Monday, July 27, 2015

Drug Busts and Bird Poop...July 27, 2015

This week has been a fantastic week! But first, lemme take a....minute to answer your email. You thought I was gonna say selfie huh? aha tricky, tricky ;)

That stinks! You already have to go back to school- I totally forgot about that lol. Time just seems to fly----Jenna's a JUNIOR?!? and KK's in 8th grade?!?! What in the world. Stop growing, my goodness. Y'all should still be sucking your thumbs in preschool right now. Didn't your mom ever tell you to not grow up? Shouldn't you be obeying your mother? Ya, that's what I thought. Bunch of rebels up in here. Mom, ya better put your foot down real quick, otherwise KK's gonna be in HS soon...and we all know we're not gonna survive that craziness.
Walmart is my life here- it's a very lovely cheapness. Wanna know how much a watermelon is at the nearest grocery store to us? $8. Yup. I could buy a whole meal at ANY fast food place for as much as ONE watermelon is. Talk about working to survive over here.

Jenna, I'm jealous you get to go to imagine Dragons...but I'm the first one to NYC, so who's really the coolest person here? Ya, stick that one in your lunchbox and eat it #ClaireQuote (Claire is amazing). 
 
Mormon night is bomb at Sky Sox. I love baseball so much! And yay for Colorado weather- I love it!

I DID NOT GET YOUR PACKAGE BECAUSE I HAVE TO WAIT A MONTH TO GET THEM IF YOU SEND THEM TO THE MISSION HOME. Like for real. They hand them out at the beginning of the month, and that's if the zone leaders even remember to give them out. Sis Brown just got some letters that were sent 3 months ago because the ZLs kept forgetting about them. If it's something that's like food or that I need right away- just send them to the apartment. They really only instituted that rule for the people living in the hood, cuz those get stolen a lot.

I can't believe so many people are putting their papers in! I can't believe Zach is going to Iowa! Man, what's with everyone growing up all of a sudden- I've only been gone a month people!

SO. My week. Lemme just tell ya. It was fantastic.

MONDAY- Pday is a very bless-ed day. I got to wear pants!! AND I'm wearing pants now!! Can you tell how excited I am??? Pants are wonderful.   We played Gator Ball, which is a mix of football and soccer. It's sooo fun! Even if the elders are like "don't touch the sisters" "oh let the sisters have this one kick" "oh nice try sisters" and Sis Brown and I are like *man voice* "LETS. DO. THIS." I mean I get it, some sisters are just girls, but Sis. Brown played rugby, and I'm me- soooo. ya. haha  It was a lot of fun, and we went and printed out pics at CVS too, so now my desk is all nice and pretty now with pics of my face everywhere! well I guess some of your faces are there too...meh, small details.
TUESDAY- was zone conference so that was 6 hours of sitting and listening to the Taggart's and APs talk. It was pretty long, but they're all amazing so I could have stayed longer haha  I also now know how to say: "We are missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" in Spanish. Whaddup bilingualism.
WEDNESDAY- Ellis Island!!! It was soooo fun! We got to help all the tourists from foreign lands (Canada?) with their family history work! It was amazing to see the spirit of Elijah come over all of them. They all go SO excited when they found someone, several people cried, a few cheered, and several just stared and stared at the screen in awe. I loved it! It was a pretty long 5 hours on my feet (man were they killin me) but so worth it! i met people from: France, England, Brazil, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, and Spain to name a few. AND I saw......THE STATUE OF LIBERTY AND NYC SKYLINE! My gosh. They're fantastic. I legit can't wait till I can go in the city on August 8th to the temple. I'm in love I swear. #WeFinishEachOthersSandwiches  it's so big and loud and beautiful. I can't even describe it accurately in words...which is a first for me, lemme tell ya. And I love the atmosphere out here! Everything is so urban here it's ridiculous. I mean there's trees covering every inch of earth, but there's also random smokestacks and factories and railroads and steel structure things that just pop up outta no where....like daisies! ;)  and the cities are ridiculously hood, and street life, ya know? Talk about culture shock. I love it. I might not be able to live there for a year or so (I want to kinda) because I'll miss the mountains and open air too much, but it's just plain cool.

