Hi family!
Things are going pretty well in Solvang. In my last email I mentioned "the missionary disease"...so here's what's up.
Since the beginning of the transfer, people (well, missionaries) in our district have been getting really sick. First, we thought it was just the flu, but it WOULDN'T go away. People were staying in for first, days, then weeks at a time. They couldn't keep food down, and were losing weight like you wouldn't believe. They couldn't find anything wrong though. THEN, we figured out that the missionaries who were sick were the ones who were drinking the tap water...which comes from Lake Chumash. (In California, people are water-snobs, and everyone buys bottled water...but we just figured it was cheaper to drink from the tap.) Since there's a drought though, the lake has gotten really low. The doctor in the ward thought it was maybe because the water was starting to be contaminated by the junk and bacteria at the bottom of the lake, that we were getting sick.
*NEWS FLASH* They found a dead body at the bottom of the lake. Talk about "junk and bacteria." EW. We aren't 100% sure that's why we were sick, but that's what Brother Saunders thinks (he's in our ward...and was Michael Jackson's doctor :). He put all the missionaries on a broth-only diet, to kill whatever bacteria was making us sick. We're all feeling a lot better now.
Another fun fact. Aaron Eckheart lives in Buellton! He and his family are less-active members. Pretty cool, huh? Of course, it'd be cooler if they were ACTIVE members. We'll work on it.
Here's a sort of random, but funny story: Today was Elder Fairborne's (our district leader) birthday. To celebrate, our whole district went out to lunch. Now we have this Elder, Elder Kingray, who's a VERY good missionary, but has a hard time drawing the line between being friendly to sister missionaries (which is always good), and flirting with sister missionaries (which is VERY frowned on). When all of our checks came for lunch, in an effort to get on Sister Hernandez' good side, he took her check and paid it while she wasn't paying attention. It was a very nice thought, but after, he felt SO guilty that he called President Felix to tell him he'd accidentally taken a sister missionary on a date. WHOOPS!
Even though we're not perfect, our district really is the BEST. We have so much fun together, and have learned a lot from each other. Sadly, transfers are on Monday, and about half of us will probably be leaving. I think Sister Platt and I will be staying, though. :) I don't know if I mentioned to you, but we white-washed Solvang this transfer...which means that we were both new to the area. Usually when that happens, they keep you there at least 2 transfers, but you never know! We always sing "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go" on the morning of transfers to remind us we'll be happy wherever we go!
I love you all!
♥Shaylie
