July 12, 2021
¡Pues los últimos cuatros días fueron muy locos!
In my last email in April I said that I was going to write another email… well apparently I lied until now. I got home and just didn’t want to write one. Probably most of you don’t know what happened when I got home so I will start at the beginning.
I got home expecting that I was going to be having surgery. The x-ray that they took was showing a little bit of improvement. The doctors decided to wait. So I waited and waited and waited… I did art, played with my puppies, and I helped the missionaries in my home ward. I went with them to lessons and helped teach. We had one family that we were teaching that the dad only spoke spanish. So I translated for him. It was a really fun and cool experience. The elders are hoping that they will get baptized! My doctor had me start doing some physical therapy. I was able to get enough strength back into my arm that I needed. My last x-ray that was taken 3-4 weeks ago showed a lot of bone growth. With that I got the A okay to go back into the mission field. Some paper work later, packing, goodbyes, and a plane ride late and now I am back. Hence the title back in black. (Let me tell you though, saying good bye the second time was harder than the first. I knew that my mission wasn’t done, so I had to get back out here and finish my work. The funny thing is now I will have 2 of leaving home and coming home.)
My new companion’s name is Hermana Hanson! She is super awesome. She was companions with Hermana Berry right before I was. I met her at transfers back in December. She is from Highland, Utah and has been out on her mission for 13 ½ months. I might be with her for the rest of her mission. Which is fine with me because we get along great. I love her so much in only the short amount of days that we have been together.
We are in Boiling Springs, SC. We live in a little city nearby it. We white washed into our area which means neither one of us has been her before! We don’t know anybody! It is crazy. We are exhausted because of putting our apartment together and trying to figure out our area. We cover a Spanish group that is in a ward. We were told that we have a lot of work to do, but we are pumped.
Thursday night was crazy. We got to our apartment and unloaded our stuff. Our area book wasn’t loading so we didn’t know what plans may or may not have been put in for the day. So we went to Chik-fil-a for dinner and called a lot of people. Of course our area book loaded around 9pm and showed us we had missed a dinner appointment, lesson, and ENGLISH CLASS! That is a pretty awful first impression. We called and said sorry and hopefully we can change that first impression.
We rescheduled the dinner appointment for Friday and were able to meet the Mejia family. They are sooo nice. They are an older couple that apparently feed us every Thursday at 5:30pm. I am super excited for that. Hermana Hanson didn’t think we would have food when we got there but I knew we would. They fed us potato sopes and arroz con leche. It was delicious. I have missed Hispanic food so much. We shared a powerful message and they said that they would help us with anything we needed!
On Saturday, we went and taught Antonio and Elisibeth. We started talking and they told us that they were celebrating Shebat. Which is part of the Jewish religion. I am going to have to study more about this so I’m not confused. They invited us to come to Shabat sometime and said that they might come to church with us. Later, we went to have a lesson and the guy wasn’t there. His brother started talking to us and said that he knows one of the members. He occasionally asks him questions about the Bible and Christ. We set up a lesson with him on Wednesday this week. Last but not least, we had fútbol night. We got there so excited to have tons of people, but only one person showed up. It ended up working out. I fixed the goal posts, and we kicked around the balls. We started talking to him and set up a time to talk after an English class.
Sunday was honestly crazy. One of us was asked to give a talk on Come Follow Me on Friday. We couldn’t decide who should do it and finally Hermana Hanson was like I will. I thought nothing of it. A couple days later I realized that I had to translate it! The sacrament meeting is in english. So the spanish members wear headphones while I wear the one with a mic and translate everything. It was kind of terrifying. I got asked to speak in two weeks and I am thinking that I will do half english and half spanish.
Today was a pretty chill day. We lazed around and then went to a dam we found. One of the sisters told us that there is a path along the river. So we decided to go for a walk . It was a lot of fun and muddy! We skipped rocks, swang on a weird vine rope, caught frogs, and enjoyed the scenery.
Les amo! Que tengan una semana muy buena!
Hola mis amigos! Esta semana pasó muy rápido! ¡No podría verla! But nonetheless it was great. I hope this week goes a little slower.
