Querida Familia, First of all, could you send me my address in Anaheim? I, um, didn't bring it with me. And a couple of friends have asked me for it. So, Sister Hardy and Sister Thomas and I moved to the advanced class last week, so we're in a new district. We love the class, and the teachers are great (a lot better than our last ones). But we miss our elders. There's eleven people in our new district now. Six sisters and five elders! More sisters than elders! There was a trio in the advanced class, so now each of the sisters has a new companion. It's good for our Spanish since we each have a native speaker companion. All the people in our class are native speakers except for us and one other elder who's sort of from Brazil. My new companion is Hermana Castillo, from Guatemala, but she's lived in Orem since she was ten. Her first name is Dameter, but at home she goes by Afro. Her middle name is Afrodita. Elder Shumway (Adam?) is in my zone, I think. I see him around a lot. My favourite thing to do at the MTC is the Referral Center. We can make phone calls to make sure people got things they ordered off of passalong cards, or we can answer phones from passalong card calls, or we can answer chats from the ask your question place on mormon.org. We've only been twice but both times it's been a kind of overwhelming experience, because I care so much about each of the people we talk to (only one each time), and I want so much to be able to help them. The first time I went, I was trying to make phone calls, and no one was answering. I accidentally clicked the button on my computer that said I was open for calls, and someone called me. I was so confused and pretty much panicked. I read from the screen on my computer, in Spanish, asking to talk to the man I had been about to call. A very confused woman answered me in English. A very confused missionary (me) repeated herself in Spanish. The woman said something else, and finally my brain began to work, and I asked her, in English, if she had just called me. A long conversation ensued in which we both tried to figure out who the other person was. Eventually I figured out that she wanted a BoM and she figured out that I was American, and not foreign, even though I started out trying to speak to her in a different language. She said her dad was a preacher, so she had grown up with his religion (some sort of Protestantism), but now she and her sister were exploring in religion, and she felt she had a hole in her life that she needed to fill. At the beginning she said she didn't want anyone to bring her a Book of Mormon, she wanted to get it in the mail, but by the end, she had talked to me for so long that she agreed, and happily, I think, to let the missionaries bring her a Book of Mormon and answer her questions. Well, I'm really happy about that, but those missionaries have their work cut out for them. Tina, the lady I talked to, is from Tennessee and she has such a strong southern accent I couldn't understand her when she said her name, and I had to get her to spell it out for me so I could put it into the computer. She said she had some friends who were Mormons, and I was really happy about that, but then she started going on about how my religion wasn't legal in most states besides Utah, and what a shame that was. I was really confused, but she wanted to know more about my religion, so I gave her a brief overview of authority of God, apostasy, and then I started to tell her about Joseph Smith, but she already knew all about Joseph Smith, and could give me numbers and dates. She talked about how it would be impossible to be openly Mormon in states other than Utah. I was so confused, and tried to tell her otherwise. Suddenly it all came out. Her friends are polygamists. So then we had a long conversation about how my church doesn't do that anymore, and why not. She loves her friends and thinks people should be allowed to do what they want to do. Never in my life have I thought that I might have to explain to someone why we shouldn't have polygamy now! In the end, I just told her that I didn't have all the answers, but I bore my testimony of continuing revelation and prophets, and she agreed to read the Book of Mormon and talk to missionaries. I'm leaving the MTC next Tuesday! I got my flight plans this week, and I'm leaving early Tuesday morning. I usually get DearElder letters the day after you send them, I think. So start writing to me in Anaheim at least after this Sunday! Tell Linda and Brittney thanks for their letters, and thanks for all of your letters! My companions (I think of all five of them as my companions) thank you for the chocolate chip bread! Guess what? Sister Hardy loves Mendocino too! And she goes there every year! Love, Hermana Duque
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