Transfers

Well, it hasn't been very long since I was able to write but a lot has happened. I was really sad to leave Hampton, because I didn't really have anytime to say goodbye to people. But it has been pretty fun here in Des Moines. We have lots of people to teach, there are more people here. So I went with Hermana Murphy to an investigators hous that night. (This is Herhana Murphy's last transfer. She's a REALLY good missionary, super friendly and she really knows how to get poeple to trust here. I'm trying to learn a lot from here. She really, really, really reminds me of Deborah Thompson, mom. Like a lot, especially when she makes a certain face. One day I'm going to take her picture , sneak attack style, when I see her making the face.)
Thursday, we went to Iowa City to pick up our new greenie, her name is Hermana (Christine) Hancock. She's fun and really, really good at Spanish. She was a teacher before in Colorado and she taugut 2nd grade. We tried to be all secretive so she wouldn't know we were her companions so we took off our tags that say Hermana on it, cause thats Spanish. But Hermana Murphy went into a meeting for the trainers and I was standing right by her and it was super awkward because missionaries kept coming up and asking me aboutSpanish stuff.....ha ha, but I don't think that she connected the dots until later which was good. So then we came back to Des Moines and started to work. AND we don't have a car, we have BIKES. But we haven't ridden them yet. One of them is at a members house. We've been geting rides everywhere. It's been pretty fun. We've started singing hyms to them while they're driving us.

We had a funny lesson this week. We were teaching Maria, who has a 27 year old autistic son named Miguel and he really, really wanted our bottles of drinks so during the lesson he kiped one of the water bottles and started pouring it into different cups and then drinking out of them. Then he did it again later with someone elses bottle. Then at the end of the lesson during the prayer he steals Gatorade out of one of our backpacks. He's really cool, he started dancing in the kitchen.

Two of our lessons fell through one day after we had been dropped off at their house, so we knocked on a house where they were making tamales and we started making them with them, then we started teaching them and they gave us food to eat, which ended up being really good because the brand new investigators that we had just taught dropped us off at our dinner appointment (which also fell through). So we're wondering where we're going to go when all of the sudden a member drives by and tells us to get in and they'll take us to their house. It's crazy, we fly by the seat of our pants and a lot of the times it's been 8:30 and we're not really sure where we're going to get a a ride until we ask the investigators if they drive and can give us a ride or I don't know, we just have to go places and we're not sure how we're going to do it but then things just work out.

Yesterday we had a baptism. Yeah! Jose got baptized. I kinda already knew him from a day when I was a brand new greenie with Hermana Guthrie in Des Moines. At that time he was telling us how he didn't like the Book of Mormon....but now 3 months later he likes it. He showed a lot of faith by being baptized because his wife and children live in Mexico and his wife has been threatening to divorce him if he did join the church. He was really, really nervous and they had to do it 3 times because he didn't give them his full name the first 2 times. We got a text from him this morning telling us how he felt different. It's really coolI

I bought Jesus the Christ when I was at the MTC but I haven't started reading it yet because its a really intimidating book. I think the day I bought it I read the first page with all of it's big words and decided to stop. But I keep hearing about how good it is and Hermana Murphy suggested to me to just read particular chapters in it that would help me individually. I'm really excited to read more about the life of Christ because I don't feel like I know enough about Him. I wish it could all just be jammed into my brain.

I think it would be really cool to hear from everybody about things they've been studying about the scriptures or spiritual thoughts/insights, favorite scriptures. (why). Stuff like that. I'd like to hear them in a letter :)

8515 Douglas Ave. #19
Urbandale, IA 50322

Well that's how my week has been since Wednesday.
I look forward to hearing from all of you. I love you all very much.

Hermana Hepworth