So Tuesday morning hits and Hermana Hanson and I get ready to go to DCM. We got all the way to the church (35 minutes away) and there were no cars there. We totally spaced that we did not have it because we were going to have Zone Conference. So we just chilled and did our stuff at the church. Then went from the church to Gaffney (aka Gaffrica because it is sooo far away) for our lesson with Esteban. We get there and Esteban is just this adorable 70 year old man. He was telling us his back ground story of how he lived on the streets. He wasn’t homeless, but he said he drank, smoked, swore, and other things. Then he proceeded to tell us how some people greet each other in Mexico. He said it in Spanish and of course Hermana Hanson and I didn’t understand what he said. So he said it in English and it was the F💣! 😂 He said it I think twice and I said to him that that word is bad! He started laughing and said he has changed his ways. He is going to be a fun guy to teach. We are trying to get him baptized but he has a dialysis port on his chest and it apparently needs to be moved to his arm. We are going to look into that. That night we did English class for the first time out here. We had three people show up! wooo hooo! I am really hoping that more people will show up.
We had Zone Conference on Thursday and it was a blast! I haven’t been to a Zone Conference since back in March. It has been a hot a minute. It was super fun seeing some of the people that I know and getting some great trainings. I learned so much and I am going to incorporate that into my teaching.
Here are some of the cool things that I learned. President Monson did a training on contacting Less Active families or Part-Member families. It is the story of Alma and Amulek (Alma 8). Alma was having no luck in the city of Ammonihah so he left. He was told by an angel to return and the someone would invite him into his house. So, he went back and he met Amulek who let him into his house. He proceeded to ask for Amulek’s help in teaching the people. In Alma 10: 12 it says, “And now, when Amulek had spoken these words the people began to be astonished, seeing there was more than one witness who testified of the things whereof they were accused, and also of the things which were to come, according to the spirit of prophecy which was in them." The people believed more because Amulek was their friend or neighbor. He was another testimony. Alma had promised Amulek in 10:7, “...he shall bless thee and thy house; and the blessing of the Lord shall rest upon thee and thy house." So President told us to go to members and share this story and ask them to be our Amulek for a certain person that we are teaching. I am excited to try it out. Apparently it works because it worked in The Book of Mormon. I also learned how to make a baptism calendar to prep the people that we have on date for baptism (or that we will have…). We also learned about the parables of “the lost things” in Luke 15. I invite you all to study that and see how you can find those that are lost. As well as how you will help them feel found. After receiving all this great revelation we ate dinner with the Mejias. We are thinking of people to ask them to be Amuleks for.
On Friday I noticed in our Area Book that we had a dinner appointment with the Concha family, but I could not find their information. I finally found out who they were and we texted to see if it was okay if we came over. We went over and it turns out they had never met the elders before us. They go to a different building for church. The perk was they are super nice. They have three kids that are just the cutest things ever. I wanted to hold their almost 2 year old daughter sooo bad. We shared a message about the importance of reading scriptures and praying as a family. After that we ate dinner and it was delicious. As we were leaving they told us that we could contact them anytime or come over anytime. They want to help us with our lessons!!!
We went to lunch with Luis, one of the people we are teaching on Saturday. It was super fun. We ended up talking about Jesus Christ and the gospel while we were eating. He then all of a sudden asks us the importance of Joseph Smith. I was like well I can totally tell you about that. Hermana Hanson couldn’t remember how to teach it so I taught him it. It was cool to see how my Spanish just flowed out of my mouth. I was receiving help from the Holy Ghost to speak and he was testifying to Luis. It was really cool and was a little tender mercy. He said that he understood everything and it made sense. He didn’t make it to church, but he said that he is going to come next week (the day I am going to be speaking!)
I’ll get to the meaning of my title now. I have been told by multiple people now that I Iook like I am from Costa Rica💃🏽. I have the face shape, skin tone, and body type. I explained to them that my parents grew up in Utah and my ancestors are from Europe. Even with telling them this they won’t relent.😂 So I am officially from Costa Rica. I hope my Spanish will become good enough to pull that off.
