My world has gone topsy tervy. I now serve in Redwood City with my new companion, Sister Alaalatoa from Western Samoa.
Sister Alaalatoa is a Spanish speaking missionary but we serve in the Samoan unit (it's hasn't been made a branch yet). So we teach people in Samoan, Spanish, and sometimes English. We mostly cover Redwood City, San Jose and East Palo Alto.
I am just a lonely palangi (white girl) surrounded by very very large Samoans at every Church function. Church service is mostly in Samoan but there's some English here and there. The Samoan people are so generous and so humble and the music sung in Church is impeccable. The people are so nice- even the speaker blessed me over the pulpit when I sneezed in Sacrament meeting. The hardest thing for me so far is having Samoans feed me like a Samoan. I've never eaten so many carbs and so much dead animal in my life. I miss vegetables. I seriously don't know what to do about how much food they give me. Even when we don't have a dinner appointment, we drop in to people's homes and they shove food at my face. After feeling some consequences of eating like a Samoan one night, I decided that I was just going to be that bratty white girl and not eat any desserts that were given to me. The next day we went to the home of some less-active members. We talked to one young man then sat down on the couch and then a very large ten year old boy came out of nowhere and set up two tables in front of us. The next thing I knew, I was eating a Samoan portion of spaghetti. As soon as our plates were empty and cleared, they gave us each a big bowl of ice cream, two cupcakes and some milk. I didn't even know where the food was coming from! I didn't have the heart to refuse the desserts so now I'm in a pickle. Should I make up an allergy? Maybe I'm vegetarian. I'll be in this area for five more weeks; I don't know if my body can handle this poly diet. It's easy to refuse food when it's offered but people keep giving without asking. I never thought this would be a problem of mine.
Since our Samoan unit is still pretty small, we teach a lot of Spanish people in the area. I'm in love with all the little ninos. I watched loonytoons with some little kids who couldn't understand me the other day while my companion got a haircut. I can understand about 20% of the Spanish conversations/lessons. I'm picking it up pretty quickly because my roommates are Spanish speaking too. Actually, my whole district speaks Spanish except for me. Even my apartment is covered in espanol. There are sticky notes all over the house labeling things in Spanish. I tell people that I like their curtains because I accidentally learned "la cortina" because I study by the window every morning.
Redwood City is no place like home. We live in a pretty non-residential area, across from an Old Navy and a lot of Spanish restaurants. 90% of the people we teach live in dark, cold, tiny apartments. I always knew I was spoiled in my circumstances growing up but it's different to see it with my eyes. Most of the Spanish people we see escaped from even more poverty in Mexico, Peru or Guatemala to live in their humble homes here. My new favorite couple rents out a bedroom in a nice house. They are not a young couple but they have everything they own in the bedroom where they live. They wanted to feed us so the husband went out and got some In N Out for us to eat in their room. They kept offering us more food that we refused and then they sent us home with a Little Caesar's pizza.
A few nights ago, we went out to eat with a very large Tongan woman. She forced me to get sooooo much food. As we tried to end our conversation with a spiritual thought for her, we were interrupted by a man who worked at the restaurant. He came to make sure we enjoyed everything but my Mormon-dar is so good that I knew he was a member of the Church and that he wanted to talk to us. He told us that his brother is a member of the Church but after a little bit of conversation we found out that he's been a less-active member for 15 years. He talked to us about how evil the world is and how hard it is to be good but as long as you know God lives, that's enough. False. I was pretty bold with him but he could take it. We committed him to read Alma Chapter 36 in the Book of Mormon. He said he would. So hopefully reading about the blessings that come from repentance will help to heal his wounded soul.
I spend everyday trying not to ask myself why the heck I'm here, serving in a ghetto area with people who can't understand me and want to make me fat. I'm pretty solid at always remembering my purpose as a missionary and I know that everything in the Church, especially missionary work is inspired. So even though my brain thinks I belong elsewhere, I know I'm where I need to be.
Who's excited to skype with me in 15 days??? I love Christmas and Christmas on the mission is going to be a party.
I Love everything and everyone.
-Hermana Kyle
New addy for the next 5 weeks.
Redwood City, CA 94061
US of A
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