Jan 3, 2022
Feliz Año Nuevo!!!🎉🎉🥳🥳2022
Hey everyone!! I’ll jump right in and skip the warm and fuzzies.
Last Monday we paid for gas but the guy accidentally put it for pump #5 instead of #1. We were worried someone had gotten to it before us. But the guy pulled out and didn't get gas. We drove around but the car was faced the wrong way. So I jumped out and yelled sacrifice. Then Hna. Marvin drove and flipped around. Then I turned and looked and saw these two girls looking at me weird, so I explained. It was embarrassing but pretty funny. I have no regrets. We went and taught Elida and her kids were being super crazy. Sometimes kids are easy to teach and other times they are not. It was getting late, but we decided to go visit Luz. We hadn’t seen her for a month plus. There were lots of cancellations and Mia and Derek were sick. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and Derek is excited to read it!
I gave the discussion for DCM on Tuesday. I talked about how Faith and Obedience help us find people to teach. If we don’t have faith that we will find, we won’t. Faith is the opposite of fear. When we are afraid it isn’t allowing our faith to lead us. My mom has always told me that if I want the exact blessings I need to be exactly obedient. The only thing that I can remember from my first setting apart blessing was to be exactly obedient. Over the past couple of weeks, I have realized something, being exactly obedient isn’t being obedient because you have to, but because you want to. I am in the process of changing my mindset and trying to become better. I know that I am not the best missionary, but I can do so much more. Heavenly Father loves us exactly the way we are right now, but he wants us to progress and become better. For lunch, we went to Broncos. I got this chimichanga with quesadillas and pieces of steak. I was starving so I ate pretty much the whole thing. After, we went and taught David about the priesthood. He told us that the priesthood wasn’t something he wanted. Then we explained what it was, why we need it, and the blessings. He is grateful for it now. Afterwards, we taught Milvian a quick lesson about the 10 commandments. We had to leave really fast because Hna. Marvin had a doctors appointment. Her antibiotic for her ear infection gave her thrush or a growth of yeast in her mouth. She now has to rinse with this cherry peppermint flavored stuff 4 times a day. She thinks it is sooo gross, and I crack up every times she gags when she does it. Then we went and taught the Huipes about the Plan of Salvation. We played Jenga after the lesson and Selina and Isabella started talking a lot. We are helping them get to young womens these next couple of weeks. The downfall of the day was no one showed up to English Class. So I practiced the piano for a minute and then we worked on some spreadsheets. On the way home we got a call from the Spanish STLs. They asked us to switch our exchanges and to have it the next day.
I spent Wednesday in… Columbia!! like always! Hna. Oyler and I went and got Elote from Manny’s. This time I got a kiwi colada. It was good but I like the other ones better. Then we went and taught this little boy named Alex who wants to get baptized. We played Jenga with them. His family are members, but he is super shy Hna. Oyler told me that it was a breakthrough lesson because they actually talked and had fun with us. After that we taught a family from Honduras. They were super nice and fed us these enchiladas (apparently in Honduras they call tostadas enchiladas.) It was so delicious. We told them a couple of jokes. Here are a couple of them: (Translated they aren’t as funny)
¿Cuál fruta es la más chistosa? ¡La naranja-ja-ja!
¿Cuál fruta es la más negativa? ¡El plátano-no-no!
Here was a riddle: Nací en el mar. Blanco yo soy. El pobre y el rico se aprovechan de mí.
We taught them about the spirit world. They started arguing and both sides were partially right. The hermanas are going to have to cover that again. Something really cool happened as we were driving. I was doing something on my phone when Hna. Oyler said we were going to flip around and talk to some Hispanics on the side of the road. We did and one of them was a member. She had been wanting to come back to church. She prayed for help and we popped up. She said she hadn’t seen the elders walking around for a while, and that is because we have cars. We gave her the information for church and English class. Hna. Oyler told me that she wasn’t going to talk to them, but felt strongly that she should. It was really neat. We got hot chocolate and then we went to bed.
On Thursday, we exchanged back and got Zaxby’s. We had a zoom meeting with all the Spanish missionaries on how to help our English classes get better. A lot of people used to come, but now pretty much no one comes. We learned a lot of new tips and tricks, and we are excited to try them out. After that we went and visited Caren and Angel. They have this super stinkin cute puppy. He has the tiniest legs and loves to play. They really want to come to church and will hopefully fix their car so they can. Then Hna. Marvin and I stopped by a tienda. We left some English class cards and bought some pan dulce. I got this one with pudding and she got a puerquito (bread shaped like a pig). The one I got was sooo good and super messy. I ate the whole thing. Probably not a good idea right before dinner, but it was too late. We visited Maria and she still wants to meet with us. We are really hoping that she will progress. The Mejias fed us Little Caesars Pizza and Tamales. I tried my first Tamales de Piña. They were really good. Then we taught English Class. Santiago, Daniel, and his friend Moises came! It went really well. We weren’t planning on having a lesson after with Santiago, but his ride said they couldn’t pick him up. So we gave him a church tour and he loved the painting of when Christ visited the Ancient Americas. He said he has seen temples in Guatemala and Chiapas like in the painting. We showed him a picture of the First Vision and taught him that. He thought that it was so cool! He also loved seeing the baptismal font. We stayed with him as long as we could, and gave him some tamales. He sat outside in front of the church until his ride got there. It was so hard to leave him in the dark all alone.