Sunday was GREAT! Hermana Hanson translated sacrament meeting. After we had a lesson with Esteban, so we drove to Gaffrica. We met a member named Maria Rosas. She is so amazing! She shared such a strong testimony in our lesson. She taught so much stuff (kind of took over the lesson, but it was fine😂). She does so much for Esteban and is going to help us get him baptized. She is such a great missionary. She teaches better than we can! Then we quickly sped over to our dinner appointment with the Ramirez family. They fed us soooo good. Apparently they had set dinners with the elders every Sunday. Their daughter suggested doing it again, so we might have set dinners!
Something really cool that happened later that night was we went to meet a referral we received. His name is David. We went over at 8:30pm and did the lesson outside. He is super nice. He told us that he recently just got out of jail and told us his life story. He told us how God kept telling him what was going to happen if he kept going his way. All of those things happened. David said that he has this thing where he sometimes knows what is going to happen to someone. He tells them about it and they don’t believe him, but it ends up happening. He feels like he is behind a glass wall and he can’t do anything to help them. I told him that that is how our Heavenly Father feels. He tells us not to do things and we still do them. Then he has to watch us go through the consequences and it is hard. David has decided to finally find a church. He wants to come to church with us and have a Book of Mormon. Throughout this lesson the Spirit was present so much and sooo strong. I almost started crying.
Well that’s all for this week. Love you guys!<3
Hola! Wow this week just flew by so quickly and a lot of crazy things happened. Last P-day was super fun. We got together as a zone and played chair soccer and volleyball. I still can not play either of those things so I sat on the sideline as usual. BUT… we had cake. It was one of the elder’s birthday and someone brought a cake. Then we played an intense game of Sorry. We were killing each other without mercy and Hermana Hanson ended up winning.
We had DCM on Tuesday and it was great. I “played” the piano for it. It was nice to get to know my new district. They all seem pretty great. After that we drove to Gaffrica for our lesson with Esteban. He is just so adorable, but loves to go on little rants. We haven’t figured out our plan of action to stop that. Then to sum up the day no one came to English class. That was a big bummer. Hopefully that doesn’t ever happen again.
Wednesday was a great day. We had a dinner appointment with the Tilley family. The mom Daniela speaks Spanish. We ate chicken parmesan and got to hear their whole life story. They met because her husband moved down to her country with his family in high school. She was a recent convert. They wrote each other while he was on his mission. He went on a Spanish speaking mission. So he surprised her by speaking Spanish fluently. Then he went up to Ricks and she thought he was going to ask her to be his girlfriend. nope! He told her that he had a girlfriend. Kind of crushed her but she moved on. He got the feeling that she was the one for him. He flew out here to SC to visit her and proposed which was not planned. They saw each other 3 other times after and got married. They totally skipped dating, but it all worked out. They have 4 kids that are super awesome. Daniela and her husband said that they would help us out with our lessons!
Later that day, we had a lesson with Bella. It was super spirit filled. We read with her where she is in the Book of Mormon. It ended up being the part where Laman and Lemuel tie up Nephi and leave him. I shared the part of where God loosens his bands and doesn’t give him the strength to break them. Sometimes things happen in our life that we don’t expect or don’t want. God knows what we need and sees the bigger picture. Bella opened up and started telling us about some things that she is going through. She told us that what I shared it true and it has happened to her. I could just see a weight lift off of her as we talked to her. We were running late becuase we shared that, but it was worth it. We got to David’s house and taught him. He told us he is in awe of how the Book of Mormon is just answering his questions and giving him confirmation. We had a really good lesson! I love teaching him. (Here is a story from the first time we met him that Ieft out of my last email. We were about to leave his house and me being stupid decided not to back the car. It was dark and it was a bussy ish road. Well… we ran over his mailbox. The box was legit squished. Such a great first impression to make. He said it was okay and was sooo nice. The next day he had a new one. We are going to either pay him or make him lots of cookies. Needless to say I am always going to back the car!)
We had these carrot and potato enchiladas at the Mejias house for our weekly dinner appointment. They were super good. We have been talking to their daughter Laura a lot. She is not interested in being taught, but we can still be her friends. After we went straight to english class and people actually came.
