oh my gosh he's so cooooooool

Hola!

We have a friend we found on Facebook named Erick and he's like the frickin classiest guy. He went to Harvard and a few other big name universities. He's super smart and is pretty golden. (he's the person I was talking about a few weeks ago that I want to improve my Spanish so I can talk to him better) He's originally from Mexico. We were talking one day about learning Spanish and he showed us his visual dictionary he used when he was learning French (he speaks English fluently as well..) We thought it was super cool and he said he'd give it to us when he comes to church. We asked him where he lives and he said Alexandria...... bruh. I love Alexandria but I don't live there anymore. We were devastated because that means we can't teach him, we have to pass him off to other missionaries. This is literally the best frickin guy. He drove 25 minutes to Woodbridge to pick up his Libro de Mormón and also to come to church this Sunday (he brought his mom too!). We haven't got his exact address so we don't know who to pass him to yet.

He came to church today and he is really tall. My companions and I were talking about how he is like a unicorn. We found him on Facebook of all places, he's like 6'4 (literally all the spanish speakers we interact with are short), so well dressed, intelligent, and reliable. He gave us his visual dictionary and it is pretty fascinating. I could look through it for hours. He wrote us a nice note inside it too!

Erick told us that he gets tons of message requests on facebook every single day, and he never responds to them. He said one day he saw our message and he decided to respond!! He said he didn't know why, but he responded and started messaging us!! He actually started off by questioning us, but then opened up more over a few more messages. Missionaries, don't give up on Facebook finding! It pays off someday. We haven't taught him the first vision yet but we've taught up to the Great Apostasy and a few other things like the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has a lot to say each lesson. He thinks the Book of Mormon is interesting, and is really open.

I was talking last week about how I miss music. I have access to a big google drive for missionary music and have been downloading a lot of video game music that I feel like is appropriate. Lots of Stardew Valley and some Undertale and some calmer Mario songs, Minecraft. I have to be a bit careful because some missions have different guidelines for music, and some missionaries have different ideas of what exactly they can listen to. It helps me calm down a bit

As for bird watching this week we saw a lot of turkey vultures flying around. So that's cool. We also have a Northern Harrier living in the woods in the back of our apartment complex. Also we saw a deer one time, his name is Bucky. We know it his name because when we said "hola Bucky" he lifted his head up and looked at us. Apparently he knows Spanish as well... hahaha. Sorry I have no pictures, all of my attempts to take pictures of birds or animals have gone terribly.

Language learning is going pretty well. I want to get a label maker and label all the things in our apartment with the word for it in Spanish. I think if I keep being diligent at Spanish I won't remember how to speak English correctly. That's the goal

My companions are still the same - health nuts a bit, really love shopping, but nice.

Last bit of good news! We think our friend Roberto can be baptized soon! He's been waiting to be baptized for like a year but his wife wouldn't let him. In the past she's told him she wouldn't let him see his kids if he got baptized. His wife and kids live in El Salvador, and his kids are pretty much all grown up. He said he talked with her and she told him he was an adult and could make his own decisions! And he said he thinks everything will be okay, that she will probably be angry with him for a few days but be okay after that. We called our mission president and he understands the situation pretty well, and he said that is sufficient permission, and he can be baptized!

Que pase un buen semana!

Hermana Smalley

Fotos:
Misc Dictionary pictures and note
Sunrise

Memes I thought were particularly funny