Friday afternoon we planned a lot for the upcoming week. Then we went to visit the Sanchez family. When we got there they told us that they were busy, so we rescheduled for Sunday. So we stopped by this one house. They had a little bear decoration that said, “Go Away,” and a sign that said they would prosecute if people came by without asking would have to pay $500. What a warm welcome. Then we went and visited Hermano and Hermana Chirolla, the parents of Ivan Chirolla. Only the dad was there so we scheduled a visit for Sunday. Afterwards, we went and had dinner with Irma and her family. They are from Belize. They learned English and then Spanish. We ate ceviche (this time it had avocados and tostada), steak, potatoes, and garlic bread. It was a fun way to spend New Years Eve. On the way home we called Carlos and taught him about the Atonement.
Saturday we drove and visited some people. We went to some sketchy looking houses. Hna. Marvin fed a dog some treats and he wanted to come home with us. We stopped by this house who asked for a bible study. The name was Dyqwuan. It didn’t sound super hispanic, but you never know. Turns out they are not and speak English. The mom was super nice, and talked to us. She told us that her brother named her son. He named his own son Jyqwuan. She told us that she should’ve known he would name them something similar. We drove to visit someone else and met Balta. He seems super interested in talking more with us. He knew the elders before and never thought that there would be sister missionaries. That happens a lot. People think that we don’t exist. We get called Elders sometimes. On the way to see Johany we called Israel. He was a self referral. He wants to come to church! We tried to get him a ride but we didn’t get his address in time. We are going to start teaching him too! Josue and Deylert were so excited to see us. We haven’t seen them since the ward activity. We started teaching them the plan of salvation with my little felt map thing. Dana kept trying to get it off the table, so we kept moving it. She wasn’t having that. We gave her one and she tried ripping it/eating it. Then she cried and cried. It is super hard to teach with a baby crying. Hopefully Dana will be in a better mood next time.
Yesterday was awesome. We had our Spanish Fast and testimony meeting. From now on we will be having two seperate Spanish meetings every month. Sadly, no one we are teaching came to church. It seemed like everything was fighting against all that we had done. On the good side, we finally had a group leader called!!! It is Hermano Ramirez! I have been waiting for this since July. I jumped for joy with Hna. Marvin when we found out. With church at 9am now, we are able to go home for lunch. We took a nap instead. Right when we were about to leave Victor called us. I have been texting him since November and sending him the English class info. I had been wanting to see if he was interested in the gospel but he always texted back a lot later. He asked me about church and we gave him the info. In the call we talked and he still wants to come to church! We are going to start teaching him!! Afterwards, we went and had a lesson with Mariola (she has asked us to start calling her Carmen… that will be a hard transition). She is doing really well. Sadly Mia doesn’t want to talk to us anymore. She won’t be getting baptized, but we have hope for the future. It was really sweet because Mariola was glowing and was just soaking up the plan of salvation. She asked us if there was more and we told her we were saving it for next time. After that we went and visited the Chirollas. They are super sweet and told us so many stories. They gave us this guava sweet with cheese. I think it tastes pretty good. Hna. Marvin was a chicken and didn’t eat it together. Even though she compared it to Ratatouille.🐀 Then we raced to visit Maria Hernandez. She is doing a little better. She still struggles to breathe and it was hard watching her. Hna. Marvin got to know her better last week on exchanges. Turns out she got baptized 4 years ago. Her husband passed away before, but she was able to get sealed to him. It sounds like such a neat story. Right after that, we stopped by this one house. We have visited it a couple times with no answer, but they answered. We met Raul and Maria. They are friends and have talked to the missionaries before. It was a bit awkward at first, but we are going back later this week. They want to start being taught again. We got home and video called Israel. We taught him a lesson and got to know him better. Something funny is that he is the Israel we met at Nicholas’s house (with many Nicholases) about a month and a half ago. He is so open to learning and really wants to come to church. Hna. Marvin said she had dejavu. She said she knew it was the same Israel. Well, there are no coincidences. He contacted other missionaries, who then got us in contact with him again. To end our teaching that night, we called Carlos. It took a minute for him to open up, but he told us that he wants to be closer to God and misses going to church. He told us that he is going to find a ride so that he can come this upcoming Sunday. Hna. Marvin and I had absolutely no time to eat dinner. We had pigs in a blanket again. She made a cat croissant and a dog, they looked pretty funny looking. It was a great way to end our night.
I have seen over the past week that our Heavenly Father truly answers our prayers. I have been praying for us to receive a group leader for so long. We finally got one, just in His timing. Hna. Marvin and I have been having a hard time finding new people to teach. We have been praying and trying so hard, but we weren’t seeing anything. This week we were able to find six new people, which was a miracle. I am so grateful for prayer and the answers that I receive. I know that my Heavenly Father hears me and loves me. I know that He gives me what I need and not always what I want. In John 16:23-24 it says, “(23) And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. (24) Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” I wanted to invite you all to say a prayer in the morning and in the night daily. I promise you that you will feel a change in you day. You will feel closer to your Heavenly Father, and will see the answers to your prayers.
I love you all! Tengan buena semana!!
(The answer to the riddle is Sal or salt!)
Here are some pictures!
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