It really does rain in SoCal.

I am glad that the weather channel has already alerted many of you to the TRIALZZ we are experiencing here in SoCal. Yes indeed, it rained. It rained a lot. To make things worse, we don't even have our 2014 Toyota Corolla because it is currently getting repaired (weird alarm wouldn't stop sounding; that took like 5 hours of our Friday.) So Fri night we're so pumped to go out, we're like, "Who cares if it's now dark outside and it's showering and we don't live in our area! We'll walk the mile and a half to our lesson and contact people in the rain!" 

Which we did, and got like a third of the way there until we turned around and went back because the streets were flooded past our knees at some parts and everyone we tried to talk to on the streets looked at us like we were freaks. They weren't wrong. As soon as we decided to turn around, the torrential downpour started and then we couldn't go out for the next day and a half either because our bags and coats were soaked and it was still raining outside. I'm not editing this email at all or responding to anyone else's because now we have to hitch rides with the other hnas to email and they took us to a COMPUTER STORE IN THE MALL and I feel pretty weird here and am trying to get this done as soon as I can. 

But yes, this week was good. I'm in the BoM missionary chapters right now, and there's something really special about reading about missionaries converting Lamanites in spanish. The Book of Mormon is just the best thing in the whole world. If you haven't read it, you really should. I was on the verge of tears reading about Abish running around her village because THAT IS MEMBER WORK, PEOPLE!! SHE GOT IT. 

Hno Morales is still doing great. He got the priesthood yesterday, and he and Hna Earnshaw continue to escalate the ferocity of their Book of Mormon reading competition. I mean, whatever works. She says after this she'll race him through the rest of the standard works. 

In my planner, I jot down words that I hear that I don't know. In church yesterday I glanced at my list and realized that what I had written down as "llelo" was actually just someone saying "yellow." 

We're still going strong trying (and usually failing) to talk to at least 20 people every day. It's hard in this area. Also, I have realized that in addition to my dead-fish-phobia, I also have a paralyzing fear of beautiful people. It takes a lot of courage. And a lot of faith, because my first instinct is always, "You are above a 9 on the attractiveness scale; I don't think you need the gospel." Usually these people are white, so I just kind of give them a card and run away. But this week we met this guy on the street who was a above a 9 and LATINO. I looked at Hna Earnshaw and she looked at me with terror in her eyes. And then I was like, alright, whatever, we're doing this. But homeboy Alfonzo ended up being pretty interested in the church and not even in us, so that was a win. (Rare bird, I know.) 

Speaking of uncomfortable, Hna Earnshaw has suddenly become the district's seamstress. I don't know why they think it's so hard to hem their own pants, but she's a saint so she does it. More wife points to her. The weird part is that one elder decided to toss a shirt in the load, too. The pocket rip was an easy fix. The hard part was that we found ourselves repeatedly smelling his shirt.... hahahahahahahaha. We had just kind of forgotten that things can smell masculine. It's nice. This story was probably not something you needed to know, but too late now....

MMMMMK that's all I can think of; next week I promise I'll have some more miracles or something to talk about. We're working on it. But actually, miracles aren't even in our control so WHATEVS! We just get to serve. 

XOXOXOXOXO

Lauren

P.S. Did I tell you I've been working on my BBall? It's like I'm a real mormon now! #ZORTS4LYFE #IplayJV