Ok to get to my title. We went to our weekly dinner appointment with Hermana Zapata. We had never met her before. She is from the Dominican Republic and is super sweet. We also met her friend Gloria. They are both so old and adorable. Heraman Zapata has a ton of pet birds. One of them is named Pepe and he mostly talks in Spanish. Apparently an american girl had come over once and taught him to say hello. So whenever he sees white girls he says hello and whistles. I got hit on and catcalled by a bird.😂 It was awesome! After that we rushed with the Mejias to visit some less active families. We met Irma, she is super nice. We all shared our testimonies and invited her to come back to church. We went to visit her son and his family but they weren’t home. The good thing is that the Mejias are going to do this with us EVERY week! Our Spanish group isn’t very big, but the members we do have are amazing!
We went out to lunch with Luis last Saturday and he wanted to do it again this week. We went to a restaurant called ”Satanas Mexican Grill.” I cracked up because it sounds like Satan's restaurant because Satan in Spanish is satanás. So we went to eat at Satan’s Mexican Grill. In our last lesson we explained Joseph Smith. This time we taught about the apostasy and why we needed the restoration, priesthood, BOM, and prayer. It was awesome! He said that he already has a BOM and we invited him to read it and pray. We didn’t end up having la noche de fútbol because we got rained out. That also sucked but it worked out. We were able to find someone and set up a lesson with Ana for the next day.
I got asked to speak 2 weeks ago and the day finally came. I had my talk all the way written and I didn’t feel like I could take up the whole 10 minutes that I was assigned. I gave half of my talk in english and half in Spanish. I spoke and then looked down at my watch. It was 12:30pm! our church starts at 11:30am. It took 20 minutes! The bad thing was that there was another speaker, musical number, closing song, and prayer. I am one of those people. I felt so bad! Our bishop said that we were going to have the next lady give her full talk, the musical number, and we would only sing the first verse of the closing song. He said he didn’t care if we went over. At least my talk was good, at least that is what people told me. Hermana Hanson didn’t have to translate the talks because she asked Sally to do it (Hna. Ramirez’s 12 yr. old daughter) She did awesome. I am hoping she will translate for me next week. If not, it will give me practice.
Then our day just stayed crazy. We ended up being in the car for 3 hours. We went to the opposite sides of our huge area. We had a lesson with Esteban again. He is getting surgery to have his port moved from his heart to his arm on the 29th or 30th! That means that he can get baptized soon. He still wants to be baptized thank goodness. We have a lot of work to do! After his lesson got over we drove an hour to Greenville for our lesson with Ana. She is so amazing. She wants to find peace and purpose in her life. We shared pieces of the plan of Salvation with her and gave her a pamphlet. We are going to have to pass her off unless she moves into our giant area. Then we drove 30 minutes to our dinner appointment. All the driving and traffic made us late. Hermana Ramirez said that we could come whenever and that we need to eat to work. She is soo sweet and made us feel a lot better. We ate chicken with napoles (if that is how you spell that). Napoles is cactus. So we had chicken, rice, and cactus. It was really good. I like cactus. They made a watermelon juice which was actually watermelon blended up with sugar. Then for dessert we had a milkshake that Sally made. I could not breathe because of how full I was. I think my favorite part of Sunday was the spiritual thought that we shared with them. We did the Alma and Amulek thing that I talked about in my last email. We shared Alma 10:12 and talked about how we need members. We need their testimonies and how people will listen to them more. I then shared the end of verse 7 which talks about the family being blessed. The spirit was super strong. The dad started to get teary eyed. I can’t wait to share this with more families. The Ramirez family is bomb and will help us with the group so much!
Hope you all have a great week!
Here are some pics!:
August 2, 2021
August 9, 2021
Hola Todos! Como han estado? Mi fin de semana fue muy loca y muchas cosas pasaron! Hermana Hanson and I know have a trainee. She is absolutely adorable. Her name is Hermana Maxfield. She is from Holiday, Utah which is pretty close to Salt Lake. She is super funny and has that greenie fire🔥. It is the best because she has so much energy!
