Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

Hola familia! Today was Pday so we sent emails and just kind of hung out. The elders are so great. They make me feel less like a girl trying to live in a girl’s world and let me act more like a boy sometimes – which is awesome! We tried to contact a media referral but she wasn't there and so then we went and visited a less active family. The husband was not home but we shared a little scripture with the wife who is not a member. Whenever we go over, she tells us about how hard it is to be in America. How her husband's job is really hard and stuff like that. It is really hard for me to open my heart to her and I know that is really bad. We were over there until about 9:00 and then we just came home and went to bed.

Tuesday we knocked a lot of doors. We tried a referral named Luis but he was not home. So we went to East Moline and knocked, we tried Minelva. I forgot to mention, Minelva came to church Sunday! We set up a whole bunch of translation equipment for her but it stopped working right when Sacrament meeting began! So we were running around trying to get it to work. Hermana Pearson just came and sat next to her and translated in her ear the whole time. It was really sad, and she was pretty discouraged about it. She left after Sacrament meeting even though we had a lesson planned for her. She was not home when we tried to visit her today. We had dinner with the Bringas family. They fed us Molé which was heavenly good! They gave us so much food! They always fill us up when we go there. She just grabs our plates and keeps putting more food on them. Then we went and visited another family in the ward, the Jenkins, and they fed us some taco stuff. Two dinners! Which is why I have my food baby belly now! Afterwards, we went home and started some Spanish. It was like 70° today and it was so, so nice. Knocking was awesome because we were out in the sun and talking to people. I am so much happier when the sun is out; it is like night and day!

Wednesday we went to go visit a less active sister; she lives down by the Mississippi River. She wasn't home so we decided to go down by the river and call people, like potential's and stuff. We hung out down there and it was so nice – like 75° again today! I didn't have to wear tights, or boots, or anything and I even wore flats! It was so awesome! After that, we knocked for a while but we didn't find anyone. There are not a lot of Latinos down by the river. Then we went and did Mormon.org time in the library. Later we went to visit a media referral named Patricia. She wasn't home. We went back to Little Mexico today to try to find some people’s addresses. We also ran by the chiropractor, who is so amazing. Our beds are pretty sketchy and the chiropractor whips us back into shape so I don't have any headaches. We went to have dinner with Grandma Johnston, but we ended up just sharing a lesson. She pretended to be Catholic, which she was for most of her life. It is really a good experience for us and afterwards she was so nice. She said that she took the lessons for four years and that this was one of the best lessons she's ever had. It was so sweet and nice. We went to the church and practiced Spanish and then ate some dinner and went to bed. It was a really good day today – especially because it was warm. I just love it when it is warm!

Thursday we had zone conference. It took up most of our day. Beforehand, we had a lesson set up with a lady named Nicole. We have been trying to call her for weeks trying to meet with her and she says she wants us to come, but hasn't been able to meet yet. We had finally set up a date and time and when we got there, she was not there. So, we are going to give her some time to simmer. We had some great training's by our zone leaders, and STLs, and the district leaders, then we went to Taco Bell with the whole zone for lunch. We had a less active lady call us the other day and say "por que no han venido?"  We were surprised that she asked us why we didn’t come, so we scheduled another appointment to visit her at four. When we knocked on her door, no answer. She and her boyfriend were gone. We were kind of confused because she called us to have us come over?! So we went home and studied. Then we had dinner with the Knighting's in Bettendorf, they are such a cute family and we had “walking tacos”. Then we had a lesson with Claudia who is a Jehovah witness. We met her at church and she cleans a member’s house. We taught her about the Restoration and she was super nice. She is pretty set in her ways. We tried to give her a Book of Mormon and she did not want to take it because she doesn't want to be converted. She did say the closing prayer, even though she told Jehovah that she is just getting some information and is never going to leave Him. Today was not as warm, so it was good, but not as nice!

