New area-Brampton, Ontario!

Me and sister Anushya with the Weston sisters at the Toronto Temple



Hello!
Whew, what a week! It's flown by. I LOVE serving in the Brampton 1st ward! Brampton is super diverse and it's actually the #1 most populated with people from India outside of India. Plus my companion is from India-she says they love white people. So we should have some success here-i'm basically as white as they get. There are old guys walking around with turbans EVERYWHERE. There are tons of sich people here (prounounced seek)-which are the guys with turbans and ladies with dresses. It's the strangest thing. The funny thing is they are super friendly and if you say "nameste gee" to them it means good afternoon in hindi. Sister Anushya (my new companion) taught me that. She speaks a little hindi and tamel. By the way i'm probably not spelling any of this stuff correctly. :) So we stop and talk to them often. They try to communicate but don't speak english hardly at all. The same man with the turban comes and sits on the church stairs every day at the same time and talks with 2 other sich guys too. On Saturday the elders in our ward had a baptism and we went and saw them sitting on the steps so we invited them in! Here come 3 turban guys walking down the hallway and sitting in the relief society room in the front row. It was quite the site. We tried to communicate but it didn't go very well. Sister Anushya can a little bit but doesn't speak their language very well. After about 10 minutes they all got up and said bye so they missed the baptism but they're the coolest. We wave to them a lot and say hello. They're pretty cool.
So a little bit about my new area- We share the brampton 1st ward with elders. We took the north side and them the south. It's cool having other missionaries in the same ward. They've never had that in this ward before so it's like whitewashing. We're opening up a new area. The mission home is less than 3 kilometers away and the mission office too. So sending packages to the office would be better than sending them to my new address-
47 McMurchy Ave N. #411
Brampton, ON
L6X 1X5
Because our mail comes through a slot on our door. Packages have to be picked up somewhere i think. We go to the office every pday to look for mail sent to the office so if you ever have a desire to send a package, send it the office :) But guess what? The temple is in our area! I get to see it every day. In fact, last Friday we got to go! Every 6 months or so the missionaries in the surrounding areas get up early and get to attend. It was a great day. We also had interviews with president that day too, they went well.
Sister Anushya is from South India. Her family converted to the church 6 years ago. She was Hindu and was blessed by elephants, stood in their poo, all that good stuff. It's really interesting to talk to her about it all. Her culture is SO different than ours! She was telling us how she would like an arranged marriage, she cooks indian food every day (it's pretty good!) and they sleep on the floor back home. Sister Wirthlin is with us until the 16th when her companion who is held up at the MTC gets here. Being in a threesome is actually pretty fun. However, we look like a mob if we're tracting or street contacting. haha
I was able to say goodbye to great people in Oakville. The saddest was definitely Vivian. We went to Dollarama (that's where she works) and she got off her ladder (she was hanging up paint rollers) and was really sad, she gave me a big hug and asked me to write down all my information for her. I told her i would come to her baptism...a couple of days later she was on the phone with Sis Wirthlin and she found out I was right by her and asked to talk to me. She was soooo excited to talk to me and I felt like maybe I had helped her out a little bit, it made me feel like my effort with her in Oakville really did help her and it made me really happy!
Easter for us was great. We dropped by some former investigators and met some Hindu people that are really interested in the fact that families can be eternal. In fact, the woman was crying the whole time...we're giving them a church tour this week so hopefully that will go really well :) Brampton area is so open to listening compared to Oakville. We had dinner with the elders in our ward (elder fox and elder raikes) and elder and sister carrol-a senior couple that also is brampton 1st that works at the mission office at the DeDios family's house. They're great! They have a son named Matty who wants to be a music producer and he is sooo talented at the piano, he played me a taylor swift song...shhh don't tell :)
For your questions-
What day did you end up moving? Tuesday we got to Brampton
Tell us all about your new place and your new companion. We live in an apt complex..it has a balcony, parquet flooring and with a little sprucing up can shine like the top of the chrysler building.
Maybe she can teach you some of her India dance….You know that’s one of the first things I’d ask her about! I did too! haha we haven't had time yet but she's going to teach me.
Can you still see Lake Ontario and Toronto? I can see Toronto when we're driving to Caldone (part of our area). But we're not close by lake ontario anymore.
Well, i hope that answered your questions...and i hope i didn't forget much information. We're just getting this are rolling and meeting all sorts of interesting people! The guy at the computer next to me told me i type really fast and then told me about a job he had working with a movie producer...i think he needs to hear about the Gospel! wish me luck :)
Sister Messer