Arabic, Bakeries, and P90X

Hello All!

Well this week has been very busy.

FIFTY APPOINTMENTS. We set a goal in our apartment (4 missionaries: 2 companionships) to have 50 teaching appointments and member visits last week.  In spite of a Zone Conference eating up half of Monday, and Anderson staying in sick on Sunday, we hit 20 appointments, and the other guys hit 27! So we were super stoked about how the week turned out. The extra bonus, was that we got to visit a handful of church members from the congregation, having potitive interactions with them. It was a good week.

I made fudge cake for district meeting. We went to the district meeting, and it turns out somebody else made mousse. So we had fudge cake, topped with mousse. Healthy? No. Delicious? Very.

GETTING PUMPED. Also, we started doing P90X (Tony Horton's workout series) as an apartment. I remember you used to do that in the mornings at home. But I'm getting a taste of it now, too. It's a much better workout than the running-in-place and jumping jacks I used to do.

LEARNING ARABIC. We learned a couple of phrases in Arabic from Mahdi a few weeks back, and we have used them a handful of times. Marhabaan ("hello"). Kayf halik ("how are you")? Al ham dulule.  It gets positive reactions from Arabic and Northern African people we run into.

Also, it makes me understand the Italians who are like, "America! How are you?" Even knowing a few words in another language, you want to use them.

ITALIAN STRENGTHS. Mom you asked "what does Italy do better than the U.S.?"  Italy does fresh food better: they have lots of fruit and vegetable markets, bakeries that have food from that morning, and you can grow your own spices to have fresh spices.

Also, they're better than us at recycling.

Love, Anziano Whitesell