I'm in NYC!!!!!

I'm here!!!! Of course New York city is amazing, why wouldn't it be?

Before we get to the top ten this week, I'll answer your questions Mom:

I can read letters every day whenever I get them so everyone is free to still mail letters. Just mail it to the mission address (the one you used to send me all those letters already :) and that'll work great. We don't give out our actual address cause I'm actually in the CIA and it's against the rules. But the mission office just forwards them on.

I have 1 hour to read and send emails on preparation day which is a lot less stressful than the 30 minutes in the MTC. And yes mother, I can print off emails and reread them later. I can print off 20 free pages each week so don't send anything longer than that :)

I of course LOVED my bedding package and I am now the most popular person in NYC because of it. THANK YOU! And I loved the pillow cases. I'm sure our beloved sister dahl had something to do with that so tell her thanks for me.

Okay, top ten of NYC week one here we come!

1. I am assigned to the Richmond Hills area in Queens! I've been told it is the sketch-iest place they send spanish sisters but its actually not that scary. They don't send sisters to the east ny part of brooklyn, especially since two elders just got jumped there last transfer.......but I'm going start praying I get sent there sometime on the mish. It is SO amazing and SO diverse. I counted and I haven't seen a white person in 4 days. Hahaha loves it. I don't know if the girls remember it but in iRobot i think with Will Smith he's yelling outside at the even stevens kid and it's all ghetto and there's this big old train track above the street. Anyway, I can't remember the movie too well but I'm pretty sure that's where I live. So yes, it rocks. I live in the Queens! Queens people!

2. My companion is Hermana Unga and she's from Hawaii. Her parents are from Tonga and she was going to BYU Hawaii before the mish studying biology. She is AMAZING and we have so much fun together. She also happens to sound like a native spanish speaker so people think she's a little weird to hang out with a white girl (aka me) all day when we're out on the streets. Just to give you a taste of our beautiful relationship, last night we walked to visit with less actives for 3 hours in the dark and rain. It was raining harder than Washington......believe it cause it's the truth. So our clothes were soaked and not ONE person answered the door.....so while walking we sang Christmas songs and talked about all our favorite food.......time of my life! It was seriously one of my favorite moments here so far!

3. President Nelson and Sister Nelson are obviously awesome. I don't know how to really express it in words besides saying that they're everything I hoped they would be.

4. My apartment. Brace yourselves. You'll be proud to know that I killed my first cochroach (sp?) yesterday......it took me that long to build up the courage.....my companion's been doing it for me. The apartment is right above a shop and its awesome. As in it's what I pictured a NY apartment to be. We only have enough room in our closet-sized bedroom for dresses and a bunk bed......which is still pretty tight. And I'm on the top bunk.....and the bunk bed is about to break so it sways when you move or turn at all.....and especially when you're climbing up it. So I literally pray every night that I don't kill my companion in her sleep as it crashes to the floor. I don't think you even understand how much it sways......a lot. A lot a lot. Oh and I forgot to mention the ceiling fan is right above my bed......so I have to army crawl on it if I don't want to chop my head off. I LOVE my life. Seriously, that was not sarcastic......I love it here!

5. We teach English class every Wednesday and it's super fun. This last week we taught them how to ask what time it is and it was pretty much a party.

6. I love going Fearlessing. This is just what we call street contacting and it's always fun to see the look on people's faces when the only white person in Richmond Hills starts speaking spanish. Everyone's favorite excuse is to say "I'm catholic". For some reason they think that will get them off the hook. So then I love to say, "That's great! So you already believe in God and have a desire to do His will!" That throws them off guard.....muhahaha and then BOOM the Book of Mormon. Can't deny the truth baby! Another sister calls fearlessing "Hispanic Panic". Rude but actually quite true.

7. A snapshot of some of our investigators. Habib, who we actually turned over to the elders because he speaks Enlgish. He's muslim, 17 yrs old, and we met him sitting outside his school one day. He said to me "Oh, yeah well I'm just looking for the truth. I mean, there should just be one answer and one church and not tons of different opinions". I about called the elders to fill up the font. We talked for about 30 minutes and he's reading the book of mormon. Loves it.

Then you have people like Claudia who know the church is true but they want to learn everything before they get baptized. I'm just about to push her in the water.

Then we have people like Glenda who grew up in the church but is inactive and her husband in a non-member. We had a lesson with them on Thursday and I straight up asked Walter (her husband) if he had even read the book of mormon. He said yes and then started to share his feelings. It was awesome. Hna Unga is a genius and came up with a really good plan for our next lesson with them.

8. The diversity here astounds me. On the bus one day I started talking to a black man and he told me all about his problems with "the flesh of women". TMI brother, TMI. I think he tought he could confess to me or something. I started telling him about the book of mormon and all was going good til we started talking about satan possessing all the people on the bus. It just went downhill from there. Then I started talking to a Sikh man on the bus (a religion from India where the men have those long beards and the turbans) and he seemed interested when I was telling him about the book of mormon. But then he asked for my number and I realized he had the wrong type of interest. I'm dressed like a nun for goodness sakes! So we've really had to start focusing on families in this area cause apparently the single men like people that dress like grandmas aka me and my comp.

9. The ward is super nice but the culture is SO different. There aren't any youth and the old men were blessing and passing the sacrament. There were about 20 members in the chapel when we started sacrament meeting. The problem in the mission, as I've been told, is that we can baptize but then the wards just go inactive. So we've really been trying to focus on reactivating so there's people there to fellowship converts when we get them.

10. I LOVE my mission! And I LOVE everyone that supports me. This is one of the happiest times of my life!

Thank you everyone that wrote me these last 2 weeks. Special shoutouts go to Bishop Bower (I LOVED your letter), Kathryn, Alesha, Aunt Di, Grandma, Dad and Mom of course, and anyone else that wrote me but that I spaced about right now!

Love the mish. Be the mish.

Hermana Winfield