Well first of all this week started off with a SQUEAK because we cleaned our cabaña hardcore ALL morning last Monday. We were convinced this place hadn't been cleaned for a year por lo menos.
So we started this
week in ORDER. I can testify that a house of order is a house of God.
We also ran into a man
from Gringolandia (Chileno word for the U.S.) in McDonald's when we were buying
our P-day lunch. He was thrilled to see us! He paid for our lunch too! He's
living here with his wife and 3 kids for the next year. His wife is Chilena so
they wanted the kids to get immersed in the culture and language more. He
doesn't really know Spanish though so we just talked to him in English....which
was so weird to talk to a person in English in public! He and his wife are
converts of only 10 years and so he said he just LOVES the missionaries. It was
really neat to talk to him. He also reminded me a lot of Uncle Studly...(er...I
mean Uncle Jeff :) haha
But really! He talks
just like him, so that was kind of cool for me.
Well anyway so in this
week's planamiento my companion and I decided that we wanted to work on
Obedencia with EXACTIDUD. We are obedient, but this week I found that there is
a stark difference between Obedience and EXACT obedience. And the difference is
pretty amazing.
One of our zone goals
for this cambio is to fast once every week. So this time Hna Oross and I
decided to fast with specificity( if that is a word). We fasted not just to find
families, but families that really are ready to receive this gospel. We also
fasted for our investigator Lucrecia who we visited earlier in the week for us
to know if we should spend more time with her or not because we couldn't really
understand if she really is progressing or not and she's very amable and sweet,
but she isn't progressing much. It's hard to drop people. It really is. So we
fasted that we could have a clear understanding of what we should do. And we
also fasted that we would be able to be in tune to the whisperings of the
spirit as we teach and meet people so as to know what we should do.
....that day that we
fasted was HOT and literally all of our citas (appointments) fell through. And
then all the plans AND plan B's brought about nothing. ´But we went forth not
knowing beforehand what we should do.´
At one point in the
day we just decided that we would stop by one of our contacts from last week
that owns a negocio (a little convenience shop sort of thing). His name is
Washington and we bought ice cream from him and talked to him about family
history because when he told us his name, he talked about how all of his
antepasados have the name of Washington. He thought the family history program
was pretty cool so we said we'd stop by another day. And that day we did. We
planned on buying a few candies or something so that we could talk to him at
the counter, and not have to eat because we were fasting. But right when we
walked in, he said, 'Oh hermanas!!!! What would you like to eat?!' Neither of
us said anything right away and so he just said, 'AH! How about I make you some
pancito ham sandwiches?' And we just laughed and let him because he basically
already started. We talked to him more about us and the gospel and our day
while he made them. Then when he finished we brought out our wallets and he
said NO NO NO NO NO GRATIS! And then added in two HUGE juicy Chilean apples and
two chocolate milks! We couldn't believe it. So we kind of just stood there and
he was laughing and then we said thank you as best we could and then he said, “Yeah
I am more than happy to serve such good people! I know you have things you need
to do. Come teach me on Monday!”
So we left with bigger
smiles on our faces and FOOD.
En camino to a house
with a family we met last week, we had three different contacts with some
ladies, Blanca, Fernanda, and Lisalot, all of whom, after talking breifly with
us about Jesus on the pass along card we gave them, asked us, if we
could talk to them again later. That doesn't happen. Fernanda had her little
girl with her and Lisalot had two little girls with her age 6 and 10. How
neat!!!
Then when we got to
Lorena's house, (a previous contact) no one was home. So we decided to pass by
our 10 yr old friend Danahe so we could see if her Mom was home so we could
FINALLY teach them. We stopped by but Danahe was home alone. So we just
conversed a bit at the door way and then GUESS WHO SHOWED UP TO THE DOOR NEXT
TO HERS?!
Well, you wouldn't
really know because I don't think I mentioned him yet, but it was MATIAS!!
He's a 14 year old boy
that we've run into 3 different times on the street while I've been here. And
he seriously just has a special light about him. Each time we talked with him,
it was kind of casual and we didn't teach anything, but he just is a different
kid. He's so cool! And now we know where he lives! And he was excited to see
us. He said hi and we met his aunt and they invited us to come talk to them
another day. Matias was on his way to play futbol with his friends that were
waiting. Anyway that was cool.
We started to walk
again and my companion had a bunch of piedras in her shoe so she sat on a post
really fast to fix it. While we were sitting there, a lot of people were
walking by. One of these people was a man with a little 4 year old or so son.
As he passed us he said ‘oh you look so weary.' and then we laughed and said,
'un poco no màs!' and he smiled and walked on. But as he walked away I just
felt a pull towards him. I felt like we HAD to talk to him. It was weird, but
he stopped a distance up to hand his boy a water bottle. So I told my companion
to hurry so we could go catch up with him. And when she got up he was kind of
awkwardly far for us to go all the way back, but his boy wasn't with him. Then
TADA! That little kid was right next to us holding out his sticker-covered
normal water bottle out to us. We looked up to the man and said Thank you!
...we were fasting so we really didn't want to take their water bottle, but I
realized we looked sweaty and probably 'weary' and I didn't want to reject
their precious act of service. So we ran up to them and said, would it be okay
if we give you something too? We gave him and his little boy a picture of Jesus
Christ and talked a little bit about it. Then we thanked him so much for his Christlike
act. We asked if we could pasar en otro momento to talk with him and his
family. And he said he would LOVE that. He then he said, ‘my wife would love to
listen to your message too.’ THEN he said, if you need cualquier cosa,
(anything) to come to their house. It is open to us. No one does that! He said
he had never met Mormon missionaries either!
The best part of it
all, not really but it was awesome, was his little boy had huge pieces of white
tape as eyebrows and a beard coming off his face. I LOVED IT! It will be one of
my precious mental pictures from my mission yo creo. I commented on that to the
man and he said, 'Yeah, he's pretty creative' The man's name is Marden. We had
a cita to teach him on Sunday, but his wife wasn't home yet, so we
couldn't go into the house, but we gave him a folleto of the restuaracion and
he was very excited to read it. We'll teach him.
Well we continued on
our even merrier way and received more and MORE food from three other people!
While fasting. . . haha
But on our way to
visit Lucrecia, I saw a homeless guy sitting on the side of the street and we
just gave all of the food to him with a few pictures of Jesus Christ. He was so
excited. He told us it had been four days that he had something to eat. How
special it is to be working with the Lord.
When Lucrecia opened
the door, she had tears all down her face and she said, 'I've been crying.' I
was just thinking THERE IS NO WAY. And then we looked at her and she pointed to
her kitchen which had a feast of food and she said, 'Cebollas.' (onions) And
then we all laughed super hard. She also gave us a lot of food to take home...
haha ...and we had a good lesson with her...but she just wasn't completing with
her commitments and things and she was so confusing.... and we talked with her
and asked her about (the letter got kind of jarbled at this point.
Hopefully we’ll find out the rest of it later)
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