March 31, 2016

This week was kind of a roller coaster! That's what I kept calling it. It was a really good week though.

To start on last Saturday we went proselyting! We thought that they were going to tell us more about proselyting but they didn't really. Haha It was making us all nervous, but as soon as we got out there there was just a calming spirit.

We got our areas and our area was pretty much purely houses. They warned us about the siesta which was about 1:30 to 4:30. We were told not to knock doors (or clap at gates, is what I should say, because that's what they do here)  during that time.

    My companion and I just started walking, and it was really strange. We didn't know what to do. We were trying to think of a conversation starter or something, and then this lady was crossing the street and we just said, "Hola." We had been saying hola to everybody we saw but they were just brushing us off. So we said hi to this onder lady and she stopped for a second so we introduced ourselves and explained who we were. She was nice to us but it was so hard to understand her. We heard "dios" and "jesu cristo: and we got so excited because they were words that we recognized and so we told her what we believed in. We reached for our bags and the she said ¨no literature!´ so we just gave her a card. Haha

After her we saw a guy on a bike and said hola! He actually crossed the street to talk to us which was really awesome! It was also hard to speak with him but we explained who we were and told him that our Spanish was bad, and he understood. We started to talk to this guy more and we were telling him what we believed in and he seemed interested! He asked us who is Joseph Smith and we both lit up because we know that kind of Spanish vocabulary! We gave him a folleto (pamphlet) of Joseph Smith. And began to talk to him! We told him about Joseph Smith, and I got to recite the 1st vision to him in Spanish! I definitely felt the spirit and knew that he felt it too. We got his address and his name. He will probably be visited by some missionaries in the area.

We got stopped by the police! They wanted to see identification! We were told not to take that stuff with us so we didn't know what to do! We got nervous and all of a sudden couldn't even say the simple phrases in Spanish haha. They wanted to check our bags so we showed them. We got out our dictionaries and that's when they realized it wasn't worth their time I guess...It cracked me up!

Being out there was alright! We had a blast talking to people but our area wasn't that busy. When we weren't talking to people it seemed to drag on. The older ladies seemed to talk to us more and some of the middle aged men, but all the teenagers and middle aged or younger women wanted nothing to do with us. That's just the reality of missionary work, but we will try harder next time! I love the culture, we got offered soda and food by an older lady who was catholic! She said she wasn't switching religions, but she was so nice!

Other than proselyting, the week has been really good! We had Easter, and they gave us chocolate eggs! We had a really awesome sacrament meeting. We combined with the Latinos and they gave some talks about Jesus. We had a translator so we got to hear everything they said! There were four musical numbers and they were so good! We got to sing our song in the fireside. Our song was The Army of Heleman and Sisters in Zion medley. 

I opened my Easter package and absolutely loved it!!! We found out that the little plastic bunnies that were in there can stick to the ceiling really well! Every one got a kick out of that and I shared some of the chocolates and suckers with the Elders.

The language is going well but it's getting more difficult at the same time! The North American elders got together and made some new goals! We started to speak Spanish from breakfast to lunch and we hope to get to the point of doing it for a whole day. The other 6 elders here have become my family. I laugh with them, cry with them, and it's so nice to have them here with me.

Today we got to go through a session in the temple! It will be the last one because the temple is closing for renovations.