Dispatches from Del Rio

HOOOOOLLLLAAAAAA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS!!

HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! OOOHHH HOW I WISH I WAS THERE. I HOPE IT IS A FANTASTIC DAY. i AM SENDING YOU A LETTER BUT I HAVE NO IDEA WHEN IT WILL GET THERE. I LOVE YOU SOOOO MUCH. Rae i hope you had a fantastic birthday as well. i love you too! HAPPY HAPPY TIMES EN MI FAMILIA!

Si yo hablo espanol. I don't know if ya'll heard but.....I MADE IT TO THE BOARDER!! i literally stuck my foot across the fence to say that i made it out of the country on my mission! haha technically i am not out of the country till i cross the Rio Gran pero its a nice thought. Ok so i am in a town just a few miles from the boarder. Its one of the 3 coveted missions here so i am sooo blessed. I get to speak Spanish and English every day. Too bad i can't speak Spanish so i end up looking dumbly at the Hispanics and they look at me like i am an idiot. I am trying though and the lord will bless me for my efforts. My companion is Sister DeLeon. Yes. sister of lion. She is a lion. She is tall and is pretty much the epitome of 'perfect' missionary. She lives by her white hand book and she doesn't mess around. She is really driven and is perfect at Spanish. (she learned it on her mission) - this gave me motivation to learn it myself but i am SOOOO intimidated. President really loves her. I am blessed because she is patient and will help me learn my Spanish. We are part of a tester program for the church in training new missionaries so.....EVEN BETTER NEWS......I AM GUARANTEED TO BE HERE FOR 12 WEEKS!! YAAAAHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! OH I'M SOOO BLESSED. Please pray that i will get this language. Please pray that i can learn fast because after my 12 weeks with sister De Leon, i AM GOING TO TRAIN A NEW MISSIONARY!!!!! bbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppppppppppp!!

Yes, its quite a task ahead of me. I think president likes me....i hope. I get to play my violin this week at district meeting. (we have a guest coming and so are our zone leaders whom i have not met). I am so baffled by how much the Lord blesses me every day. I will give you a little run down on how this happened when i got here. So i woke up at 3 got on the bus to the airport at 4 and then went through security and it was about 6:30. Called all y'all and almost missed my flight. I was the last one to board the plane. Petrified i would miss it again (and in actuality i only had like 20 min) i didn't call when i got to Arizona. Well when i finally got to Texas, i was pooped but the President and his wife and the A.P. met us there. They were all very happy and helpful. We went to the President's house for lunch and then had a little orientation meeting. Then we went promptly to the Alamo where we were read the story of the Alamo and then asked to cross the line and be on the Lord's side. Sounds cheesy but it was actually pretty cool. Then we were all given a book of Mormon and with no other instruction, were told, in a half hour to give it away. Easy enough....NOT! I started walking towards a man and he literally ran away from me. I laughed out loud because it reminded me of when Libbi was the blood drop and tried to give that boy a hug and he ran away....oh it was so funny. That happened for the next 20 minutes because there were 18 missionaries going out and giving books of Mormon within a block radius of one another. It was soooo fun. Wwwaaaayyy harder than i thought it would be but i met a man and he told me he already had one sitting in his basement. I committed him to read the intro to the b.o.m. and it was awesome cuz he was like uummm yeah i think i need that. Thank you. i was like if you have any questions or anything you can always come find us. We're always around -because i didn't have a house or anything i knew to say where to find us. It was cool. The next day we got assigned our companions. Holy trip. Its like a giant round of cattle branding because you break off in your different zones once you've been assigned. Yeah....my zone....a companionship of elders and us. We have Eagle Pass in our zone but they weren't training so none of them were at this meeting. It was way cool though. Then we got in the car and drove for 3 hours to the boarder. It is so stinkin flat here. I miss the mountains and will miss the mountains till i return. I guess we just missed all the bad weather of 110 degrees. Its been fairly cold here though (60-75) lately.

Its hard to sum up everything that has happened because its so much....and so different than any experience in the MTC but its soo cool working on talking to REAL people. Door approaches and contacting kick me in the trash every day. I get so scared to ask them if we can come back. A lot of people are nice for the most part -besides the occasional GET OFF MY PORCH. But its good. Sometimes its in Spanish and I can't tell what they are saying to me so i just smile and nod my head till i receive some sort of hand sweep that i can only assume that they want me to get off their porch. haha i am so lost here but i truly am trying. I am determined to learn and to be the best missionary.

A fun story that i will leave you with is this: My first real day as a missionary, we were called to help a less active member. Her name is Kim Smith. Sounds awesome! Well i was stoked. We show up at her house and before she even opens the door, i am dying from second hand smoke. ok so she smokes...wuppy who doesn't? Well when she opens the door, her baby dog took that opportunity to run at me. Don't worry, she caught the dog by the scruff of the neck and it yelped. I felt terrible. Despuace said perro experiencia, we entered su casa. It was hard to breathe at first but my lungs soon acclimatized as we were lead to a back room. One look at that room and i though i would die. There was a closet in the back corner that had clothes vomiting from it. There was a deflated blow up mattress in the middle of the floor with boxes, clothes and garbage on top of it. We did not realize till later that there was also a desk mixed in there. Well we started just boxing up these clothes - a combination of both male and female clothing. Libbi you would be proud, i found several spiders and killed them all. Yeah. gross . red spiders. gross gross grossss!!! Entonses, We start talking to Sister Smith and she starts telling us that she hated that her son and this "hill billy skank" -as she referred to her- lived under her roof out of wedlock. She said she knew it was against God and his will. We tried to enforce that but as the conversation went on, we found out that both were in prison. yeah...and then she just said that they did "the crime" together. And then i said 'oh boy. sounds complicated. Will they be there for a while" and she said. Yes. Probably for the rest of their lives. They bludgeoned a man to death....................................WWWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!! yeah. We handled murder's clothing. Two of them in fact. But don't worry. The murderous girlfriend had been friends with the missionaries. How do i know this? Oh we found pictures. of them. inside the apartment in which i now live. yEAH. Life is crazy here in Texas.  I am having fun. I am eating the best Mexican food i have ever tasted in my life. I am sure i have already gained  about 15 dress sizes. OH another reason why my area rocks---i get to ride a bike part time. (the elders and us share a car). I am blessed. sooo many blessings in mi vida.

Well this was suuuper long. I"m sorry about that but its been a crazy time. I can't tell you how aw3esome it was to talk to ya'll. I wish we could have talked for longer. I wish i could have a hug but i chose a different path and i need to stick with it. I miss you so much. Please don't ever forget how much i love ya'll. God is real and he is in the details of our lives. I need to learn this language and i have a heart attack every day because i am so bad but i know in whom i trust.

To finish up: i need everyone's hard address because i only have an hour of e-mail time and i have to write president. If you send me letters to the mission home, i won't get them for months because i live so far away. Seriously, send them to my address here. How is David Phillips? How is Ben Lariviera? Jimmy my love how are you?- i'ma write you a song..uuuhhh i mean a letter. :) NO seriously. i am going to write y'all. Its trippy though. Mutti Papa- i love you. Gus sus-i love you (Thank you for your letters both)  I am trying to be all that i can be. I miss you all sooo much. God bless each and every one of you. Utah is so beautiful. Don't take it for granted. Soo much love all an e-mail can contain.

Hermana Sarah Cate Sorensen

219 Avondale #77

Del Rio, Texas

78840

Gracias por su ejemplos en mi vida. Te amo!!!!!

Hermana Sorensen