Family,
This week was pretty cool! We were able to see lots of
miracles, despite a lot of our plans falling through. It was still an amazing
week though!
Last Wednesday we had our interviews with President
Phillips. It was such a special experience, as always; he's an amazing person
and is super Spirit driven. After interviews, we started exchanges, and Elder
Clark went with me. He's a really cool guy! He's from California and is really
nice. We went and were able to pass by Mauricio, which we hadn't been able to
do in a long time. He has to work so much, so it's super hard to see us
sometimes. He's slowly but surely progressing though! After that we went to the
Lemus family (who were the ones that hosted us for calling on Christmas). We
ate classic Salvadorian Tostadas which were AMAZING. They are such an amazing
family. Then we went to visit Alex and Neli again, and had a great lesson with
them.
Thursday was pretty chill. We had district meeting, ended
our exchanges, and did weekly planning. We were able to visit with Edward
again, who we weren't able to see last week due to some illness in his family,
but they're doing great now. We taught him with Hermano Farfan, who is also
from Venezuela, and is our ward mission leader. He's a really helpful member!
On Friday we had another exchange, this time with the Zone
Leaders. I went with Elder Turcott to his area, which is in French. It was
super weird to teach in French! I've been able to have little lessons here and
there, but since I don't focus on French speakers, I haven't had much extensive
experience. It was very fun though! One of the guys we taught was actually
fluent in Spanish as well, so I just taught with him in Spanish, and Elder
Turcott did parts in French. It was super weird! We taught this Young Haitian family
as well which was interesting, there I had to use my French a bit more. We also
brought a Haitian member with us, so she could speak Créole with them and
connect with them a bit more. It was very interesting! Later that night, we
went to the chapel to start setting up some mutual activities that we were in
charge of. It was so fun! We answered lots of questions that the youth had
about missionary work, then we had an activity for them where they raced to get
ready like a missionary in the morning. They had to get out of bed, do 15 push-ups,
eat cereal without their hands and without milk (because missionaries are too
lazy to wash spoons and too cheap to buy milk haha), get dressed in a shirt and
tie or a skirt, and memorize a scripture and recite it perfectly. Then we taped
the companionships' hands together so they were always in "sight and
sound," then they went to knock some doors in the building and teach some
other members of the ward. It was so fun, and the youth loved it! It was an amazing
opportunity to get them thinking about missionary work!
Saturday was pretty chill, we didn't have many appointments,
so we spent the bulk of the day passing by potential investigators. It was very
productive though! We saw a really cool miracle that day though. We were
walking down the street heading to a potential when we felt like we should go
into this apartment building to our left. So we walked in, and felt like going
to the top floor. The first door we knocked was a Haitian guy, so we asked in
French if he knew of any Spanish speakers in the building. He then spoke to us
in Spanish, and invited us in. We taught him a full 30 minute lesson, and it
was amazing! He really loved it and was super interested! It was such a crazy
miracle to see how the Spirit can guide you to find those who are ready to
listen. Because he's Haitian though, we gave him over to the French
missionaries so he can understand better. It was SO cool though! After a time
of contacting potentials and doing some knocking, we headed to Hermana
Gregoria's house to pick up some food. We went home, ate, then went to Nicole's
house. Her brother and step dad weren't home, so we had to teach her outside in
the cold, which was funny. We're getting her ready to go to the temple, and
she's very excited!
Sunday was fairly busy. We went to Nicole's house to pick
her up and take her to church using the busses, then had ward council. Our
meetings were great, and our investigators had such great experiences. We set
up an account for Nicole to start doing genealogy work, and she's excited to
get going. After the meetings we taught Guillermo in the church. It went really
well, and he's close to getting baptized! He's ready, he just needs to be
taught a bit more! We then went and ate at the Amador family's house, and they
made some classic Dominican food called Sancocho. It was SUPER good! Then we
went and taught Eddy after passing by a few people. We told him that you can
listen to the Book of Mormon on the app, and he freaked out! He HATES reading apparently,
but now that he can listen to it he told us that he will be able to read a ton
more now! It was such an awesome breakthrough with him!
Monday was pretty decent, and very busy. We woke up early
and left to go visit Guillermo. He finally secured a job, which is awesome, but
now it's going to be really hard to see him. We're going to wake up and visit
him early in the morning so we can teach him. He's so solid! We then went to do
a baptismal interview with one of the other team's investigators, which was
super awesome. After that we went to a mental hospital to give a blessing to
one of the Sisters' investigators. It was a very interesting experience, and
very humbling. Then we were able to go visit a family in our ward who's 18-year-old
son has cancer. He couldn't come to church last Sunday due to his health, so we
wanted to pass by to see how he was doing. Luckily, he was doing a lot better.
He's such an amazing example to me. Despite the knowledge that he is going to
pass within the next couple of years, he has the most positive attitude you can
imagine. He's always cracking jokes, is always having fun the best he can, and
absolutely loves the gospel. With him and people like him, I've been able to
see how much of an impact the knowledge of the gospel has in someone's life.
Despite some of the hardest challenges you can imagine, when one can lean on
Christ and His gospel, they can still live life to the fullest. After visiting
him, we got to go back home to do some studies, then went to the familia Vinces
for dinner. They are Honduran, so they made us some classic Honduran Baleadas.
They were so good!
I'm doing amazing and having so much fun, as always, in the
field. I love all of you so much, and I hope you have a great week!
Elder James
No comments:
Post a Comment