In case anyone has been wondering, tomorrow I hit 9th months on the mission! What the crazy!?! I can't believe I'm already half way through. Time flies.
So update on life in my new area. New Rochelle is basically the opposite of everything I knew in the Bronx. The ward is big but the attendance is super small. But everyone is super nice and excited to have sisters in the ward (because lets be honest, we're way cooler than those smelly elders). It's actually a Spanish and a Portuguese ward which makes life a bit more interesting. Most everything is in Spanish but the Gospel Principles teacher is Brazilian so it was fun trying to figure out what she was saying the whole time. Luckily the two languages are similar enough, especially with church language, that we understood most of it. Also, I'm just liking that I'm serving in Spanish again, even if sometimes I think "Wow life was so much easier when I was serving in English and I understood everything that was going on."
The area is different. There aren't very many apartments but all of the houses have multiple people living in them. They split each house into apartments by floors so knocking doors is a little strange. We did start knocking this one apartment building and it ended up being a senior citizen home. That was a first. I'm pretty sure Hermana Brog thought I was psycho that I made her knock there but I didn't even realize that it wasn't a normal apartment building until everyone we talked to ended up being in wheelchairs or on their death beds.
New Rochelle is also a lot classier than the Bronx. I mean it's not too far out of the city so we're not talking super classy but there's not as many creepy men yelling things at us on the street and the sidewalks are trash and dog poop free so that makes life wonderful. We even had a nice man and his wife say "God bless you" out their car the other day and it was a genuine comment not a sly way of saying "Hey I think you're hot" like the boys in the Bronx meant it.
Despite all of these great things, I am still missing the Bronx a lot. I hate driving around here because I'm pretty much always lost, even with a GPS. Luckily, Hermana Brog also doesn't want to sit in the car all day so we park our car a lot and walk around, which has been the best. Also we just aren't working with too many people so that's hard. But it seems like each day we find either a new person to work with or potential people to work with so little by little things will get better. I just don't think I really knew what I was getting myself into when I accepted the call to open a new area. Plus I think no matter how awesome the rest of the areas I serve in are, I will always love the Bronx just a little bit more. How could I not after serving there for half my mission?
Training had been good so far. Hermana Brog is really hard working and thankfully she doesn't hate me too much for also having no idea what we're supposed to do here. She says that knocking doors makes her feel like a real missionary so I'm glad I could help fulfill all her missionary dreams. And she doesn't hate me for crying sometimes (or a lot of times....) because all the stress starts to build up and I freak out. Looks like things haven't changed too much in that area of my life while I've been on a mission.
I hope you are all enjoying the lovely springtime weather! Have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Parkin
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