"This looks like the backyard of the Sandlot."

Here we go! I have sooo much to tell everyone.

Ok I am alive and well in San Fernando. The flights went really well. They were long and I had a hard time sleeping, but thankfully i got to travel with 3 missionaries, so we figured everything out together. We stopped in San Fran and got some sour dough sandwiches. What else would we get!? No one told us if we could call, so we decided not to...now that i think about it, we should have just called, but that's in the past! We will talk soon :)

You are talking to the new El Camino Real ward pianist. The first question they asked was, "Do you play the piano?" They were sooo happy when i said yes! The glory goes to Mama Barfuss. All those piano lessons are paying off :). My trainer is Sister Day from Boston. I got the one white trainer, but her spanish is great and she likes to work hard! I am in El Camino in the El Camino Real Ward! Here is the best news. I am a biking missionary. There is one area for spanish sisters that has bikes and it is El Camino! Hahahaha I have had so many adventures on my bike. I am 100 percent positive that they put me on bike because i am from Idaho. Idaho missionaries have a good reputation. I am borrowing a bike from the mission office. Basically if anything happens to the bike i have to pay for it, but if not I will just return it to the office when I am done. So just picture this...Hermana Barfuss on a bike, sweating like crazy, skirt flapping in the wind...we get a lot of weird looks hahaha. Our area is very small. We pretty much just bike up and down Sherman Way all day. It takes us about 25 minutes to bike to church. My legs and bum and pretty sore. #ElCaminoBikers. My trainer has had her bike stolen twice so we have two locks for our bikes and we keep our bikes in our apartment at night.

  The first day we got to the mission office at 4ish and they talked with us for a couple hours and took us to a hotel! I could not believe it! We went to bed at 7:30. It was glorious. There is not much progress in El Camino right now. Mostly we work with less active members, but it is difficult to find members when they are home. Most days our plans and our back up plans fall through so we knock a lot of doors, which means we have met a bunch of really cool people. Some do not want to listen, but some people are kind and let us in. About 70 percent of the doors we knock the people speak spanish. It is difficult to know when to speak in spanish or in english. There are a lot of Armenians who look Latino, but when you start speaking spanish get super confused, and some of the Latinos prefer to speak in English, some prefer spanglish, and some only know spanish! But my trainer's spanish is awesome, so i know i will be able to learn the language.

  We had dinner at a member's house and it was the most humbling experience for me. Her house is one room proabably the size of the craft room in the house. She doesn't have a bed or any tables. She has a little fan and a big stack of blankets for when she sleeps, BUT she is ALWAYS willing to feed the missionaries. We sat on the ground and she fed us tortillas with some beans and meat (oh and some 7-up) I wanted to cry. She is a perfect example of humility and charity. She is so kind and devoted to the church. I pray that we can all be a little more like her!

  Another less active member that lives in a little apartment with 4 other ladies. It was chaos in her house. They were having a BBQ so they had raw meat all over the apartment and other fiesta necessities. She is about 60 and only has one leg and cannot afford glasses so cannot see very well. We read her some scriptures and she testified to us about angels and the miracles she has seen in her life. Again, I felt honored and humbled to be with her. 

  It randomly rained the other day which was such a blessing. California needs rain. And Hermana Barfuss needed some rain to cool things down :) The rain was a little tricky because we are on bikes. Thankfully I packed a rain jacket. We were out knocking doors, and a lady let us into her house because she felt bad we were in the rain. She even gave us hot chocolate (secretly...i am from Idaho so i was still super hot, but i acted like i was cold and drank all the hot chocolate) We were teaching lesson 1 and i was struggling with my spanish, and i accidentally hit my spoon and splattered hot chocolate everywhere. FacePalm! She laughed and helped me clean it up. 

  All in all, i am very happy. I learn so much everyday, and i love the people in San Fernando. I learn so much everyday!

Fun Things

1. Everyone was watching the USA v. Cuba futbol game the other day. I wanted to watch!

2. We accidentally walked into someone backyard the other day, and i commented, "This looks like the backyard of the Sandlot." and on cue these two huge dogs came running at us. hahahah it was hilarious. Everyone here has like 6 dogs, so we have to be careful :)

3. Our neighbors are Armenian and they blast this tv show that sounds like Armenian Idol every night!

   

I love you all so much! Thank you for the support!

  Hermana Moo   (oh and i do not need an ipad...and i will think about a scripture this week)

  Here is my favorite quote of the week,

"The Lord is in the details of our lives!" Never forget it!