Friday was really, really fun! We started the day studying and then we knocked doors. We headed over to Bettendorf and visited Sister Orrick. She is medically less active because she cannot walk so it is really hard for her to come to church. We had a great visit with her. Since the sisters left, we have taken her over even though she does not speak Spanish. She is such a fireball and so funny. She lives in an assisted living house and we walked her down to lunch. We met her friends at lunch and they were all members of the re-organized church of Jesus Christ. Such nice people. It was funny because they all had coffee to drink and me and my comp just looked at each other and started laughing. I think we will go back and visit her next week. A recent convert named Sarah called us and asked if we could come help her move. She needed help unpacking and organizing. It was almost 1 pm and we hadn't eaten lunch so we were super excited when she called back to see if we wanted some pizza! We were going to go to McDonald's, but it was awesome that we did not have to buy lunch. Then we shared a little message with her and it was really awesome. Minelva could not meet with us and she is seeming more distant lately. We went home and studied for three hours. We have to study three hours additional study every day – one hour of Spanish, one hour of training because I am new, and one hour of companionship study. That is not even counting our personal scripture study!  Hopefully I am learning a lot.

Saturday we went to go see a potential that Hermana Pearson knew named Kevin. My companion woke up this morning not feeling very well but she drug herself out of bed and then Kevin was not there. So we came home and she slept from about 11 till 3 in the afternoon. I spent the time studying, watching The District, and working on my Spanish. It was actually really nice to spend the time studying. We went and took piano time afterwards and then we went to the Alan's for dinner. Brother Alan is the ward mission leader and so we and the elders came over. They had to leave for a trivia night at the ward but we didn't go because our investigators all speak Spanish. We tried the media referral, Patricia, again and she was finally home! She is a cute 69-year-old lady. Her husband died a few years ago and she had gone to Mormon.org and ordered a Bible. We talked with her for a while and she is such a fireball! She reminds me of Nana. We shared about the restoration and asked her if Joseph Smith was a prophet, what would that mean to her. She said if it is true, the church she has been going to for the past 15 years is wrong. She was pretty sad and so we explained that our message would just add onto her faith and we encouraged her to read some of the Book of Mormon and learn more about Him. She was just super happy to have visitors come over to her house and we were there for quite a while. It was a really good day!

Sunday we went to church. The less active named Tisha and her boyfriend and her kids all came to church! She participated in relief society and it was all so, so awesome! She totally surprised us today. We called her and invited her to come to church. She told us that she could not come at 9 AM but that she would go to the 1 PM church. We told her as long as she goes that was fine, but we were so happy when she showed up at 9 in the morning! Her kids were all spic and span and it was all awesome. We had lunch at the Davidson's and it was so sweet. We went home so that we could do our weekly planning and then we tried a new referral named Junior, but he was not home. It was a good day filled with many surprises.

Because Luis and Alena have dropped us, we really only have a few investigators. We are trying to meet with Minelva and then we have Stephanie, who is the Jehovah Witness who we taught the Plan of Salvation to. She has so many questions because she thinks that the world is punished for Adams transgression and that is why Jesus came to the earth. She doesn't think that God came to suffer for her also?! It is really sad to me. We go back to her house on Friday. Then we have a guy named Ronjual who has been very hard to get in with and then we have Patricia, who is the super cute lady we met on Saturday. We are busy finding a lot and working to get with the potential's that we have. My Spanish is fine. It is nothing special but it is fine. It is really hard! But, we are going – we are just going forward.

Valentine's Transfer

This week we have transfers and so we won't have a regular Pday. We woke up this morning and got ready, studied, and then came to email our families. After lunch, we went and knocked doors. It was really awesome knocking today. We found a new investigator and taught a lesson, kind of the street contact, named Carlos. He is a really nice guy. He said to us "I know you guys don't know a lot of Spanish but I will work with you and talk slowly." We were like "No, sabemos bastante español." We let him know that he could just talk to us. Hermana Pearson wasn't happy about that, but it was pretty funny. We have another lesson with him on Saturday. We had dinner with a cute family – the Pedersen's. They have such cute, crazy kids. They are just so cute and squishy! We had a lesson with them with the Hershey’s kisses that Nana sent. Shout out to Nana and her kisses! We wanted to eat them all but we are trying to get “swole”!

We were driving around in Cole Valley which is just a little random town and we found a zoo! It is called the Nairobi Zoo! Here we are in this teeny, tiny town and it’s crazy. What the junk? There is a zoo in the middle of nowhere! I saw an alligator exhibit and I tried to drive by really slowly. There was a gate that entered into the zoo and when I turned in, the gate started to close. We hurried and left because I was super stressed that they were recording us and we were going to get busted. But it's all good. By the way, I started to drive! Hermana Pearson hasn't been feeling very well, and she doesn't love to drive, anyways, and honestly, I am just a better driver! Just kidding. It has been super fun!

