Dear family,
We have been super busy. I am sure you are getting tired of hearing that, but it's true. I am greeting you from an exchange in Morgan Hill. It has rained all week, but our work has gone very well.
This week we received one of the best member referrals of my mission. We were set to have an appointment with a less-active member, Ana we had been working with for the last six weeks. When we arrived we were surprised to see another family in the house. The member had arranged for her sister, Elena, and her family to take the missionary lessons. We started off by teaching the Plan of Salvation. It went well. We were really pleased to begin teaching such an awesome family. The Garcias are even planning on going to church this week. If we can baptize them that would reactivate Ana's family. That is the equivalent of bringing two active families, complete with priesthood holders into the church. To give you an idea of the branch, we only need about three families to become a ward. We are hoping that everything goes as planned. If so, I could be here for the conversion to a ward.
This last week was branch conference. I was in charge of making sure we had English translation during sacrament meeting. Let me describe language translation via microphone to you. Take scripture chase, grammar study, and listening to a book on tape and try to do it all at once and you will know what it feels like to translate. Thankfully, some speakers make our job much easier. The worst is when we have a speaker who lists off a scriptural citation in Spanish without listing the reference. We have to dash through the scriptures so we can quickly have the accurate English translation to send over the microphone. Other than that, it's really fun. So much of translation isn't about getting a word for word perfect translation, but rather a translation that conveys the spirit of the Speaker. I can't imagine having to do it the other way around. Translating to English requires me to just speak what I am thinking. Sometimes I realize that there are a lot of things that just don't translate. Jokes are hard. Also, Spanish has a lot of little words like "pues" and "entonces." They are kind of filler words you just have to ignore in order to translate.
I am jealous that you all get the chance to hold baby Victoria.
Love,
Elder Badger
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