Some Of The Best Lessons Are From Children

Hey,

Now that I’m up north I’m back to the emailing on Monday because the library here is open on Monday's.... sorry I didn't let any of you know last week. (We were all so sad that she did not get an email from any of us.)

Well, it's been a week full of adventures. Albuquerque is much different than El Paso. A lot of people smoke here. When I think of Albuquerque I’ll think of cigarette smoke. El Paso smelled like river water because of all the canals. The area I’m in is a big city like Santa Fe with a super small branch. I LOVE branches. I've already met pretty much everyone that is active. We have a great branch presidency and awesome faithful members. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, but I’m very excited about it.

My companion Sister Batchkoff is awesome. She has two sisters, likes to dance, is very bubbly, smiley, and friendly. She speaks spanish nearly all the time which is awesome. She's helping me a lot with mine. She's super service oriented and so loving! I feel like I’m working harder than I ever have on my mission. Sister Holland was an excellent missionary and really helped establish a lot of good habits with Sister Batchkoff. We more often get up early than on time, get in a good work out every day, and get all of our studies in the way they should be. It's great.

We had a reminder from the first presidency about keeping the confidentiality of investigators. I don't think I’ve done too bad with that, but if I included any last names or stuff that may be better not to post would you mind deleting it? Thanks so much!

I'm learning a lot.... go figure! Everyday it's something new. Some of the best lessons are from children. We met little five year old Cheyanne yesterday. Sweet friendly little girl. We were walking to visit an investigator and she asked us what we were doing. We told here we were going to go talk to our friends about Jesus. She talked to us a little bit and we gave her one of the cards with Jesus on it. She liked the picture of Jesus and took us to meet her mom. The English Elders will end up teaching the family. Meeting Cheyanne and being able to talk to her about Jesus, even though it was only a few sentences, was one of the highlights of my week.

There is a family that we visit nearly every day that just recently lost their son to cancer. They have recently become active and we have tried to teach the children on a few occasions with little luck. Their little girl is more receptive than her brothers. She's five years old and I'm telling you, if everyone was five years old, the whole world would be baptized. We tried teaching a few lessons that were supposed to be fun... ha, haven't gone extremely well, but we've got plans this week to bring some people their age with us. They are awesome kids with a lot of love, it's been fun getting to know them.

Immigration problems are worse here than in El Paso. It's a big concern to many people. There are many people here also that are working here with a workers visa so that their family outside of America can have a better life where they are at. Some have been away from their families for SEVERAL years to help provide them with more.

Things we've learned from some of our friends this week:

• Don't shake with the left hand.... it's the enemy hand.
• Cops can't do much about your car being hit if you call three days later.
• Make eye contact with everyone and be bold.
• Don't seem weak or you'll be in trouble.
• Kids know a lot about the neighborhood and will often tell you more about people than their parents will.
• One of the biggest religions in Cuba is Baptist.

Yeah and you know that ant problem we had in the south. Ha! ants are like carpet here... ALL over! It's way funny.

I have loved every day here, always an adventure!

Love you all,

Hermana Perez