Happy Valentine's Day! Today was pretty rough; I am not going to lie! We worked out this morning and it was super hard. My legs have been like jelly all day – it is kind of embarrassing and how out of shape I have become! I hobbled around all day because all we did was knock doors. I was trying to climb up the stairs and it was just so, so embarrassing. We taught a cute lady today from the Philippines named Leah. We taught her about the restoration and she seemed pretty interested but she was really the only one that let us into her house. We had dinner with the Bringas’s tonight. We had tostadas and I ate way too many! They were really good. We are on exchanges with the STL's tonight and so me and Sister Kimber tried to meet a couple of people. No one was home so me and Hermana Pearson came home to study Spanish. Sister Kimber and Sister Sarvela just kind of stayed and hung out with us. They are so cute! About 9:00 tonight we just hung out and sang songs together. It was so stress relieving and really wonderful! It was a really great day!

Wednesday was our last payday before transfers and it was fun! We cleaned our house and washed our clothes, and then went grocery shopping. I desperately need shoes and so we tried to go shopping for clothes. I really want to find some new boots to go tracting in. All I have are my heavy winter boots, flats, or the nice boots that Nana gave me that are way too hard to walk in for tracting. I had a hard time finding anything – the struggle is real. We went to Bettendorf and helped the Sisters pack because they are closing that area and they are leaving our zone. We will take over a lot of the people over there. So that is cool. We went to Pday in Davenport and we made planners for everyone and said goodbye to everyone that is going to be leaving. That was fun and very sad too. We had dinner with the Aucklands, who are this really cute and cool young couple. Then we helped the sisters move some more because they were freaking out about moving all of their stuff. My comp hit 9 months in the mission also! See her "baby belly"?!

 Elder Olsen, Elder Seljaas, Hermana Pearson

We made this cute door thing so that we can have self confidence! We write nice things about ourselves and each other on sticky notes and put them on our door. I know, we are the cutest people ever!

Thursday my companion wasn't feeling very well. She slept in a little while I did studies, then we went to Cole Valley and went to the library and did Mormon.org time. We tried to meet a media referral, but they were not home. So, we came back home and ate lunch. Later, we went to visit people and try to knock some doors. We met a couple of guys in their car that were super hammered. One of them was like "I know all about y'all Mormons. I know all about Brigham Young and Brigham Young University. I don't really want to talk about religion right now because I am pretty intoxicated." So we gave them a card and tried not to laugh too hard. We continued to knock and then they pulled around the corner in their car. I was super bummed because they were clearly drunk and they were driving. So we went up to them and said "hey, were you just driving?" He said "yeah, I just didn't want to go to the bathroom in public so we just went around the corner." I was like "don't you know it's not ok to drink and drive?! You have to promise me that you will never drink and drive again!" He looked at me and kind of brushed his chin. I said "C'mon, you have to promise me!" So he stuck out his pinky and we pinky promised that he wouldn't do it again. He said "Ok, I promise I won't do it again." Then his friend started telling us about Mormons and the pioneers, and how he knows everything about the pioneers. Then he said, "and you all don't celebrate Christmas either" and we said "oh no, we celebrate Christmas!" Then he asked who it is that doesn't celebrate Christmas. Hermana Pearson said it's the Jehovah's Witnesses and he was like "oh yeah, I know all about the Jehovah's Witnesses." He was so drunk and it was just so funny! Other than that, we just knocked a lot of doors today and it was awesome!

Friday we had a get to know you for zone meeting. We have a new zone leader and two new people in our area. Elder Blouse's new companion is Elder O’Bray – he's really cool and tall and stuff. Elder Fackrell’s new companion is Elder Jenkins. He is our new district leader. He is really nice. Elder Higley is our new zone leader. He is from a town on the border of Nevada and Utah. He is really into hunting and stuff. We went to lunch at a random Chinese place that was pretty good. That was pretty much the whole day- so yeah!

