And that's cool. ... it's just a little inconvenient when you are in the middle of saving their soul! ;)
Sooooo we focused on finding new investigators that are still around here in Punta Arenas. Our district goal was to do a minimum of 10 contacts every day. By 9 p.m. on Monday, Hermana Mota and I had contacted 9 people. We had to be in the house by 9:30. We wanted to find one more person, but not just contact this person just to get the number 10. So we prayed for Heavenly Father to place those who should be contacted that night in our path. After the prayer, we chose a direction to walk. As we turned the street, there was a father and his son salting the snow in front of their house and no one else in the street.
Wow! Great. Wasn't that easy?!
By the time we reached their house they had seen us and literally skidaddled into their house.
Meesh. So we kept walking and I saw an old woman hobbling trying to carry a few bags. I thought Cool! Service too! Then we walked up to her and she looked up at us and screamed and ran faster than I've seen an old lady run....because I don't think I've ever seen an old woman run.
We turned the corner and the entire street was suddenly FULL of people. Woo! We are going to talk to people! And just like those Las Vegas casino ladies fan out until you see the singing gorilla from George of the Jungle, every single person fanned out from our path! Some people even left their shovel with shoveled-snow still sitting on it waiting to be thrown to the side... It was like we were a walking in a toxic bubble! And there wasn't even any ''singing gorilla'' at the end of this either...
....so we kept walking. 4 more people were ahead and all of them individually took a turn, or crossed the street. At this point it was 9:25. Our feet were frozen and numb and we were very uncomfortably tired and cold. We were close to our apartment but didn't want to go home until we had at least contacted one more person before 9:30.
9:29 we met Carlos. He was on his way to a soccer game and out of curiosity asked what our church is about. We talked to him and set an appointment. He's awesome!
9:30 we got a bonus and met Orlando on our way back to our apartment. He was very excited to meet us and he is very receptive to the gospel!
It was such a cool experience to put in our part and see Heavenly Father follow through because He always does.
We got home and while our bodies were thawing, we smiled feeling excited to go back out the next day.
Just like Monday, this week was cold, but it was great and absolutely beautiful!!!!
I. LOVE. SNOW!
The first few days most of the streets and sidewalks were untreaded or deep snow, so Hna. Mota and I had to lug our feet through a lot of snow for the entire day. Sometimes we would walk in the tire tracks of cars to give our feet a break. A few days later, when there were paths, our feet still got soaked and frozen, so we decided to trudge on the sides that were less tread so that we could feel like epic pioneers all day. haha Hna Mota has really enjoyed the snow. Well, we could say its a mix of love and hate. But I think it's a pretty cool story to tell people you didn't meet snow until you were in the end of the world! haha We've had a lot of spontaneous snowball fights while walking.
She tells me that she feels like she's walked more in this sector than she ever has. Her legs hurt a lot and are reacting strange, so we went to a cyber during the week and she e-mailed the enfermera. This kid sitting next to her in the cyber was just plainly and openly watching youtube videos on ''How to cultivate and treat your marijuana'' Yeah that was interesting... Then on our way to meet up with the zone leaders to get the ibuprofen and other medications for Hna Mota, we were walking behind a very normal looking woman and then all of a sudden a group of 3 guys walked past her and while walking past each other they exchanged drugs and money. Ha what. Sometimes Hna Mota and I walk in silence and then we realize we just people-watched the same people and then laugh or comment without having to explain what we just saw personally.This was one of those times. We were so surprised that people just do that!
Then we met the eldders out in front of the mall. We gave them the money for the medication, and they gave us the medicine. After the elders scurried off in a taxi, we looked at each other like, ''.....we just participated in a drug-dealing.'' Obviously it wasn't....but I just wonder what other people thought by seeing us missionaries doing that! hahaha!
Our ward mission leader served in Brasil so he was excited to speak with Hna Mota en Portuguese. ...she couldn't speak back. She kept switching to Spanish. (And sometimes she switches into Portuguese while she's talking to me, it's similar enough to understand some of the words, but she doesn't notice.) So our mission leader told us that if we are forgetting our language it means we aren't teaching our companion.
So I am learning Portuguese and teaching Hermana Mota English.
Hermana Mota is fun to teach and fun to learn from. We found a mini white board in our house and hung it up and teach each other like we are teaching a giant class. Haha. And sometimes it takes us a while to figure out if that really is the way something is spelled or the way we say something.
But we are learning and learning is fun!
We were finishing up weekly planning and then Hna Mota reminded me about companionship inventory. I had forgotten all about that because Hna. Parkinson and I kind of just did it during the week when we had something nice to say or something that bothered us in the moment. But Hermana Mota didn't forget! Nope. haha she had written an entire list of things I need to improve. So I am slowly but surely smoothing out the rough edges. Progress is an awesome thing and humbling too. One of the things she told me to change was to start saying ''we'' instead of ''I.'' Which is funny because my other companion didn't like it when I used ''we.''And it just made me remember Mom and Dad and Mom always saying, ''It's not WE!'' hahaha or something like that. Now I'm just spinning in confusion! hahaha
Well, this week we have a family night planned for every day of the week except for Thursday! And we have plans to work with the members every day! It's fantastic. Are you guys helping the missionary work? You should invite a family to have family night with you all to play blankets and chairs or the sleepy finger game... hahaha no, but really you should ask the missionaries if they have any investigators or less active members that they would like to have a lesson with you! It's so awesome!
This week's past life entertainment episode favorite:
One of those times when I was very very tired and didn't want to be awake for family night, so I was sleeping on the couch in my giant comforter until you all wanted to go play lava tag at some random park. So we drove there and you guys said I couldn't stay in the van, so I brought my entire comforter out with me and lay down on the playground bridge and slept while all of you ran around and played tag. Ugh. I'm glad those stubborn days are over. It made me chuckle to myself one day during lunch though :)
I love you my dear family! I can't believe 6 months has already passed! I have loved them all so dearly. I have a long way to go, but not really. Thank you so much for being my family and for sharing your testimonies with me. I love you.
Love,
Hermana Olson
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| Here is the view from our window |
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| Trekking through the white stuff |
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| A nice little perro who doesn't have fleas, because fleas don't exist here! |
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