Sorry, I'm 3 days late...but HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!! I hope it was wonderful, patriotic, and fun-filled!
It's always a little bit weird celebrating holidays away from home...especially with people I met a week ago, and am still learning their names, but it really was great! Buellton is a pretty small town outside of Solvang, and it's sort of got a "country feel." Everyone wears cowboy boots and hats, and has a strangely southern accent. It seems a little out of place, but we like it. A lot of the ward is from Buellton though, so we had a cowboy celebration for the 4th! I was a little worried I'd feel out of place, dressed up in my red, white, and blue, but I've never seen so many button-up, American Flag shirts in my life. It was AWESOME. We all made pancakes at the church, then everyone brought their guitars and we sang "This Land is My Land" together. It was GREAT! We also live pretty close to the old Catholic Mission, so they did a GIANT firework show. It was past our curfew, so we did our best to watch it from the apartment. It didn't work very well. Luckily, we got to pop the poppers Mom sent from our our balcony. It was a LOT of fun! :)
Along with that, we got to go down to Goleta and meet President Felix!! President Felix is WONDERFUL. Crazy Story: He actually had a heart attack 5 weeks before he left for the MTC! At the time, President Castro was unaware, but asked that as a mission, we begin praying for him to be able to come, and be prepared to serve. President Castro said that when he had the heart attack, he knew it'd be okay, because he had 230 missionaries praying for him! He had two stints put in his heart before he came out here...So, we've got something in common! Oh, and he has season tickets in our favorite North Stache Zone--we're basically destined to be friends. This Thursday we'll be going back for ANOTHER meeting, where they'll announce the changes that will be coming to our mission. (Last year they said they'd like to have all US missions to have iPads by this July, so that may be part of it. We'll see, though!)
Sorry my email is so short today--I'll write more next week. I'm about out of time, and we're running off to OstrichLand with the Elders. Love you. ♥
♥Shay Shay