Something I have been forgetting to add into my emails is one of my nicknames for Hermana Hanson. She loves to keep the apartment freezing. A couple weeks ago I found this word and it fit. It is “oso polar.” She is a polar bear but in spanish! It is August and I am wearing a fuzzy hoodie and my blanket around the apartment. Hermana Maxfield has a blanket that looks like a sleeping bag so she fits right in.
So on Wednesday it was P-day, transfers make it weird. We went to Top Golf! It has been ages since I have been there (back to the good old days of training in Georgetown). It was super hot. Even being in the shade with fans we felt like we were melting. Golf is not my forte, but I got better at it with some tips. Maybe if I get enough practice I can be the next Tiger Woods of Top Golf. I also totally left my water bottle there and it has shown me how much I need water. After we finished, Hermana Hanson and I went to visit Rosita. She is so cute! She has soooo many cats. Apparently her cats got pregnant so now she has 15 kittens. She is trying to get rid of them. I found an orange one among them and claimed him. It is funny because she calls him my cat and says she is going to save him for me. We taught her the first part of the restoration and introduced the BOM. Hna. Rosas was there and helped explain it. We were about to leave when she said that it was time to eat. We ate beans, chicken, and jalapeños. I was starved so I ate it all. Then we proceeded to drive 40 minutes home and deep clean the apartment.
Thursday was transfers!! We drove down to Columbia and went to a training meeting. I got to see all my friends that I haven’t seen for a long time. I saw Hna. Stewart, my good old MTC comp! I love that girl. I saw Hna. Kurns and Elder DeMille from my days in Charleston. Then we got our trainee! It was funny because she was the last sister sitting down, so we knew we were going to train her. She was originally assigned to go to Uruguay, but she got reassigned here. We went to 5 Guys for lunch and it was delicious. Two hours later we went to the Mejias for dinner. The fed us potato salad, chicken, and rice. They said that they were going to feed us Mexican food next time. Hno. Mejia likes to mess with me, so he call me gordita. That means little fatty😂… ouch. He told me that he was kidding and that I am skinny. I’m glad I do not have to eat all that southern food or that would not be true. We taught english class right after and it went great. Sadly, not a lot of people came. We were able to taught to a guy named Alex after because he was curious about what we do as missionaries. He said he is going to read the pamphlet.
Well Friday morning I woke up to a big bite on my left arm. Why can’t the bugs leave me alone, they never go after Hna. Hanson.😂 It wasn’t a mosquito or bed bugs… it was a spider! I had two scabs close to each other. The bite started small and then it swelled up a lot. The bite area got super hot and had a dull itch. We did not ever find the spider, but I just know it.
Later, we went to go see Rosita again to finish teaching her the restoration. She told us that after we left (on Wednesday) she couldn't stop thinking about what we said. She couldn't fall asleep until 1am. She said she searched the internet for answers. We kind of started to have a little freak out moment. Because you know there is a lot of anti online. She said she found this video and watched the whole thing. As she explained it we realized she found the restoration video in Spanish. She said that she believed Joseph Smith is a prophet and that our church is the true church! She wants to come to church every week! 😁😆
We played futbol again on Saturday. This time I joined in and played. It was four against four. I was really careful because I do not want a repeat of what happened before. I told one of the guys that I got bit by a spider and he started calling me Spiderman. I am going to turn into Spiderman and I can’t wait.
On Sunday we were hoping that a lot of people would come but didn't think it would actually happen. Esteban and Rosita said they couldn't come, but they did! Bella also came too and she asked us when we are going to come over next. I translated Sacrament meeting and it wasn't great… One of the talks was so hard to follow. I also then translated Elders Quorum for Esteban. After church was over we went to Esteban’s for a lesson. We taught him, one of his roommates Jose, and Rosita. We taught them about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and Sacrament. Rosita then tells us at the end that she wants to be baptized! Mini miracle! We are going to set a date for her next time we meet!!
