My favorite meal?... hmmm...

[Part of a hand written letter to Whitney dated 25 JAN 10]
My favorite meal?... hmmm... Well Hna Voigt makes a really good flan, and french toast with soy milk is still really good. We get lasagna, chicken and all that good stuff when we go to English homes for dinner. Actually we get tamales often from the Hispanics. I have had some good ones and some spicy ones, but they all have a strange texture that is hard to swallow. They aren’t bad overall. My favorite Hispanic food yet was a Mexican hotdog. They put chili, onions, fresh salsa and cheese on them. They are really good. I’ll have to send you the recipe for Hna Voigt’s flan. Maybe I’ll send it with the SD card. As in, I’ll take a picture of it. :)

The most interesting/disgusting dish I have eaten was a soup with cow intestines. Gross, gross, gross! Oh, and we went over to a house for dinner with a young couple. He had served his mission in the Philippines and made us some traditional food. The main dish was really good and then he brought out hard boiled duck eggs. However, these were no ordinary eggs. They had been fertilized and incubated for 19 days. There were little ducklings in them! That was the point. He just popped it in his mouth like it was nothing! I took pictures. Well, they took pictures while Hna Voigt ate one and while I dissected it. I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it! That was definitely the most interesting meal I have ever attended. Since I didn’t actually eat it. ;)

We have seen so many miracles.

Well, the biggest thing that happened this week is that Hna Voigt was transferred to Payson. So we have been readjusting to being just two of us. We are more effective but it has been a little rough. We got blessings after stake conference on Sunday. So we are doing much better. She didn't get to say goodbye to almost anyone. So we have had to say her goodbyes for her. There have been a couple rough ones, but overall, we are doing better. We rearranged the apartment the night she left. We had to do something and that seemed like a good idea. We made everything two's instead of threes and that makes it easier to deal with. We aren't reminded of her every time we walk into the house. We even took apart the third bed. But we are really doing much better. You can tell how much it bothered us by how many times I have said that. :) But it's true, now.

One thing that has been funny is that we are not allowed to enter houses anymore without a female present. It has been driving us crazy because we aren't used to it. I don't know how many times I have been on the threshold of a house, about to step through the door and Hna Ghan says "Hermana!" and I say "oh, yeah." Way too much fun! I'll have to stop that. :) This rule is because we are just two sisters now. That is a world-wide missionary rule. Just like the elders aren't allowed into a house with just a woman there. Same thing, just opposite. :)

Oh, yeah. Luis is doing well.

No we haven't had any strange weather. It has been gorgeous actually. We go out on our bikes as much as we can. We absolutely LOVE being on bikes! Weird, since we are in skirts, but true. We talk to more people when we are on bikes.

We have seen so many miracles. One woman called out to us on the street. "Are you the missionaries?" Yeah, I know! She just got out of rehab and is all about God right now. But she speaks English so we have sent the elders over. But we have seen her a couple times on the street. Lisa. She is awesome.

Also, we were walking the street on our way to contact someone, so it wasn't really a set appointment. And we stopped a woman to TTI her. However, she is already a member. But she is really having a hard time. Her husband is in a nursing home or some thing. She apparently asked for the sister missionaries to come over, but, again, she speaks English. I don't think she would have been comfortable with Elders, but the English Elders rode by on their bikes right then, so we stopped them and had her meet them. She accepted our invitation to meet with them and I know she wouldn't have let them in if we hadn't introduced them to her and showed her how nice they are. So cool. Yes, we only teach in Spanish. It is tons of fun. The English Elders overlap about three Spanish areas.

So there is a tradition with the sister missionaries. At our nine-month mark [half of an 18 month mission], we take a "pregnant" picture. Hna Ghan's is really good. What is funny is that her nine-month mark fell on the day that I was born in the mission. December 29th. So she had a daughter on her nine-month mark.

We had a funny dinner the other night. We went over to their house and they sat us down and started serving us. Then they left us alone in the dining room to eat by ourselves. They were very serviceable, but it felt like a restaurant. :) And they were talking to some salesman that was taking down their bank information, and there were a bunch of kids there begging us for cookies. We walked out at the end and just burst out laughing. Way funny!

-Ella