"I'm in Texas!"

Hey everyone! well I'm in Texas! the Edinburg Central area. It is amazing! Yes it is very hot, but it's great when we walk in the house and realize how cool it is. We just kind of get used to the heat and humidity and don't realize how bad it really is until we have the cool house to contrast.

Well, mi companera is Hermana Stevenson, she is samoan though she gets a lot of people thinking she's mexican cause she's short for a samoan.

Okay. I'm not sure what all to say other than I'm here. I had a whole list of things but I forgot. Oh yeah! I'm not on a spanish speaking mission. . . yup nope. I have actually been called to a bilingual mission. I speak english and . . . ha no not spanish, it's tex-mex. where you parkar su trucko. Ask Aldo if he's ever heard of it before. Here everybody knows a bit of both languages and there's actually a bunch that use both mingled in so much that you have no idea which language they're speaking when.

Okay, and if you look up Edinburg, its not a small town. But there are two wards here, Edinburg 1 and 2. And we have an entire zone in Edinburg. My area, central is the center part of Edinburg and we figure it's about 30 square miles. about the size of Manti isn't it? Well, as far as navigation, I can't do it so I'm very grateful that my companion gets to drive. Although we have decided that we are going to be on bikes more than using the car, cause we bought bikes, and because our area is relatively small and dense because it is the central part.

Oh, but yes, on sunday we kind of go to three wards, sorta. We have the english ward, the spanish ward and the ysa branch. It's kinda fun that we have three wards that all cover the same area. But we actually don't have a hard time finding people. The hard part is finding people who actually come to church.

We did find a young mother who really does want to come, but her family won't let her. Evette is super tiny, shaking her hand it feels like there's only bone and skin. But we've only met her twice and feel like she is very sincere and ready, but we think she's in a super bad and abusive situation where her family doesn't want her to join another religion. Her family is christian, we guess she lives with her siblings, and we actually saw two of her sisters who were kinda chunky. And Hermana Stevenson said she could smell marijuana. She is also very timid and quiet, but she especially wants to take her three kids to church and have them grow up with God in their lives. I wish I could give her a place to stay and completely shelter her from her family, but there's only so much we can do. I'm hoping we'll be able to find a member family like how Aldo was able to rent a room from them, and she can clean and work to earn her keep. But I'm not sure how that's gonna work out. There was also another guy we were working with that actually quit drinking, but he had a trial and we're not sure when he gets back. We've been hoping that he doesn't end up in jail when his baptismal date comes around.

Okay, I have a little bit of a story. We contacted a woman named Estel and her two daughters on the street and they were spanish speaking so Hermana Stevenson was taking the lead, and I heard her mention baptism and then she stopped and looked at me, apparently it was my que to invite them to be baptised, and its what I thought it was but I wasn't sure so it ended up that the lady was laughing when I said I was lost and we got three baptism comittments while I hardly knew what was going on. we invited them to church that sunday, but they didn't show up and they didn't answer the door when we went to check up on them and find out why.

Thank you for the package! I got it, it was great! But mom, I'd like to make a request, I need more slips. The black one likes to hike up and the white one, since it is hot and we ride bikes quite a bit, it needs to be washed more often because I sweat just as bad if not worse than a guy.

And if there is anyway that you could send me a copy of the november ensign when it comes out, it'd be great. Thank you!

Something I've started to learn is that there are so many things that help in different ways. The gospel helps everyone regardless of their situation, it only depends on how you apply it. Different experiences and viewpoints bring about a whole new variety of understanding and insight.

(Hermana Nielson with her Mission President, his wife and the new missionaries)