Happy Birthday, Quin!

Hola familia,

Erin--yes! I got your package! I included that in the email on March 26--I got your package before Pday and then another round of cards for last Pday. Hopefully that makes sense. I absolutely LOVED it! Thank you for all the yellow and balloons and goodies that brightened my day. The yellow was my favorite part. The notebooks are really helpful and the candy is always welcome--you got my favorite! Easter Reese's peanut butter cups. I loved all the notes--and Scott wrote a note. That in itself made my day! Thank you thank you thank you!

Dad--I'm pretty sure that there was a tornado in my dream last night. I know for sure that you were injured really badly and I was very worried about you. I must have known that your car had been damaged. Poor poor car. :( It's so pretty. But be careful in Amsterdam and France because if my dream didn't have to do with your car, I want you to be safe! And take care of Momma. Are the tulips in full bloom there? And aren't the cows and canals and windmills and open fields gorgeous?! Have you eaten lots of cheese (good thing Dain's not with you!) and seen how they make wooden shoes? I hope my friend Nicole gave y'all some good ideas of what to do, with her husband being straight from the Motherland and everything. Now remember my dream and stay safe because I want to see you in 8 months!

Quin--HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my goodness--you're 31!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just realized that my companion is exactly one month older than you. Hope your birthday is amazing and full of chocolate cake or coconut cream pie or something extremely tasty and then a nice long run. :) Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. For almost 10 weeks in Manteca I was running every morning and I was running about 3.5 miles a few times a week. It's never been so easy for me to run for 30 minutes straight--the mission does weird things to you. Anyway, you gotta get me back into shape because my workout routine is shot--ever since I came to East Sacramento I haven't done anything. Yikes.

Stacy--got your email. Sorry I can't respond!

This week was good. We didn't have any investigators to church, which was disappointing. Well, one came but she's been coming for a long time and she'll be baptized once she gets married but she has to work out the citizenship/resident issue and that complicates the marriage process. Satan works overtime to keep people from keeping the commandments and being baptized! We're teaching a woman who is from the Dominican Republic (Sister Fernandez freaked out when we knocked on her door). Her husband is from El Salvador. She made habichuelos dulces (sweet beans) for us and Sister Fernandez made jalau (this sugar/coconut yumminess)--and I don't know how to spell any of that. We knocked on a door last night in the elders' area and found another Dominican family. Sister Fernandez freaked out again (I feel like I'm half Dominican when I with her because I start getting really excited, too). Sis told them about a restaurant she'd heard about that we were going to go to and the boy at the door said, "That's my dad's!" haha So we were going to go there anyway, but now we're definitely going there. Small, small world.

As for other people we're teaching, the teaching pool is pretty small, but we're scurrying every day to find new investigators. And I'm out of time. I love you all a lot. Stay safe out there with those tornadoes and floods and catastrophes--end of the world for sure. Okay, Happy belated Easter. Happy birthday, Quin. Love y'all!!!!!

Love,

kates