....and you all thought I was serving in Texas

Hello from PORTALES, NEW MEXICO! 
My first official area as a missionary:) They call it taco town. Probably because of the Hispanic Heritage here. I'm about 2 hours away from the mission home in Lubbock, and I feel like I'm in Mexico.  We go for our run in the morning…DOGS EVERYWHERE…there are just gangs of dogs prowling the streets. It's actually pretty sketchy. But, the people here are way cool. The houses all look like they're at the point of falling apart. Especially ours. When we pulled up for the first time, I was terrified to even go inside, because it just looked so awful. But inside is super nice! We have a 2 bedroom, 1 bath casita. 
   My companion is Sister Slade from Idaho, like 10 minutes from Utah. And maaaan she has a country accent. But hers is like an idaho accent. I've started to pick it up, but not too much. I probably won't come home with an accent, because I'm surrounded by spanish speakers. 
   I'm serving in the El Llano spanish branch. It's way small, and we're working on reactivating a lot of members right now. My spanish is doing really well!  The members seem to think I'm amazing! It's super fun. 
   The food has so far been pretty American, which was a total surprise, but last night we got molé and this weird pork thing in the best tacos EVER. 
   We don't knock on doors ever here to find people. We just do morning finds which are terrifying! We just ride around on our bikes and talk about the gospel to anyone that we see. I'm still super bad at that, but I'm learning. My companion will look at me when she wants me to talk, and I'll just look back at her with panic in my eyes if I know I can't do it. But for the most part, I toss my 2 cents when we find someone. The people here are mainly Catholic...and love to pray with us. One guy in the street had us stand in a circle holding hands and prayed for a solid 5 minutes repeating "father god" about every 2 words.  But any faith is good! 
   We are 100% in the bible belt, but my companion always says that our church is the buckle. One guy had this huge CTR tattoo across his stomach and a tear drop tattoo on his eye. I was laughing at the irony, but my companion told me that apparently CTR is a gang is Roswell, NM. SKETCHHH. 
Another guy that we met had us come into his house so he could share a story of being visited by a saint or an apostle...I can't really remember. They all have these dramatic stories to share with us. But for the most part they are pretty nice and I'm learning to love it here! 
  I often feel like I'm in the middle of nowhere. Like, once you get out of the main town, there are just miles of fields and dairies, where everyone works. It really is a different life out here.
   We watched women's conference in Spanish and I just about balled when I thought about you watching it too, mom! I love that we had that same thought:) I miss home so much, and I'm really tired all the time, but the work here is so fulfilling. 
   One night, we were teaching our new investigator, and I just got so excited and full of the spirit when I realized that she was hearing these messages of truth for the first time! It's just so weird to be the one sharing the message. Like, I'm a legit missionary! Whaaaat?!?! 
   We were biking along the road, and people were waving to us and it finally dawned on me that I'm like an actual missionary. Kinda freaked me out, but then I had to calm back down before I fell off my bike. We're in a car area, but we don't have too many miles, so we try to bike as much as possible.  I'm breaking in my bike, and I basically feel like I'm dying everytime I ride it, so hopefully by next week it'll be all be good. Also, I get to take naps!! We have an hour for dinner, and on the nights we don't have a dinner appointment, I eat super-fast, write or read something, and then usually sleep for like 20 minutes. My trainer fully encourages it, so I'm so down. 
   Send me letters!! And my blue blanket and my white hoodie! And graham crackers and Nutella. My address is 1801 N Ave K, Portales, NM, 88130. I only get the ones you send to the mission office when we're in Lubbock, which doesn't happen that often. Although, we will be there tomorrow for a last minute zone conference! We're hoping it's the announcement of ipads. We'll see! I love you so much, and I miss you like crazy!