Hello from where it is very hot and spiders & bugs are very happy!‏

We ate empanadas for Valentine's day (that is what I used the money for) Thank you!

Your donation fed the 4 of us for 30 pesos, which is about 10
American bucks. (Great Huh!)
I also sent a picture of our washer and 'lettuce' spinner for our
clothes.  (Ha!)

Also you will notice our new living arrangements, again, it's
really hot here & since heat rises you can see our solution was
to hug the ground level.

The last picture is for the primary in our new Lake St. Louis
ward, they sent me letters and I got them this week along with
the stamps (yea!  Thank you!).  If you can send them this picture
or print it out for the primary and tell them that I loved it and
I have all of their letters hanging in our house in the windows.
(helps to shade from the heat too!) It was a nice surprise!

Josh has asked for a story about our investigators. Well, I have
a great story but it is kind of sad at the same time.  A family
that we found this past month (named Favian, his 'non' wife
Marina and their small daughter Luciana.  We love teaching
them b/c they are very intelligent and grasp everything we
teach them, but this past couple of visits the husband has been
a little different.  So, we met with him without his wife and
daughter, just us and him.  He began to talk and talk about
everything. We had asked him before this visit to pray to get
married and to know if this church is true.  He told us he
doesn't love the woman that he has been living with for the
past 10 years and the only reason he is still around is for his
daughter and they just found out that she is pregnant again. 
That puts us in a bind now.  We want them to stay together
but not if he doesn't love her.  He doesn't want to pray to know
if the BOM is true, but he will pray about everything else. (I
don't know why).

If you'll remember that this last Sunday was my talk, it went
great! I was able to talk about everything I had wanted to
share with the ward.  Well anyway, Favian never wanted to
come to church previously.  (It has always been his non-wife
and daughter that come but he still insists he wants the
discussions.)  This Sunday he came for my talk & stayed the
whole sacrament & ended up liking it a lot.  I spoke about what
it means to be a member and how to succeed in this life as one. 
Afterwards, he told us he liked it a lot and said that he wanted
to pray now about the BOM to know why we are different and
why we believe these things, but still told us that he doesn't
know about his non-wife.  If you could pray for this family that
would be great.

I have to go but I love you so much.  Thanks for everything,
and I'm sorry my letter was really random.  Please call Carissa
and tell her I love her and congratulations!

Love,
Amanda

Baptism(s)

So this week was great! We have 2 families progressing and have 5 single people progressing as well. Also, we are now teaching a brother and a sister that we found last week and they both want to be baptized. All they need is their parent's permission and then they are good to go. So, we passed by the parent's house because before, they never wanted us to teach in their house, but their mom chatted with us for a while and invited us to her son's b.day party this Friday. This is the son that we are teaching, who is turning 9, and his sister is 13. She said that she wants to get to know us and a little about what we are teaching her son and daughter. She said that they both asked for church clothes for their next gifts and that they want to pray together every night as a family. Being Catholic, that was a shocker for the parents. So now they are curious about what is going with their kids and us. We normally teach them at their Aunt's house, which is next door. It's been great and they are really so sweet!

We also started working with the sister of one of our investigators that is getting baptized at the end of the month. She is 17, really bright and grasps everything. It is really fun to teach her! So anyway, she prayed this week about everything we have been sharing with her and she accepted our invitation to be baptized the same day as her sister. That will be amazing, but I'm not quite sure how we are going to pull that day off. We now have 5 people getting baptized that day! Well, in roughly a week and a half, I'm not really sure how the program is going to work. We still have to figure that one out.

I am giving a talk in church on Sunday about members, their responsibilities as members and how to succeed as a member. This is going to be great, but at the same time it's a little nerve racking. It's my first talk in the mission! Ahhhh! So I am just going to write it and hope that everything goes well and I will let you know next week. This ward has such great people that love to love the missionaries and have us eat forever, which you know is a huge plus for me.

So, I used a little bit of money to buy Raid so I can kill all the spiders in our pentions, which are a ton. We find about 3 a day and they are nice and fat, which means they have been happily living in our beds with us. I am very disgusted because some are big and brown, some giant black, and others a nasty puke color, which leads me into yet another spider story.

It's been unbearably hot here so we all sleep on the floor with our mattresses in the study room. I was halfway asleep when I felt something on my foot, which is sticking halfway out of the sheet with the other half of my body. I looked down and saw something giant and clearish-yellow. My first thought was that it had to be a dream because this thing was huge, but then it started crawling on my foot up my leg. I couldn't scream and all that came out was air. I flung my foot which started a chain reaction with my entire body of flinging my sheet and squirming to stand on my bed. It ended up waking up all of my comps and we began to search for this giant thing that I had seen. Well, during our scavenger hunt for it, we were looking on the floor and came next to the X-mas tree, which is about 2.5ft tall and is next to my bed. I'm pretty sure this tree has been there since the beginning of missionaries because it is very raggedy. lol Anyway, we were all next to the tree looking all around it when my comp screams and falls backwards. Her face was right next to the giant spider. Evidently during my spasm attack, which the spider caused, I flung it on the tree and it was resting on one of the ornaments. We caught it and measured it with a can. If you take the bottom of a can and look at it, this was the size of the spider. Picture it as a yellow-clear color. Yeah, that's right! Giant and ugly! So that is why I bought spray this week. I am sick of them and have probably shared my bed with them many a nights. lol Sick!

I love you all so much and talk about you all the time to my comp. We laugh a lot! I never realized, but my family is quite funny. lol
love amanda

This Week in Photos

(Assuming this is the path that she walks almost daily)

Here are more pics. Tell Mom and Dad I love them and I am sorry that my time was short. The computers stink, they always die and a lot of other things. I wish I had my laptop. lol I love you all soo much! love Amanda