Tangent-----My ward is amazing. I love them all!  They're all so humble, it's great. They are predominately S. American or Asian. There's some from: Colombia, Cuba, Brazil, Guyana, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Korea, the Philippines and Venezuela- but I'm sure I missed a few. They all kiss on the cheek too when they greet you, so that's taken some getting used too! It was so weird the first time, I was like "oh hug!" And she was comin for my face and I had no idea what to do, but I didn't want to offend anyone so I just kinda stood there all frozen and she bumped cheeks with me and I was like ooohhhhh. Gave me a darn heart attack. I was like here on my 1st day in the field and someone was gonna kiss me?! But hey, now I'm used to it cuz literally everyone does it. Even the few white people here cuz they've gotten used to it too. Crazies- I love em.

THURSDAY-  We found a new investigator!!!!!!!!! He's a member referral from NY and he's 89 and is in an assisted living home. He's amazing. My goodness, just the story of his life and what he's lived through and everything. I've missed being able to talk with Grandpa and Grandma every Sunday and hearing all of their stories- so it's nice to hear his even if it's not quite the same. He's golden. Sis. Brown and I walked out of that first meeting with him and were like- he's getting baptized! So we'll see how our next visit goes this week :)
FRIDAY- My One Month-iversary!!!! Yay for one month down and still got 17 left- sweetness! Went to Applebee's for the first time, super good. Our members are the best! Also got to give a BoM to a media referral- he's an atheist and is just wanting to know everything about every religion so that he's not listening to what others who know nothing say. So he's reading the Torah, Koran (?), and the Astheece (? that's how it's pronounced, no idea haha). Anyways, he's a nice guy, but he's not really interested about learning more- so that's that!
SATURDAY- Met my first anti-. Ya that was pretty interesting. She wouldn't listen to a word we said and kept bringing up all these random things to like trip us up or make us feel bad or something. She brought up church history a lot and was like *Filipina accent* "I haf books, I haf books. Come, see: they say Joseph Smith did dis...." And we're like yaaaaaaaa, no. It doesn't say that- we have those same books. Or ya, he did do that, but it doesn't matter because God is real and Joseph is a fallen man living in a fallen world- he doesn't have to be perfect... But believe what ya like. She was very contentious and wanting to Bible bash, but we just kept bearing our testimonies and then left because you could tell it wasn't gonna go anywhere. Pretty sad. Just soften your hearts people!!!! Please be saaaaaved! That's all we waaaant! That's all God waaaaants!
Also, the ward BBQ was that day! We played volleyball and soccer in our skirts haha. It was really fun! You just have to be really self-conscience about what your skirt is doing, so we can just say that we weren't playing our best that day and leave it at that lol. I know a lot of ppl took pics of us, so maybe we'll get to see those someday!
SUNDAY-  Went to my fav family ever's house. Seriously the best family. The dad has really opened up to us too! He sits in on conversations and had a lot of questions about the temple. Getting reactivated members to the temple is just as good as a baptism, fyi. I'm super excited for this family- and I really want to get them to the temple in the next 17 months! 
We had dinner at the Park's house- they're both from Korea, and the whole family is so nice! Their culture is SO cool! You take off your shoes and wear slippers in the house, and they ultra filter the water so it's in filtered water bottles in the fridge, you eat with chopsticks (I wasn't too bad), and they walk out with you and make sure the guests leave alright. There's a million other little things, and their language is cool. I know how to say hi! This is how you pronounce it roughly: ahn ee ah say oh. Yup. Before you know it I'll be bilingual. Also, I had kimchi and miso soup and this fish on rice stuff- all super good. Koreans make awesome food.

I love it here so much! Emerson is fantastic and Jersey is great and America is cool. Oh BTW, what's up with all the flags being half-mast for a week??? I'm so cut off from everything out here, I have no idea what's going on in the world- so if you can keep me updated a bit that'd be awesome!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! I'm gonna keep on praying for you, cuz yes, I love you that much :)

Adios Amigos
Permanece Jersey Fuerte!
Sister McAllister

PS I blame google translate if that's wrong.
PPS My subject line will now be explained- did I keep you in suspense long enough? ;)   SOOO, driving through Jersey City to Ellis Island we were stopped at a red light and then all the sudden 2 cop cars with their lights on come tearin round the corner and then we see this guy pushed up on the wall. A cop pats him down and the GF's just like ?? and then the cops just walk away. And the man just goes on his way--I was like what in the world??  And, we park under a tree (surprise surprise #TooManyTrees) at our apartment, so our windshield always has bird poop on it. Yay. So there's that subject line explained :)

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