Sorry this is a little late, it snowed on our p-day and we couldn't drive, so we didn't get to do email. It's about 6-7 degrees right now, and tomorrow morning it's going to be about -3 degrees. Welcome to Colorado I guess. I should probably count my blessings though that I'm not in Russia or Mongolia right now, the missionaries there probably would love 7 degrees.
I have two food stories this week, the kind that your mom prepares you for your whole life when you don't like a dinner and she tells you it'll prepare you for your mission where you'll eat really weird food and have to eat all of it - with gusto. So, I'm pleased to announce that I got down 2 huge bowls of menudo, a Spanish soup eaten at special occasions and made with the inner walls of a cow's stomach. Basically it's these mouthful-size chunks of cow stomach floating in a red soup base with onion, cilantro, and oversize corn kernel things. The texture of the "meat" is like a rubber sea-sponge toy, and it's pretty much useless to break it down by chewing. The taste is OK, not overpowering, although I'm not sure why it might take the place of a birthday cake at a party. In each bowl I had to eat about 20 mouthfuls of the stomach, and since the other elders' bowls were smaller I had to eat quickly to keep up and avoid the appearance that I didn't love the dish. That meant less chewing, so I had big chunks of the stomach I had to straight-swallow, and I gagged once, luckily nobody was paying attention to me right then. But, I made it through, and now have liberty to use a slew of new puns, like a shirt that could say "I can stomach menudo!"
The next story is the classic Spanish meal story, which missionaries have been telling me about since I got here. There were 5 of us missionaries who went to eat with a nice old Spanish lady (she's about 90) named Hermana (Sister) Riviera. She cooked enough food for us to have fed an entire zone conference, and she insisted that it was all for us because she didn't want us to leave empty. We got started, and took heaping portions to convince the hermana that her food was great and we were grateful. She kept us eating continually for over an hour, and if it seemed like we were starting to slow down she would tell us "I'm sorry you don't like the food, my cooking isn't that good. My mother was so much better of a cook."! We then had to redouble our efforts and try to tell her that the food was fantastic. I ate so much that I almost lost it on the table, and it was barely enough to appease her. I've never viewed eating like working out before, but getting down the last couple plates was as hard as a swim-team workout. You have to pace yourself and push yourself mentally, resist thoughts of giving up and putting the food back on the table, or just yelling out that you've had enough. We were eating for nearly 2 hours, then we sang a few hymns for her and left, completely useless as missionaries for the rest of the day.
The missionary work here is going great. We had 5 investigators at church this week and we should have more this next week. We've got to get a bunch of people married, and we'll have 6 baptisms. The people are otherwise ready. We taught a few really cool lessons this week where it was apparent that the Spirit had been hard at work, changing lives and attitudes, and the people are progressing. The Lord is involved in this work, sometimes a lot more than we think.
Thank you all so much for your thoughts and prayers. I often feel like the Lord blesses me and the missionaries a lot more than we deserve, and the credit belongs to the faith of those who support us. So again, thank you all so much, I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Damon Janis
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