Saturday – Today was like 75° today! Outside we went tracting for most of the day. We made up a story the whole day about our district and stuff. It was super fun! We had dinner with the Coleman/Adams sisters. They are a mom/daughter duo who are converts to the church. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was super spiritual. Then we came home and cleaned our house. We clean our house every Saturday so that it will be nice for Sunday and so that we can keep the Sabbath day holy. We do have a brand-new investigator named Minelva! She is super! We knocked on her door a few weeks ago and she said she was sick. Then we knocked again a couple of weeks ago. We taught her about the plan of salvation and sang I am a child of God in Spanish. The spirit was really strong. She was really nice to us the whole time and invited us back. We had invited her to be baptized and she said yes if she decided these things were true. Of course she's going to know these things are true! We had invited her to church at that time and she couldn't come. This last time we finished teaching her about the plan of salvation and invited her to church. She promised she would be at church tomorrow! I am so excited… She will be the very first investigator that I have coming to church! She is about 50–54 and super shy. She is pretty hard to read. She has definitely been an answer to prayers! Super exciting!

Sunday – So last night at about 8:30 pm we were driving home, I was driving and we were traveling down the road going about 50 mph and it was all dark and stuff. Then, OUT OF NO WHERE, a deer jumped right in front of our car, a big buck (probably like a 5x5)!  I slammed on the breaks as hard as I could and swerved out of the way. The deer ran away and I seriously don't know how we didn't hit it. We seriously missed it by like half an inch I swear. It was super scary and so I got out of the car to see if maybe we did hit it – there wasn't a scratch to be seen. It was seriously a miracle ha ha but ya that's all :)  I wanted you to freak out because it’s not like ANYTHING CRAZIER THAN THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN IN IOWA except maybe like if we have an investigator that wants to listen to us! Ha ha!

Snow and Sniffles

Monday was Pday. We woke up and did our studies and got ready. Then we decided to go back to sleep until about 10:00 – so we kind of slept in, then we sent our emails which was as awesome as always. Then we went to the store and bought food, got pictures, hair stuff, and then we came home. Pday was in Davenport and we were the only sisters there. So we hung out with the elders and it was really fun. They played basketball. Hermana Pearson always has to make cookies because the elders convince her to. They say "will you make us cookies if I they make a shot" which is totally lame! I always try to get the elders to do stuff like buy me lunch, and even though I win, they never buy me lunch which is DUM. Whatever. We had dinner with the Josie's tonight. They have three little boys and one girl – all under the age of 10. One of the little boys was talking about how all the girls chase him at recess. So we asked him if the girls ever catch him and he said "no, I bail on them – I am a playsta gangsta!" That made us all laugh. They made us delicious taco soup and it was really good. Luis wasn't home when we went to visit him tonight. He just seems really lost and unwilling to do the things that we are asking him. So we are just trying to find a lot of new investigators to teach right now.

Tuesday was really, really warm! I mean it was really, really warm. It was like 48-50° outside. It was really, really nice! It wasn't overcast today; it was clear and beautiful out! In fact, at 6:30 this morning we got up and rode our bikes along a beautiful trail! It was so wonderful to be outside and have it beautiful. It was very foggy this morning. We were surrounded by trees riding along the bike trail and I was so happy, it was so awesome. At least it was really nice until about 4:30, then it got really cold! Then we went home, and did some ab workouts and had some breakfast and stuff. Honestly, I have been pretty grumpy lately because I haven't been sleeping very well.  Right now I am reading a talk by Elder Holland called "the Divine Companionship". It is about having a good relationship with the Holy Ghost. It is really cool, especially since that is what we are asking people to do, to receive the Holy Ghost in their lives. It is a really good talk and I recommend it!

Anyways, then we went and “found” pretty much all day. We looked for some less actives that we were asked to look up in Ward Council Sunday by the Bishop and none of them lived at the addresses that we had. So we just scratched them off the list, then we spent the rest of the day knocking doors. It was really fun because it was so nice outside! We went to the church for a while because Hermana Pearson practiced the piano. She gets to practice once a week for an hour because she plays for the church. And I kind of took a nap on the couch which made me a lot less grumpy! That was really nice.

I have been working very hard lately on becoming a consecrated missionary. I think I am having a hard time with faith right now. Just faith that I will learn Spanish and that we will find people to teach. Our investigators are being pretty flaky. We did find a new investigator named Alisa that we taught with a member. She was very open but informed us that she was born Catholic and would die Catholic. But she was really nice! She made us some Jell-O and some cornbread. We are going back tomorrow to teach the plan of salvation, but as you can see, I am having a hard time believing that she was going to progress. I need to work on my faith. Knocking is actually pretty fun and I am working on building up a callous! We had dinner with this cute couple named the McDonald's. It was a good day!  I love you guys a lot, my Spanish is really bad, but I am learning! So yeah!

