Dear Family,
Okay, I feel really bad about how I emailed last week. I was in such a rutt! But last Monday there was a P-day miracle! I just started feeling so much better. I know I´m not going to be fluent for a while but I´m just not going to let it bother me. Once I remembered how to just completely rely on the Lord I felt a million times better. And I started singing again. Now that I cant talk with anyone I just fill me head and heart with hymns to make sure I dont think anything negative. I just feel so light and I just have a renewed testimony of the power of the atonement! Yay!
Earlier this week we were contacting and I handed a picture of Jesus to this girl carrying a bag of groceries. I told her we were representatives of Christ and that our message would lift her burdens (with horrible grammer so I´m paraphrasing). She immediately started to cry and talk really, really fast so my companion stepped over and was listening and talking to her. It turns out she had crashed her husbands car and was so scared because he would be mad at her and they didnt have money to fix it. Thats all I understood but I guess it was bad. So she said we could meet with her! We went to her house the next day and taught her about Gods love for her and how te gospel blesses families. She has three children and had her first when she was 14!! Her two daughters dont live with her and we dont know why. But she loves her baby son so much. So we have been teaching her and yesterday we tried to show her a video about the restoration. But we couldnt get their tv to work! Haha it was such a struggle. It took a really long time and eventually the best we could do was have it play in English. I can understand English (duh.) and my companion has seen te movie enough to know exactly what is being said. So during the movie my companion and I took turns explaining the story. Honestly, it was so powerful. It was such a great experience. The room was full of the Spirit. Her mom, who is very Catholic, could feel it and commented about but she was very unhappy to be feeling something telling her the Catholic church might not have the full truth. Anyways, it was just really great.
Okay, funny story. That actually isnt funny at all. We were planning a couple of nights ago when all of the sudden we hear this whisper at one of our windows. We were thoroughly creeped out. So we tiptoed like two people about to get killed in a horror movie over to the window and it was one of our investigators! It was Enrique. He came to ask us for forgiveness because he smoked pot. We told him that we cant grant him forgivness because its not our law, its Gods and he needs to repent to God. We were pretty sad though because he was on date to get baptized this coming Saturday. But then two days after that we had a lesson with Enrique and we did the thing I had been most scared to do: call people to repentence! While reading the Book of Mormon in the MTC I kept reading how the missionaries would´Call people to repentence¨ and every time I thought that sounded scary. But it actually wasnt scary. It was great. We were both really bold and direct but we told him that these were Gods laws, read him some scriptures and told him that he needed to repent and obey....or else dun dun dun.... No, but really it was just a really good lesson and he is now trying to be better.
One last lesson story (writing is taking me too long today haha). There is this investigator who I love a lot named Abigail. She is just wonderful in every way. We gave her the lesson of the restoration in the chapel the other day. It was amazing. My heart was so full, and the spirit was testifying so strongly during the lesson. Especially when we explained the Book of Mormon. I knew she could feel it too because I dont know what it was but her countenance just kind of changed. So I told her that when she prayed and read the book she would feel this same feeling, the Holy Ghost, that would let her know it was true. It was great. It is so cool that we have access to the Holy Ghost at all times. This work and basically everything would be nothing without it.
So last week I hadnt tried any gross food but this week....there have been a lot of moments where I was cursing my tastebuds. So I developed (and of course am still perfecting) five rules to eating gross food like a champ:
1- Go hungry! The hungrier you go, the better everything will taste. This is a scientifically proven fact by me.
2- Dont ask, dont tell. There is no political controversy over this rule here because it is so helpful. You dont need to know that you are eating the eyeball of a fish until after it is digesting in your stomach. Just dont think about it.
3- Drink lots inbetween. You can wash it out or swallow it like a pill if you need.
4- Spice it up. If you put enough chilis on you cant taste (most) of the nastiness. Shout out to salsa.
5- Strategize. Dont eat too fast, but dont eat too slow. And dont eat all of the good stuff first.
But bonus point and most importantly, SMILE and say thank you. Even if it is disgusting out the wazoo, youre still a representative of Christ. (But luckily for Chist, he liked fish enough to multiply it. Thats a weakness of mine Im trying to get over. Everyone here likes fish...ew.)
Yesterday my companion and I were a healthy dose of devastated though because none of our investigators came to church. Which means none of them are progressing. It was so sad. Church is SO important. The sacrament is really the most important thing we do all week. Church is ESSENTIAL. Ugh.
Okay, last thing! Jon Schmidt came and gave a concert on Sunday!! Woop woop! It was awesome. It was great because we got a lot of people to come into the chapel. And two of our investigators! We have a gorgeous chapel and there just arent enough opportunities to use it. Its great to get people comfortable in it. And the music was beautiful, even though Jon Schmidt suggested we buy a new piano.... Yeeeaahhh....cuz that is a priority. Haha, but it was so much fun!
Its been a really great week! I love being a missionary and I love it here.
I love you guys all so much!
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