YIKES, BIKES!!

Here is Hermana Kleisler's first e-mail from Texas. So..... whoever tattled on me about not posting her e-mails, now you can tell her that I posted her e-mail!!
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Hermana Kleisler with her Mission President and his wife on her first day in San Antonio

Howdy Y'all!!!

It's time for the much anticipated e-mail..... I've got three words for you...... SAN MARCOS TEXAS!! So where the heck is that you might ask, well it's about half way in between San Antonio and Austin. A little bit closer to Austin than San Antonio. San Marcos has a population of about 50,000 when school is in session, it's main landmarks or points of attraction are: Texas State University, A Giant Outlet Mall and Hermana Kleisler riding a bike in a skirt with a dorky helmet!! Yup that's right, at the current moment there happens to only be one area in my entire mission that has sisters on bikes- and it is San Marcos! lol So ya I have been blessed with the pleasure of riding a bike! ha ha Honestly it is quite a sight to see.

So more about my area, my trainer my ward, everything....
Well first of San Marcos has one ward for the entire city and they have two sets of missionaries, us and a set of Elders- the District Leader Elder Squire (my dad- that's is what you call your first DL in the field) and his comp Elder Sloan. We see them ALOT because we cover the same ward and also we share a car. They get the car the first part of the week and then we have it for the last. The days we don't have the car we ride our bikes. So anyway we are San Marcos A and they are San Marcos B. We cover the same ward but we have it split in two. They cover the half that is over by the University because they also are over the University Student Branch. We only have the San Marcos ward and we cover the other half which is more ghetto(for lack of a better term). So ya the area of San Marcos has it's nicer areas and um more ghetto areas. The nicest being about like where we live, our neighborhood and stuff- so like middle class. Most of our area though is hole in the wall places, lots of mobile homes and trailer parks. I am actually quite grateful that I was born (that's what they call your first area- the place you were born on the mission) in a poorer area. Although I'll tell ya I felt like a spoiled rich kid when we were knocking in a trailer park the other day. Ok so ya because we've got the more ghetto side of town we've got more Spanish- ha ha yes! Take that Elders, lol, ya our Elders don't have much Spanish on their side. I have spoken Spanish every day since I have been here and I am sure for as long as I am in San Marcos I will be speaking Spanish. Which should be quite awhile. See my Trainer goes home at the beginning of February so she only has one more transfer after this one. President likes to keep the sisters in their areas for at least three transfers usually. So once I kill (that's what it's called when you are the companion they have right before they leave the mish) my trainer I will prolly stay in the area at least one more transfer so they don't have to double in (that's what it's called when you have two new missionaries in the area, Kevin's mission calls it "White Washing") So ya I will most likely be here about 6 months, at least until my B-day in March. So ya cool stuff- I better get fit what with riding a bike for 6 months!! lol I have to say I find it quite hilarious cause both my brothers never had to ride bikes on their missions, but their sister does- ironic!! Ok so about my trainer. Her name is Hermana Moran and she is from Santa Anna California. Her parents moved here from Mexico before she was born so she was raised speaking Spanish. She speaks both Spanish and English fluently. It is so cool cause her Spanish is perfect, but so is her English, she doesn't have an accent or anything when she speaks English. She is 24 and graduated with a Bachelor's in Government from Cornell. She is super cool- we get along great. She is pretty chill and relaxed, not very girly or lovey touchy feely, I love her! ha ha Ya so our companionship is going great, We have a lot of fun together and she teaches me ALOT!! Ok so our apartment isn't too bad it's not the Ritz or anything but it's nice enough for how often we are there!

Now for something very important- MY ADDRESS!!! Ya'll need to send stuff straight to my apartment because the city of San Antonio will not forward anything to us from the mission home. So if you send stuff to the mission home I won't get it till Zone Confrence or Transfer meetings. SO send packages and letters to the apartment. My address won't be changing for prolly six months so go ahead and put this on the blog and give this address to everybody mom. I want mail!! lol My comp and I have checked the mailbox every night after a long days work and we get sad when we see it sitting there all empty. So here is my address PLEASE SEND ME LETTERS!!!!
Hermana Kleisler
520 Linda Dr. Apt. 2403
San Marcos, TX 78666

Ok cool so now I expect to see things in my mailbox late this week! :) I think it only takes 3 days from Arizona and/or Utah (Adam, Downy, Mortimer)

More stuff to tell you. Well the members here are great- they feed us pretty much every night so yay for that!! I am really coming to appreciate FOOD! I have decided that while I am in San Marcos I can eat dessert because I am biking around so much I am working off the calories. Oh btw our bikes are actually pretty nice, they are the missions bikes that they let us use. My happens to be a baby blue color- blah, but they are girl bikes which means the cross bar goes down lower so we are able to get on easier with our skirts. There are several members who are pretty cool so if we need to go to a further part of our area on a day that we don't have the car we can usually get a member to drive us.

Ok well I am sure there are more things I have forgotten to tell y'all so write me and ask me some questions!!! I will quickly tell y'all about the work out here. In our area we are going to really blitzkreig it this week. It used to be San Marcos plus the Kyle ward in the sisters area so this past transfer they changed the assignment and know they put some Elders in Kyle and have the sisters only doing San Marcos. So ya Sister Moran was here last transfer but they spent a lot more of their time in Kyle so there is not a whole lot going on here in San Marcos. We have one investigator who has had a baptismal date twice (she is Spanish so I have taught her in Spanish, woot woot look at me teaching in Espanol my first week) but both times she backed out. This last time, the day before I got here she said she didn't feel ready and thought she should be happier about her baptism. SO she canceled it again. So ya we are working with her. Other than that we have a few luke warm investigators. We did knock into someone this week and taught him on Friday- he is for sure a possibility I think. SO anyway the work is going slow here in San Marcos but it is about to pick up because Sisters Kleisler and Moran are going to GET TO WORK!!! :)

Alright well that's all for now. I will leave you with a little blonde moment I had the other day.

-We were sitting in the car looking at the Ward list for members to visit (it was at night and we can't do too much once it gets dark here- no one wants to talk to us past 6, but we have to be out till 9, so we usually visit members or less actives at night) I was looking at the list and I turned to Sister Moran and said "Sister we need more people in our ward!!!" and she looked at me and said in a stating the obvious type voice "umm Sister Kleisler that is kinda our job, that's why we’re here" Then I laughed at myself and said "oh yeah!" lol So ya I am gonna get to work getting more people in our ward! Hope y'all have a great week and I hope to see some letters in my mailbox soon!!!!

SMILING ALL THE WHILE
Hermana Kleisler