Wednesday – so apparently it decided to snow all night last night! So much for riding our bikes. We just stayed home and worked out in our house. It was really awesome and fun though – it was the first snowstorm since I have been here. Knocking was very cold! We did however get to teach a couple of lessons! So that was good. We had a lesson with Minelva. I have only met her like twice, and she kind of blew us off, but always invited us back. She didn't seem super interested but today when we went back we were able to teach her part of the plan of salvation. The spirit was so strong. We sang I am a Child of God in Spanish to her and she said she got the chills. To be honest, we really felt the spirit enter the room at that time. We had an amazing discussion and everyone shared. It is not like our Spanish was anything amazing, but the spirit was definitely guiding our lesson. We were only able to get to “earth life” and started talking about repentance, then we bore very strong testimonies of the principles that we were teaching and then we invited her to be baptized. We asked her that when she came to church and read the Book of Mormon, when she knew these things were true would she be willing to be baptized and she was like "Si" I will do that. So awesome! I was having such a hard time not jumping up and down and sharing and hugging her in her house. She was so nice and so receptive to the message. It was so awesome! Then we went and had lunch with the sisters in our district. We invited them over and made hamburger helper. It was really good and I just love the sisters in our area. They are just super fun and cute and they gave us some referrals to a guy across the river over in Bettendorf.  We were so excited because we have never found a Latino in Bettendorf because everyone over there is too rich. We never even go knocking doors over there! They just don't live over there. We went and knocked on his door and he told us to come back another time. We tried to set up an appointment with him and he said just come back a different time. Then we tried to get his name and he wouldn't tell us. He basically told us not to come back and that he really was not interested. It was pretty funny. It was so weird!? We went over to Luis’s house and asked him what was going on. He has not been answering our calls or even acknowledging us. Hermana Pearson told him "Listen Luis, if you don't want to listen to our message, it is fine you need to just let us know." He just told us that he's been really tired and he informed us that even though everything we had taught him is good and he knows it is, he just does not see himself as becoming a Mormon. It was so sad! He literally broke my heart. He basically just said "hey, I know that your church is true but I just don't want to do the work to be a Mormon." He just wants to be lazy. I was so bugged. Oh well. We had another lesson with Alisa and we taught her part of the restoration. Hermana Martinez-Bringas had come to the last lesson with us and it was really great even though she was not so committed to anything but her Catholic religion. This time we brought Hermana Quinn. She went to Venezuela on her mission. She bore such a great testimony about the Book of Mormon and it was a really awesome lesson. My Spanish was really bad in that one, but it's OK. We are good today, the lessons we had were really great and when Hermana Pearson asked her what she thought, Alisa said when she reads these things it makes her want to listen to more of what we have to share. Sweet! When we got back to our apartment – BOOM our door was all decorated. ;) It was seriously the cutest thing I have ever seen and we think it was our Elders!! Ha ha, they are so cute. Transfers are this week so we are going to be saying goodbye to some of the people in our district :(

Thursday was OK. But I'm kind of sad. We had district meeting at noon and so in the morning we went and did Mormon.org time and then we went to district meeting. We learned a lot about trying to get our investigators to church and stuff. I really love our district and I am sad because a lot of them are getting transferred this next week. I'm sure it will be fine. Then we went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch with everyone and that was really fun. I forgot how much I miss sports. It was really bad – I just wanted to watch TV the entire time. What are you going to do? I honestly haven't been feeling very well today and I started feeling bad last night. Hermana Pearson made me come home and go to bed. I have a really bad headache and I am pretty congested in my sinuses. I am sure it will be better tomorrow though.

Friday – Hermana Pearson made me stay home today. I wanted to go out and was really mad but she drugged me with some Nyquil and she made me delicious food and cleaned the house. We went out for a little while and took cookies to some fun members in our ward. We went to the chiropractor for a little bit and came home because I was starting to feel dizzy. I slept for a bit. While we were home we realized that we could not find our phone anywhere. We were super worried that we had put it in the washer while we were doing laundry but a miracle happened and we found it at the chiropractic office! Then we studied for a while, oh and we also took a chair from the church… because we ARE the church! So that's really fine. Just kidding. It really is okay. Hermana Pearson is super drugging me with Nyquil even though she swears that I am an adult and can take that much. My eyeballs were sealed shut this morning and I was not feeling good, but I am sure that I probably will sleep through our work out tomorrow. Also, thank you for the Valentine's Day stuff. We were able to decorate our house and it is super cute, we can't wait to open our presents!

