Uno Mas!

(Prior to sending this email, Jessica had sent a one-liner asking for the recipe for Island Cookies.  This email followed a few hours later.)

Hello again! After I finished earlier I printed your emails since I didn´t have time to read them and then my companion asked if I had had time to read them and respond and I said no so she said we could come back later for a little bit!

So Dad, yes I am getting your emails. And your jokes were funny, I had already heard all of them but it was still funny to read them and imagine you chuckling over them. I´m glad you had a good birthday and got my card! You asked me how church is here, it´s good. I wrote a letter more about church that I´m going to mail so I won´t tell to much about it right now, but one of those letters was to amy so have her read it to you. It´s kind of a small ward but there are six wards here in this stake, so that is good. The sad thing is there are 650 people whose records are in our ward but only about 100 attend. And by the way, our ward is from 3 to 6. I guess thats what I get for leaving the country as I kept saying.

I did finally get part of my giro so that is good, and I went and took out 50 dollars from my account for a back up. The currency here is in pesos and it is 20 pesos to a dollar. So it´s kind of weird because 100 pesos is only five bucks so when we buy groceries it´s about 200 or 300 pesos. And rent is 3000 pesos. But no dad, I don´t have to scrape sap every day for gum!

So Jennie and Ryan, what´s the deal with the new job? When did that happen and what´s the new company? And congratulations! Hope the basement is coming along well and can´t wait to see pictures.

Mom in one of your emails you mentioned Mexican food. Oh how I would love some Mexican food right now. You also asked about zone conference and Hna Crofts, I wrote a letter about that and sent it on Tues. It was great though and I really liked the other hermanas that I met. And Hermana Crofts is doing well but struggling with the language. She really has a great trainer though and they have a lot of fun together and I think she´s really happy.

That´s funny to me that you are getting a land line. For the phone call we get 45 minutes and although I can call you, they prefer you to call me. So I will give you our number, which is funny because then you could techniquely call me whenever you wanted! But if you´d rather I can call you. I have also heard that on Mother´s day they sometimes extend to an hour. Cross your fingers. And be warned, homesick or not, it will be a cry fest on my end.

Now I have some bad news. I am down to my last stamp. And it is on an envelope addressed to mom and dad. Hopefully tomorrow I will get my letter with stamps that mom sent. If I haven´t made it clear yet, Tuesdays at district meetings are when we get the bolsa with our letters and packages.

In the house we live in we have a microwave and a petroleum tank with a burner on it, but no oven. So if anyone has any ideas of quick food fixes let me know. I was thinking of trying to make chocolate chip cookies but I didn´t recognize any of the ingredients at the store today and we would have to borrow Idalina´s oven so I gave up on that idea. But if you can think of an easy treat that doesn´t require much let me know. I thought of no bake cookies but they don´t have peanut butter here. maybe that´s something you could send in a future package, but don´t make it a priority it´s no big deal. And by the way just a reminder in case you missed it in my earlier emails, packages are supposed to be under $50 and I think something like 5 lbs. I don´t actually really remember the weight and 5 lbs doesn´t seem like much, but just don´t over do it. Also, if I might put in some requests, I for some reason really just want some american candy. Like starbursts or something. And also I was thinking for treats maybe you could do something like the jar recipes where you put together the dry ingredients and then i just add eggs and oil. But again that stuff isn´t very important and don´t worry about sending tons of packages. Your´s should get here thought that you´ve sent. I have seen lots of other get packages and when i was in montevideo a bunch came into the offices. And they all had pictures of Christ on them so make sure to remember and do that.

I was going to try and send a small package of alfajores today because I heard other missionaries have done that and it is cheap but the post office was closed when we got there so maybe next week.

Renita and Judy, I´m glad your going to see if you can find Seth. I have actually been thinking about him a lot lately, yesterday especially. I was actually thinking yesterday that I should try and write him, so try and email me his address to the mission email and maybe I´ll get it tomorrow. I actually had this feeling yesterday of kind of a desperation, like "we have got to get him back!" kind of a feeling.

Well I think that answers most of your questions. Hope so. I love you all!

Jessica