Email - March 3

   I am in Gilbert, AZ!!! From border of mission to other border of the mission! I am in a Spanish ward with my very very cute companion (Hermana Segura) and two Elders, Elder Vorkink (served with him in Yuma, so I know him pretty well and he is my district leader now) and Elder Whitted. Sister Segura is from Colombia, but has lived in Mesa, AZ since she has been 6. She is a native Spanish speaker and the cutest little thing ever!! Our ward is way cool! It is called Ray 5th Barrio(ward).Do I miss Yuma? Not so much but I do miss the people there a ton!! It is nice to be able to see them on facebook and stuff! I serve in both Gilbert and Chandler with the Spanish work. I don't have any English work anymore, just Spanish :) It is awesome... except the food. blah.. I don't really like Mexican food. Some things are good and it depends who cooks, but it is a lot of fat and grease. And they feed you more than you can ever imagine! And you can't say no or they get offended! My first two dinners here were actually pasta haha and then I had Venezuelan food. It was really good and not fatty or anything. But I swear I gained like 5 pounds that night because they just kept feeding me and I couldn't say no especially because they are our investigators!! Instead of tortillas they have arepas and  you put beans and meat in it. TASTY!! but I was going to die because I ate too much!! Then I had pazole. It is a type of soup and the meat in it is pig spine. They leave the bones in it and fat up the wazoo, yuck! It is good minus all the fatty meat and bones. I couldn't finish it and then she gave me more!! I told her my stomach just isn't prepared for eating so much, yet. Then she gave us rice pudding. She was nice about it and didn't seem too offended. We had dinner at the bishop's last night. He is so cool!! He is from Spain and speaks perfect English. His wife is American and went on a mission to Texas Spanish speaking. We had homemade Cafe Rio it was so delicious!! That is my kind of mexican food!! haha

    So the Gilbert Temple Culture Celebration was on Saturday. It was AMAZING!! A little cheesy but so GREAT!! It was so neat to see so many youth together and unified. There are a lot of members here!! I love it here, it is so nice and looks a lot like St. George! It is very different than Yuma haha I am glad I went to Yuma first because if I went here then Yuma it would be a lot more depressing haha. I am actually in Sister Funke's old area and she told me tons of stories about the people here so I am trying to remember everything. But she told me a lot, so I forget! I would live here, it is nice! But anyway on Saturday it was RAINING like POURING! It never rains here and of course, the day of the OUTSIDE Culture Celebration, it rains!! It was really cold! I don't know how those youth did it!! It was at 7 pm when it started! WOW! It was so neat though! They had such good attitudes and everything! The Prophet I guess was looking a little sick, so that isn't good! President Eyring came with him and he is so cute, cheering on the youth! I watched the dedication yesterday in Spanish haha. Ask me what I understood... nada!! Haha jk well I understood it if I was paying full attention, using all brain power in the world! haha But that got me exhausted so sometimes I started dozing off, but I tried really hard! It was really cool to see it in Spanish though! President Eyring mentioned the Draper Temple, I don't know what about it, but he mentioned it haha! With the Tucson and Phoenix Temples coming soon, there will be 6 temples in AZ. There are 400,000 members in AZ. It is cool to think that I have been a part of helping bring some of those 400,000 to the gospel. 

   The main investigator we have is Pedro. He is getting baptized this Saturday and married this Friday. Yeah, take that friends! I get to go to a wedding, too! And I get to plan it a little, so that is cool! I will send pics! And the Venezualian Family, they are super chevre!