Hard Work

*a little peek into my world

HARD WORK

So I would like to apologize in advance for the bad grammar and messy typing.  This keyboard that I'm using right now is about a million and one years old and its super stiff and sometimes the keys stick....So anyways...this last week was awesome. 

Me and my new companion, Hermana Mitchell, killed it this week.  We gave it all we had.  We talked with every single last person we saw.  We were bold.  We were loving.  He had fun!  We practiced and applied new things, and we basically just turned our area around. 

Last week we had 18 lessons, 4 new investigators, 5 lessons with member present.  This week we taught 34 lessons, had 15 new investigators, and taught 11 lessons with members present.  It was a great feeling.  We invited everyone to baptism in the first lesson.  We gave everyone a Book of Mormon.  

We used every last second, and we gave it our all.  Not just with our actions, but with our heart. We're feeling hopeful about these next few weeks.  Looks like God is finally starting to answer all those pleadings.  

He is in the details. Leading and guiding us to the people who are ready.  It wasn't a perfect week, but it sure was a good one!  We also worked a lot with the young women [ages 12-17] in our ward [congregation].  We invited them to come with us and it was fun helping animate them to serve missions too.  We were able to show them that the mission is hard but also very fun.  Love them.

SANTA CRUZ PEOPLE

So we were searching for the address of a contact we had made the previous week and we ran across a really friendly lady.  We asked if we could use her bathroom because no one we had gone to visit all day had been home and we were dying.  She let us in and before we left we asked if we could share a message.  She accepted and we sat down and started getting to know her a bit first.  And get this: SHE LIVED IN CAPITOLA FOR 12 YEARS. 

What in the world.  Her son, who was also 20 years old, was born in San Jose aaaaaand a ton of her family still lives in Santa Cruz.  I couldn't believe it!  SUCH a small world.  We asked if the missionaries could visit her family in Santa Cruz and she said YES, but she doesn't know their addresses so we're still waiting on that.

NOCHE DE POSTRES

I once again organized and carried out the dessert night activity.  I had all the things assigned out to different ward [congregation] members and about half of them didn't show up, so that was kind of stressful.  We had 40 people signed up to bring a dessert and about 20 showed up and half of those 20 showed up an hour late.

We played games with desserts like putting a spoon in your mouth and putting jello on it and doing a race.  Also a hanging donut that you have to eat without hands.  It was all sorts of craziness, but in the end a ton of people showed up and we left with 5 or 6 references and 4 appointments. 

As always there was a nay sayer.  A less active that decided to come up to us afterwards and tell us all that he didn't like about the activity, and that he would have done it differently.  He rambled on for a while and let a stream of criticisms and cynical things out of his mouth. 

We just nodded.  I then politely interrupted, "Thank you so much for your suggestions hermano! You have a great night!" and we left him standing there in his little cloud of negativeness.  

I think my before-mission-self would have made a rude and clever come back.  Something sarcastic to get back at him for being so rude.  But I didn't.  I didn't even feel a desire to.  Well...maybe a little. But all in all it was a success!  

We brought together at least a hundred people or more, and we found the most darling little old people I ever did see.  One of them had no teeth and a sombrero.  The other only had one eye.  I sat down by them and grabbed their hands and thanked them for coming.  They had such twinkly little eyes (or in the case of the wife "eye") and they were just so thrilled to be inside a Mormon church.

We have an appointment with them this week.  As I explained to them who we are and what we do as missionaries, I mentioned that we came from very far away to share what makes us happy.  "I know," said the tiny little old lady.  "I can see it in the light in your eyes."  I love little Mexican people.  A lot.

*the elder without glasses is the one we sent a package to a while back!  The one who sent us a picture of the temple!  He came up to me the other day and told me who he was and how much the package meant to him, and to tell you guys thank you!  So darling mom.

*me and my new comp at church.

She doesn't look like a fellow gringa but she is.