My spiritual thought for this week is about the Book of Mormon. I just finished it again the other day and it was amazing. I absolutely love Moroni's promise. Part of it says, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things" (Moroni 10: 4-5, I just didn't include 3) As I read this I just felt the truthfulness of this. I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know that when we read it we can feel closer to God and Jesus Christ. It testifies of Christ and the things that we need to do to return to our Heavenly Father. I just want to invite you all to read the Book of Mormon and do what Moroni asks. You will receive your answer and it will change your life.
Les quiero! I hope you all have a great week. Sorry the email was rushed!
It has been a week for sure! So many things happened good and kind of bad. I have officially been out for “9” months for about two and a half weeks. That is crazy! It feels like it has been shorter and longer.
Last p-day was pretty mellow. We went to a lot of work to get the elder’s fishing poles and we went fishing for about 30 minutes. I caught a very large stick and pretended it was a fish. Then we raced to a member meal and ate some yummy taco soup. We don’t get American food all that often, so it is fun when we do.
Tuesday we had Zone Conference. It was awesome! It was fun to see all my friends! We learned more about Joseph Smith and the things he did. Most of the time we think of him having a 3rd grade education which he did, but you can learn things out of school. He was very knowledgeable about law and politics. God really does prepare prophets. We learned about “How to begin teaching” points in Preach My Gospel. They are really important because they state what we do as missionaries and the things that people will receive from what we teach. Probably my favorite part was when President Monson taught us all about the Doctrine of Christ. It isn’t just a one and done type of thing. It is repetitive and iterative. We repeat and cycle through it, but we are learning/growing and changing as a person. It is like a mountain that has a descending road that goes all the way around it and up. The top is when we meet God again. It is a gradual descent and there never is a flat part. We become converted as we make our way up and follow the doctrine of Christ. As easily as we become converted we can become unconverted. Like a car going up a hill needs acceleration but when you put it in neutral it rolls back down. We NEED to be doing the little things. We NEED to read the scriptures, pray, and take the sacrament etc. Those are the things that keep us converted and strong.
We ate Chick-fil-a for lunch. I have honestly eaten the most chick-fil-a on my mission than I have in my entire life. Everyone loves it out here so I sometimes get out voted. After Zone Conference we went to the Tropical Smoothie Cafe with our new district. It was delicious. I have missed their giant smoothies. Then we had EC like always. The people are so sweet.
We were so busy on Wednesday. We went and had a lesson with a guy named Brian. He is so nice. He referred himself to us. He told us that he met with the missionaries back in El Salvador and went to church a couple times. He wants to take the lessons again and have his brother do it too. We are now teaching them both. After we went to Bro. Brights house. He is going to be helping us out with a part member family. He made us a little snack bar and gave us ice cream again. I will never tire of this happening. He was wearing a shirt that cracked me up. It says, “If you don’t love Tacos, I’m Nacho type.” I want to get a shirt like that. Then we went and had a lesson with Bella. It went really good. We were able to meet her daughter for the first time in almost two months. She told us we could come over on Thursday because Hna. Ramirez was going to come visit her. She set up our next appointment for us!
On Thursday, we went and had a lesson with David. He told us that he wants to be baptized. He said that the other day he went looking for a sports coat to wear to church and there weren’t any in his size. So he decided he is going to get a suit that he can wear. We taught him the first half of the plan of salvation. Before the lesson he always shows us how he is relating the BOM to his life. Later, we went to the Mejias for dinner. They fed us sopes again! This time it was potatoes and then bean ones. I felt like I needed to be rolled out of their house after. We went over to Bella’s house again. Hna. Ramirez wasn’t able to make it, but we still taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She now has a baptismal date for Sept. 25th. She is super excited!! Then we went EC, and after we had a lesson with Alex. He wants us to teach him some slang. So we taught him "oh snap" and "yeet." It was funny because he sounded like a 14 yr old girl.😂 We taught him about the resto and invited him to church.
