This week was pretty slow.... When I mean slow it means we have no progressing investigators and practically no one to teach... So that makes the time on the mission rough.... Honestly things were not that bad but when you have to contact for over three hours a day it makes things harder.... especially when I live in the HOTTEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET!!! Well since my companion is newer she still doesn´t feel confident leading the lessons or talking that much in general during our lessons... so I am speaking A LOT in Spanish.... Sometimes I will be talking or listening to someone speaking to me and I will just think to myself, "This is a miracle!!!!! I can understand these people!!!!! I am speaking Spanish!!!!! With a horrible accent but still, I am speaking Spanish!!!" It is pretty cool to just be able to see the growth in myself!
But this week we had been having no success whatsoever... Almost everyone we contacted didn´t want to hear about what we said and whenever we asked for references the people never had anyone for us to teach... so we were getting pretty down on ourselves... We had been praying every single morning and night that we would be able to find someone who is prepared to hear the Gospel. Well Saturday came and we were walking to an appointment and a little red car stopped next to us and a man asked us if we were the missionaries of this area. We told him yes and he explained that his sister is interested in our church and wants to learn more. We asked him where she lived and he pointed to a house on the corner of the street. After he drove off we practically ran to the house and knocked on the door. Well his sister´s name is Jessica (yes she has an awesome name!) but she let us in and we taught her and her son for over an hour about the Book of Mormon! If this wasn´t an answer to our prayers I don´t know what was... but I am so glad we were in the right place at the right time! I really believe that her family can progress! yay!!!!!
But I have an interesting food story for you all.... Well, this week I went to the Alaba family´s house and they are recent converts. Well at least the kids are... They have five kids who have been baptized and the parents don´t want to take the plunge.... Don´t know whats up with that but what is funnier is their dad is telling them all to go to BYU and go on a mission but he doesn´t even want to get baptized. We are going to have to work super hard with them... But I think things will work out. Well back to the food-- when we went over it was about 12 in the afternoon and their dad was in the kitchen cooking. He cooks really well but he was working on a huge pot of soup. We were talking to his kids and he asked if we had had this soup before... I didn´t really understand him but before I knew it I was agreeing to eat this soup that he was cooking. No big deal right? WRONG!!!
As I saw his son Paul dishing out the soup and setting bowls on the table I saw that three of the bowls had chicken feet sticking out of them........................................ There were only four bowls on the table.... I only had a 25% chance of not getting the soup with the foot..... But when my companion saw the feet she said that she didn´t want a chicken foot........ well...... there went my chances. So as we sit down at the table I am just looking down at this soggy chicken foot and thinking... how in the world am I going to eat this.... After a prayer on the food, and a silent prayer pleading that I would be able to eat this, I started with the broth.... I found a chicken liver in my soup which wasn´t so bad and some other pieces of meat but I kept pushing the chicken foot around in the bowl..... Then I finally thought.... "Jess, it is just going to get worse if you let it get cold." So I took the foot in my hand and thought... I don´t even know how to eat this!!!
Paul was sitting next to me and observing my reactions as I was attempting to eat this and I admitted that I didn´t know how to eat it. They all laughed and said that you break off the toes and suck on the skin and spit out the bones... Paul then picked up his chicken foot ripped off a toe with a horrible pop and stuck it in his mouth and spit out the bones..... I tried to rip off the toe but the skin had gotten soggy so that the skin was just ripping off and not the whole toe. Please imagine with me....
1) I am in South America... who knows where this chicken has been and who knows if it was cooked properly
2) THIS IS A CHICKEN´S FOOT
3) There is no meat on this foot just the skin of the chicken.... And no this isn´t a nice crispy piece of skin from KFC this skin has turned grey because of the cooking process and it is slimy...
4) Everyone is looking at me so there are no smooth tricks with a napkin and there is definitely NO WAY that I can pretend to eat this either....
5) Before my mission whenever I ate chicken on the bone I never ever touched the cartilage and if there was a vein in the chicken I usually left it alone......
6) Did I mention that this is a CHICKEN´S FOOT????
I finally managed to rip off a toe and after a little hesitation I popped it in my mouth. I sucked off the skin quickly and spit out the bones and before I knew it the chicken foot was almost all gone! I was making progress, and I couldn´t believe that I wasn´t blowing chunks on the whole table.... I finished the foot and feeling a little queasy I moved on to the the rest of the soup quietly thanking the Lord the whole time that I was able to get through the chicken´s foot. Well I came to another piece of meat in my soup and I picked it up and started eating it. Then Paul told me to suck on the bones... This was a weird piece of chicken and I couldn´t figure out what part of the chicken it was from. But the bones in my mouth felt like little square Lego's... The way they separated and when I spit them out they had little holes in the middle.....
As I was sucking on the third little Lego bone I thought... This feels a lot like...... VERTEBRAE! I then asked, "Es este el cuello?" (Is this the neck?) When Paul said "si" I almost lost it...... Oh man I don´t know but eating the neck just gave me the creepers!!!! But I still had two little Lego bones to go..... So I ate them quickly not breathing though my nose the whole time. When I thought the worst was over I saw Paul messing around with some kind of ball of meat in his soup for a while. As I looked closer he looked at me, smiled and said "la cabeza" HOLY COW!!!! Chicken´s head in the soup is just... WRONG!!!!!!! Paul finally cracked open the skull of the chicken and pulled out a pinkish white flesh and placed it on my spoon saying "cerebro." Why in the world did we come to their house today when his dad was making creepy chicken soup.... Why did I agree to try his soup... I should have known better. But I guess this moment had to come sooner or later... As I placed the chicken brains in my mouth I was preparing for the worst... But to my surprise it was actually good!!! hahahahaha I AM TURNING INTO A CRAZY PERSON!!!! hahaha I think that will be the worst thing I will eat in my mission...... hopefully!
Well I need to wrap this up but before I go I just want to say that I know that this church is true and it can change lives... The Book of Mormon is proof that God lives and loves us and I know that when we read this sacred book we will be able to come to know of His love.
Love you all more than I miss you!
Love Hermana Welch #1
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