I think I take after
Mum, far too much in my cooking skills. It's not that we can't cook. We just
don't like to cook, and get lazy and forget things. Anyhow, last Thursday Sora
DeRuvo and I decided to make cookies to bring to our gorgeous Familia Costros,
(the ones with the adorable kids I told you about last week). So anyway, I go
into the kitchen and take the chocolate bars and start breaking them up.
Chocolate chips are scarce to be found in this country so we have to buy
regular chocolate and break them up. I took a knife and began chopping. Sora
DeRuvo then came in and very kindly offered to chop up the chocolate chips. Now
me... in my silly tired state interpreted this offer as her way of trying to
take over in the kitchen, as if to say, "I'm Italian, I cook so well, so
I'm taking over". But of course I was being ridiculous and she was just
offering to help. But anyway, my grumpy thoughts stayed in my mind and I left
her to the chopping and frustratedly took the sugar and butter and began to
make the rest of the cookies. I was still silently grumpy, thinking, "I'm
just as good! Look, I can follow a recipe...blah, blah etc." I finished
adding all the ingredients and took a little spoonful to taste the dough. UGH!!
It was awful! Sora DeRuvo saw my frightful reaction. She too tasted the dough!
"It's almost entirely butter!" she exclaimed. I was shocked and
looked at the recipe. Immediately I burst out laughing as I realized that in my
frustration I'd accidentally added 3 times the amount of required butter.
Whoops! I then told Sora all my silly thoughts and how those silly thoughts had
led me to make the mistake and prove that yes in fact she is a faaar better
cook than me. We laughed so hard!! We ended up tripling the other ingredients
too and making about 40 cookies that night and we still have at least half of
the dough in the fridge... oh well!
Familia Costros are
soooooooo amazing still! I adore them so much! We had an FHE the other day. We
made it about family prayer and committed them the pray together. Sadly the
father doesn't really want anything to do with us. He's polite enough when we
come over but usually leaves quite quickly. We've prayed a lot about it though
and have some good ideas of how to get him more involved. After the lesson we
played a game with the kids. The Angry Birds card game, which Dad sent me for
my birthday. It was perfect! The kids loved it! Sebi and I teamed up against
Sora DeRuvo and Alexandra. Sebi kept playing "miss a turn" cards
against Sora DeRuvo and giggling his head off as she sat there missing her turn
again and again! The mum, Mihaela loved it too! We're going over again tonight
and we're really hoping to get the father involved.
We had an interesting exchange
with one of the branch members this week:
"Next week... you
must come over and teach me how to make Spanish food!" Sora Florita tells
me.
"I don't know how
to make Spanish food," I told her.
"Why not?!"
She seemed out raged at my lack of culture.
"I don't know.
I've only been there once."
"Didn't your
Mother teach you how?"
"No...?"
"Why not?! You're
SPANISH!"
Oh.. now everything
made a whole lot more sense. Some how she saw my name "Rivera" and
assumed Spain, and he was on heavy medication when we first met and I told her
that I was from England. I then explained that I'm not Spanish, my name is from
my Dad's family being from Puerto Rico.
"Oh okay, you will
come and make Puerto Rican food."
By this point, I didn't
want to argue... "I can make Mexican food if you like?"
"Yes, Yes,
Mexican... that's what I said in the first place."
Haha, so anyway, this Thursday
we're going to Sora Florita's to make burritos! YAY burritos!
The weather here is
getting better and better every single day! The sun shines and it's beautiful
every single day! But it’s not yet too hot, and the breeze is perfect and oh my
life it's so amazing!! I love it! Because of this amazing weather we've been
park contacting! We went into one of the parks the other day and did park chalk
contacting! This is where we drew the plan of salvation using my super awesome
3D sidewalk chalk and then get people to come over and we explain the plan of
salvation to them. It was super fun and we actually got one phone number from a
girl and the elders got 2 guys' phone numbers. okay, 3 phone numbers might seem
like nothing to some people, but that's tons for us! YAY! I'll attach a few
pictures. Elder Taylor wasn't there cos he went on an exchange so we had Elder
Ralph from Timisoara.
All right! That's all
for now folks! This church is true! I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and
the Book of Mormon is the word of God. Keep the Faith!
Sora Rivera
Sometimes I really can't believe that I'm a
missionary! Every morning, the alarm interrupts my dreams and the sunlight
streams through the windows: 6.25am. I role off my bed onto my knees and mutter
a roman-glish prayer to my Father in Heaven. In mutual silence Sora and I get
dressed to go running. The silence is disturbed only by the sounds of our
toothbrushes buzzing away the morning breath. By the time we get outside its
6.35am and the sea breeze wakes us up and we start chatting about the day and
we set off on our run down the beach. The old man in the jump suit waves
"good morning girls!!" in super a thick accent. The man with the dog
also waves "neata!" The beautiful dog is wagging his tail, big pink
tongue drooping out of his mouth as if to say "Oh yeah guys isn’t this
great?! This is really great huh?! Yeah it is! So fun! Best day ever!"
Often we take the time in the mornings to count our blessings. The view of the
sea is breath taking! Every day I can hardly comprehend how blessed I am to be
serving here.
