¡Gracias gracias gracias!

Hello friends!
I hope you all enjoyed this week of family and thanksgiving for the countless blessings we all have.

For Thanksgiving (ó día de gracias/día de la acción de gracias) on Thursday, all the missionaries in the ward went to the Bishop's house for dinner. It was my first Thanksgiving feast without mashed potatoes, but true to Hispanic form, there was a lot of rice. We also had turkey and a few other stuffing-like dishes (I wish I could explain them better, but I honestly have no idea what they were). I haven't had too many problems eating things on my mission so far due to taste, usually quantity is the bigger issue, but I was really struggling with one of the dishes during Thanksgiving dinner. My sweet companion saw I was having a hard time and helped me out by discretely switching our plates and then finishing my food for me.

Friday I woke up not feeling super well, but I was sure it was just from the big meal the day before so off to the track we went! Two miles later my stomach still wasn't in the best place, but we continued the day as normal with breakfast, planning, and studies. During lunch I opted for a nap while my companion ate as the idea of more food was not particularly appealing to me. The nap definitely helped and although I wasn't 100%, I was ready to go out and work! The English sisters picked us up, and we all headed over to Walmart to try and do some Black Friday parking lot contacting. We were almost to Walmart when disaster struck. And by disaster, I mean the eggs I had for breakfast. The car ride put me over the edge, and I lost it in the back seat.

Needless to say, we did not end up doing any contacting. The English sisters ran inside to buy medicine, saltines, soup, and more cleaning supplies while I worked with what they already had in the car to clean up the mess. Hermana Hopson, bless her soul, sat next to me and cancelled all of our appointments for the rest of the day, at the same time assuring me that it was fine, and she didn't really like the shirt she had let me borrow that morning.

The rest of Friday and Saturday (I was feeling a little bit better by then, but Hermana Hopson was down) was spent at home. But it ended up being a blessing, as it gave me ample time to write the talk I had to give in Sacrament meeting on Sunday. :)

Other things from earlier in the week:
*Wednesday we had a special Thanksgiving themed ward family home evening at the church. A bunch of people we invited from English Class came, non of whom are members, so that was awesome.
*Tuesday while walking to the church we passed a homeless man on the bridge going into Newark. He was crouched down in a place where the path narrows due to some machinery that juts out, I assumed to take shelter from the wind. Because of this not only could we not see him super well, but we would be only a foot or two away from him as we passed. It wasn't until we were steps away from him that we realized his pants were down and he was actively using the bathroom. At that point we decided against a contact attempt, averted our eyes, and just kept walking as quickly as possible.
*The rest of the missionaries in the ward got sick as well. We think it was just a virus going around, but we also all ate the mystery stuffing on Thanksgiving, so who knows really.
*Hermana Hopson and I have been translating Disney songs into Spanish while looking for potential. It's hilarious. Our favorite is the duet from Frozen with Elsa and Anna.  "Por la primera vez en para siempre"🎶
*A Hispanic man approached us on the street corner talking in English, handed us a flyer and asked if we could donate to a group to help people overcome addictions. We explained that we couldn't donate, but took the flyer anyway asking if we could give him a card. He took the card and started looking at it as I was explaining who we were. After a minute he interrupted me, "Wait. This is in Spanish. Do you speak Spanish?"
ME: "Si, hablamos Español" (yes, we speak Spanish)
HIM: "But... you're white."
ME: "Es verdad" (it's true)
At this point our bus came, so the conversation got cut short. But we left him pleasantly surprised to find two very white young women who could speak to him in his native language.

XOXO
Hermana Croft