Hermana Maxfield is a doll. She made us breakfast on Friday. I had never had avocado and egg toast before. It is pretty good and healthier than instant oatmeal. We finally were able to have a lesson with Esteban again. We saw a fawn walking around but it ran away. While we were setting up tables he (or she?) came back. It was trying to get into the wrapper that had a cookie we bought Esteban. He said it was his Bambi. I got to pet it with one finger. It was kind of loosing it’s hair. Esteban said it does not have a mom because he ate it. It went over where he was sitting and he totally hugged the deer. We are about done with the lesson when a goat comes by and starts walking through the lesson. It was an interesting lesson and one for the books.
Our climax of Friday was that we finally got to go to Shabbat. We are “teaching” some Messianic Jews and they invited us to come. We ended up getting there pretty late and I was starving. They fed us this yummy rice/potatoes with a chicken leg, arroz con leche, and carne asado tacos with napoles (cactus). It was so delicious and I want the recipes. Then the nephew proceeded to go off about lots of things. Theology relates to Zeus, how pastors recieve religious trainging in it, the sabbath day, interpreting the scriptures wrong and more. He didn’t pause for like 45 minutes. We were trying to leave so we could get how, and he started looking for a scripture. I asked if there were any scriptures that we could read because we had to get going. They told us some and we got out. A lot of the things they said are true and important, but I just didn’t see joy. The gospel brings me joy even though I may not understand ever scripture or what the Hebrew meaning is. The gospel is simple and perfect.
Phelippe (back from Charleston) has been texting Hermana Hanson and me. He wants to come up and visit us. Crazy thing is that he is now the branch pres!! We planned for lunch, then it got pushed back for dinner, and he told us that Roger couldn’t make it. We rescheduled for next week, but we all still wanted Texas Roadhouse for dinner. So we went and did contacting and messaging while we waited. My steak and potatoes were fantastic. I’m just glad I had enough money to pay for it (it was a kids meal...😂). We then went to futbol night. I sometimes question my sanity because I played it, and played it after eating a lot. It was so humid and I sweating like a cow because apparently pigs do not sweat. I have a love hate relationship with humidity.
I woke up yesterday and the back of my throat was super swollen. I had a hard time breathing through my mouth and swallowing. We called the mission nurse and she said I might have strep! She told me to go to the doctor. First doctor wouldn’t let me in, and the second doctor’s office didn’t have strep tests… so we went to church. Hermana Maxfield spoke and Hermana Hanson translated one of the talks into english. I kind of just tried to hide in a corner and not talk to people. That frustrated me because there were so many people I needed to talk to. Esteban paid his tithing. It was super cute. He hasn’t been baptized yet and doesn’t have a job, but he wanted to pay it. Alex, Bella, Jose and a guy named Daniel came to church too! We left after sacrament meeting to go to a doctor’s office that actually had what I was told to do. We get there and I wait for an hour and then get the test done. 20 minutes later they told me I don’t have strep!🤦♀️I have something viral so I need to use anesthetic spray and cough drops, and just wait it out. I mean I am happy I don’t have strep, but a lot of time was wasted trying to figure that out. We had canceled everything for the day because we were told to so we went home and ate a late lunch/early dinner. We decided instead of wasting the whole day that we would visit some people. We went and had a lesson with David. The spirit was super strong. We finished teaching him about the Plan of Salvation. I don't usually tell people about what happened to my older brother Ryan, but I felt I needed to. I told him about how he passed away and how hard it was. I bore my testimony on eternal families and I got super emotional. Sometimes we take for granted the knowledge we have and we don't realize how blessed we are to know about it.
In one of my personal studies this week I found a great talk. I read it and kind of rethought my life and what I believe in a good way. The talk is called "Approaching the Throne of God.” I just wanted to invite you all to read that. It is super good! Here’s the link:
The Law of the Fast: A Personal Responsibility to Care for the Poor and Needy. Dean M. Davies www.churchofjesuschrist.org |
Some other funny things that happened this week:
- I am sitting doing something on the floor when I look up and see Hermana Hanson chilling on the table.
- We sometimes run out of dishes so I used a container for my cereal, and Hna. Hanson used a tsp. for a spoon. This happens more often than it should.
- People we are teaching keep bashing me when I share scriptures from the Bible in lessons🤨
- Also, that picture of a baptism I sent last week was of the Rosas family that I taught while I was home. 😊
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