they give their broken english instead of their fluent spanish. In one way it's a super nice stress reliever in another way, well, I wish they would practice with me.

What is your mission president and his wife like?
They are awesome!! They are very into "spirit of the law" rather than "letter of the law" and they are the sweetest people ever. They have big goals for this mission and I'm excited!

Do you have any people that you're teaching currently?
Yep! The 3 new investigators I told you about, Luis and Rosa, and then Griselda.
Griselda knows she wants to be baptized and she is doing everything perfectly. She is an awesome almost member. She had a baptismal date set but apparently she talked to a member of the seventy and he advised her to not go against her husband’s wishes but give him some time and see if his heart will be softened. So now, we are just patiently waiting on him. She is great though!
Luis and Rosa...oh man. Both of them grew up together, went their separate ways and got married, and then both of their spouses died. They meet back up at the funeral and from there comforted each other and having been living with each other for the past 13 years. Rosa wants to be married and be baptized but says if Luis doesn't want to be married she is willing to give him up in order to become a member of the church. Luis has been praying and just won't make a decision. I know it's a big decision but he feels like since he was already married once and he still loves his old wife that he doesn't want to go against that and be married again. I love Rosa's faith to do whatever it is the Lord wants her to do but I just want Luis to soften up and realize he needs to follow her example or he will lose her :/ We'll see where they go with that....

Any service opportunities?
English class! Besides that not really. Not yet anyway. All the missionaries here did a lot for hurricane Sandy though. I got here right when the million and a half projects were settling down. We'll see what else comes up though. The Elders usually help with most of the moving so I don't really know what is going to come up.

Any dinner appointments yet?
Oh my gosh our ward is great! D.A. just about every day :)

How was conference?
Is that even a question?! Awesome! And even better because Luis and Rosa came.
I missed out on snacks but Rosa is a sweetheart and loaded me up with cookies and fruit snacks (the scooby-doo ones! My favorite!) so I had some snacks but this year’s General Conference went by ssoooooo fast! I don't know what happened. Way way wayyyy good though. And Rosa and Luis were able to come to two different sessions (Sat morn and Sun morn) and in both sessions they talked about the importance of chastity so I'm really hopeful they will take that to heart and just let us throw them a wedding already. haha

Did you watch it in Spanish or English?
I got to listen to it in english with the other Elders in my district and the Chino Elders too. My comp listened to it in spanish though.

Did you get to translate for it?
Are you serious?! I know you think I'm great and all but I can only pray and bear my testimony in spanish. I listened to part of it in spanish and I could only pick up about every 5th word. They speak so fast! Not as bad as the dominicans around here though. When people speak fast spanish they call that dominican. lol

I hope that answered some of your questions.

I love you all!!!

-- Hermana Watts

P.S. -- best news for this email!! We are starting a new "finding" method to make more friends in the community and get our name out there even more by playing soccer every Saturday! :D Starting this Saturday it's going down :)

P.S.S. -- Happy Birthday Meredith!!!