On Saturday, I slept through our alarms and everything because I had taken so much medicine last night. It made me feel bad because I slept through studies but Hermana Pearson called Sister Badger and told her I was sick. Today was a really, pretty day and it was over 50° and we tried to be outside as much as possible. We spent a lot of time knocking doors and looking for potential's, it was really nice. We went to a ladies house that was a referral from a member in our ward. Her name is Tisha and she has four kids, one is a little baby. The two little girls let us in because she was sleeping. Oh my gosh! I have never seen cuter girls in the world and they are getting baptized! They were telling us how she only needs one more lesson and has to take her “test” (interview) and then she gets to be baptized. Tisha is baptized but less active and her boyfriend is a nonmember. They are really cool people and we are hopefully going back tomorrow after church. I cannot get over how cute her daughters are! We really did spend most of the day just knocking; we did not really have any lessons today. I still am feeling a little sick. Just kind of cold and flu-ish and it is hard to keep moving because my head starts pounding. It is fast Sunday tomorrow and we are preparing for that. Spanish is coming along slowly but surely and everything is really good. It is really fun being a missionary. My companion is so awesome and I love her.

Consecrated Missionary

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!! I love you more than life itself! Sister Sarvela is so cool. We went proselyting and she is SUPER bold. We went to an investigators house and he was have a hard time focusing and she asked him what was going on and he just said "I'm just pretty hungry" so she stood up walk right into his kitchen and opened his fridge. He didn't have a single thing in his fridge or freezer. He had a box of mac n cheese in his cupboard but nothing to cook it in. So she said, “we will be right back" and we went back to her apartment and she CLEARED OUT her fridge and shelves and brought his as much food as we could carry. She was super clear about this not happening all the time but that for now he won’t go hungry. Her confidence and willingness to give all that she had reminded me SO much of mom. I just love her so much.

OK – so these pictures are kind of all over the place but they are the cutest family ever – LA FAMILIA BRINGAS!! They have the cutest kids! Also we talked to their grandma and we are going to go over there once a week for an hour and speak Spanish with her so we can better learn – which I really need! Nana sent me a cute package for Valentine’s Day so I took a little photo shoot for her but I wanted to send you guys a pic too. I just thought it would be selfish of me not to share the love that is my face – LOL. The sky here is SO PRETTY. Never in my life have I been able to see so much sky. Oh and that girl is sister Sarvela, she is my STL. We went on exchanges this week and we became best friends – but she leaves this transfer :( but she’s super cool.

Yes, I am writing in my journal, but it’s so hard because I just want to sleep! Zone conference was cool –President and Sister Badger spoke to us. Sister Badger talked about closing our hearts to the elders (and vice versa) and staying focused on the work.... there have been some problems with that in other districts and President Badger talked to us about having our own visions. Like to set goals of the kind of missionary you want to become. He wants us to be FOCUSED, be CHEERFUL, be BELIEVING, and be STILL and KNOW THAT I AM GOD. Which was AWESOME!  I have gotten really good at setting goals while being out here. I also really want to be a consecrated missionary. Like throw all of my energy, heart, might, MIND, and strength into this wonderful work. I am super pumped. I feel like so much of the time I really like to work hard and study and stuff but my mind isn’t really in it – like I will be thinking of other things. So I am really working on keeping my thoughts centered in Christ. Zone Conference was in Davenport and the Assistants to the President gave a training on being sanctified missionaries and the STLs (Sister Training Leaders) gave training on the Higher Law of Chasity. It was awesome. You guys, I am seriously loving this work. It has been hard to find people who want to talk and learn from us but we just keep chipping away.

By the way, I didn’t forget I just have been saying other things but HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!! You are amazing and beautiful and everything in between! I love you guys so much and I have to go, but just know that I am loving it here. I wish I was speaking more Spanish, but I know that God has a plan for me and everything will go great!! Oh and PS – we get to go to this chiropractor whenever we want because he is a member! By the way, we found this magazine in his waiting room. Coincidence? I don't think so.