February 28th, 2013

hola familia :)
i'm starting week four now! crazy.. i really enjoy getting all your letters, packages and emails! supposedly it doesn't work if i just push "reply" so i'm not sure if you all got the email i sent you individually last week. sorry if you didnt! things are going great. I haven't had any breakdowns-yet. Except for the fact that my district all has departure dates before me. I'm not stressing out yet but supposedly i'm here till the 27th. heck no!! i'll break out of here. Spanish is coming along better now. Our teacher was gone all of last week and the 2 weeks before that, he was acting as the investigator so we are just now getting to know him. He's really cool. We've had some cool teaching experiences this week.. we have 4 progressing investigators. (they're teachers here.. but they make it seem super real) and it's awesome because the spirit testifies in so many different ways! We taught Juan, who doesn't want to belong to any church and is really faithful in reading his bible. He didn't want anything to do with the church but once we talked about eternal families.. got him! They finally put my name up in the gym and gave me a certificate for the 3 pointers. I beat the free throw record last night with 26 in a row but the lady that was in charge was like "i didnt see it.." ugh. could've killed someone at that point. so i'll have to try it again. Guess what!! M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to us on Tuesday night at the devotional! It was amazing. I sing in the choir so I get super good seats every week for devotional. We sang Consider the Lillies. Which made me think of you mom.. Belting out Music and the Spoken Word while i'm still sleeping on Sunday mornings. In your paper towel robe. I told all my district about that because we watch Music and the Spoken Word before Relief Society each week. Sundays are my favorite days here. I'm so sick of the food. It's not bad, just doesn't taste good anymore. I literally eat fruit and chocolate milk for every meal. Unless they have Country Fried Steak Dinner.. then i definitely eat that. Takes me back to elementary school and when Dad would have me mix my egg nog with skim milk because i was chubby. Haha I was able to go out into the real world this week! My companion got pink eye so we had to go to an after hours clinic and rite aid to get some medicine. It was great! Last sunday was pretty emotional.. 2 of our districts left, as well as lindsay. And our favorite counselor in the branch presidency got released as well. A lot of goodbyes. But i know that soon enough i'll be leaving too! Our new counselor is broth and sister Price. Their kids went to Brighton and they lived in willow creek till a few years ago. It's crazy how small of a world it is. Especially if you're mormon.. ha I hope everything is going well back home! I pray for you all every night. I'm going to try and send an e-mail to each of you/your families.. we'll see if it works! Thanks for all your prayers and support. I love you so much!
marissa
ps i'm sorry i'm so awful at writing!! we're only allowed to write on p days and it takes FOREVER. i'll try and write more though. 

Greg's brother, Brian has been sooo awesome. He helps me and my companion with Spanish a few times a week and takes his own time to do it. Mom i might have you make him cookies at some point or something.. 

our roommates who left this week to florida and washington state. and all the hermanas in our zone in the second pic :)

it's not awkward at all. it's actually really fun seeing greg. we have the same eating schedule so i see him in the cafeteria. we wanted to take an awkward one though. and the other one is my zone.