MEMORIES OF GREENVILLE

18 May 2010
Dear Family!
Hola! Como esta? Yo estoy muy bien! O.K. Well that's all the spanish I can handle right now! Is it ever right? Does it make any sense? I got to hola, como esta and then I had to turn to my english-spanish dictionary! I still have a lot to learn! Sister Pfile should be sending me some stuff here pretty soon.
Well, let's see. You wanted to know who we're working with. We're working with one lady who is awesome but she is one of those eternal investigators. She'll read and pray but she says she's not ready to be baptized. I asked her why but she said she doesn't know. We have tried about everything with her and she has just stopped progressing. So we'll see what happens with her. We are also trying to get her to stop smoking. She is really struggling with that. Please pray for her. She is so close!
We're also working with a nine year old boy who is the son of a less active mother and non-member father. She wants to start coming back to church and wants her family to be taught. It looks like the dad is going to be stubborn though.
We also have a spanish couple that only speak spanish and so Elder Alonso is working with them! And then we have a ton of less actives/part member families/potential investigators that we're working with. We are definately staying busy! For a small town there is a lot of work.
Oh, we are also working with an older lady. She loves the missionaries, the women of the church, and the church and believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true but she isn't sure she wants to be baptized. Yeah, we can't quite figure it out either. I think she'll come around eventually.
So the other day we were eating lunch and I saw Elder Alonso eating a pepper and I asked if it was a jalapeno pepper.
"Um, well kinda, but this kind isn't hot. It's actually more sweet."
He offered me a little piece but I said, "No, I think I'll pass. It might not be hot to you but it probably would be to me."
"No, it's really not hot...it's sweet," he said.
So I tried it and guess what?...it actually was....HOT! I thought I was going to die. My tongue was on fire. Elder Alonso, of course, is just cracking up because I fell for his horrible little trick. Man, my tongue was on fire for 15 minutes! And it was just a tiny piece too. So I ate a jalapeno. I hope that's the last time I do that!
So Emma, you'll love this. We went to Guyman, Oklahoma last Friday for district meeting and the Guyman church building is so tiny! Even smaller than the one in....what was the name? Well, remember where we went to the parade instead of the rest of church? (Greenville, California) Yeah, it was smaller than that building. This building probably had almost the same square footage as our gym back home. No joke. There are no halls. When you walk into the doors there is one big room that you walk into. That room is the chapel, gym, and relief society/priesthood room. Then there are about six rooms (small rooms) around the edge of that room. There is also a small kitchen, library, bathroom and font. I think they said it is the smallest church building that the church builds. I should hope so because I don't think you can get much smaller! I was shocked at how small it was.
Well, I hope everything is going good for everybody. Thank you for everything that each of you do for me. I love each of you so much.
Love Ben
P.S. We had a lightning storm a few nights ago and it woke me up all night. It was so loud! (You know it had to be to wake me up!) There have been a lot lately but that one was the loudest.