Almost the Estandartes, lots of SWEAT!

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

So this last week was really interesting. Good and bad! Its true what I heard about the mission before, that your range of emotions stretches immensely. you feel happier and way sadder than you felt before.
Anyway the sad things. Cinthia, daughter of Mari and Juan Diaz accepted a baptismal date, but then Monday we went to help prepare her more and stuff but she told us she changed her mind. I was really sad. I am really sad. We told her to pray and see what the answer she got, because we cant deny answers from God. I hope she can see the reality of the necesity of baptism and the gospel in our lives.
Also Elsa and Raul are so good, but Elsa went to the tribunales and cant get divorced until april in order to get married to Raul unless she pays an insane amount right now. Aggh! They need to get baptized right now! but they are so nice, They feed us lunch once a week and do our laundry! And they truly have strong testimonies- its so good to see that.
My companion hurt her foot really badly last week, and got sick somehow from some food or water so we weren´t able to walk very fast and then with the stomach we had to stay inside a couple times. She is getting better though and so thats really good!
Last week we had some really good success with our dats! For the mission there are goals for the key indicators, for example, investigators in the church, how many lessons taught with a member present, how many people contacted, etc. and the goals the mission set are called the Estandartes. Well my companion and I were stoked because we had everything saturday night, and we still had sunday to get more things, all we needed were five investigators in the church sunday morning. We talked to 6 people that told us they were going to come for sure. Its a pretty big thing (ok, really big thing) to accomplish the estandartes and so we were stoked!! However, only two investigators ended up coming. It was kind of depressing. But! two really good things happened anyway- one of the invetigators that came, Maximiliano, hes 14, told us he wants to get baptized! yay! and then the familia peralta came to church tambien. Hna Barriga and I visited them last wednesday to talk to them and try to excite them to come to church, and while we were there the son that had just turned 8 the day before, Angel, went to Mariana, the mom, and said im 8 now and im ready to get baptized. And she looked at us and said wow the spirit was just really strong, and agh!! it was the coolest thing ever. a month or so Earlier we learned that the dad, Osir, wasn´t ever going to come back cuz he had an accident where he lost his job and a lot of bad things happened, but the whole family came on sunday! i felt so happy when i saw them walk through the door. They are the cutest family ever, and now Angel is going to get baptized next friday. I just hope they continue to come and receive the blessings from being active members in the church.
Also its sad when people are like dont come back here is your book, i dont need religion, but then its so great to see the little blessings as well. For example right after that happened two times in a row, we were walking to another place and saw this lady that we had taught earlier but for some reason we didnt know where she lived and she was so glad to see us and we set another appointment!
I just know that everytime someone chooses not to accept the gospel I have to stay motivated and happy in order to find the people that are going to accept the gospel.
I know that the gospel is true and that Jesus Christ is our Saviour. I know that the scriptures contain the answers to our questions, and that through them we can receive revelation. I love the Book of Mormon so much! I never appreciated it so much before in my life. It was truly written for us in this time.
I am so grateful for my companion and the good times we have had thus far! we laugh a lot.
Oh yeah!! haha i forget to tell you about the death heat wave that we experienced. I HAVE NEVER SWEAT SO MUCH IN MY LIFE. haha. Not today, but for four days in a row it was so nutty hot, I thought i was going to die. we were sitting, ok sitting, in a lesson, and i looked down at my arms and they were soaking wet. SOAKING WET. like my forearms!! ahh! the lady left to find her book of mormon and my companion and i started laughing so hard. I really hope we dont lose investigators cuz i sweat so much. And smell so bad. i have to buy perfume today. In order to be able to sleep we get t shirts and soak them all the way through and then put them on. then during the night we resoak them. Yesterday there was a ton of wind, and it cooled down immensely. I was never so grateful!
But we´ve gotten a lot of laughs through the heat. One time I was trying to clean my face for a lesson with a paper towel and it got so wet that little chunks of paper towel stuck to my face. so yeah i had them during the lesson. I am already like 20 shades darker in my skin tone. Its great :)
But yeah my companion is so great, i am laughing a lot more than i did before, we are having a great time. It is so cool to be with someone all the time that is from a different country. And my Spanish is improving and its great.
Also, we have nicknames for each other, she is Menchaca and I am Suipacha. They are streets here in Juan de Garay. Oh and for those that were wondering she is the green fiona, or the true fiona.
And hopefully i can send pics soon, to be honest I didn´t take any really in my first transfer but my trainer has a lot and said she is going to make a cd for me. I hope so!
Ok bye the gospel is true! I love you all!

[[[ I had asked her: "Do you do daylight savings time down there? Did you have Halloween? -not you personally of course, but I guess I'm asking if they celebrate it down there, and how?"] [She had a follow-up email just to answer these questions, which she had forgotten in her main email: "PS there is no daylights savings here and i think there were like 10 kids outside asking for candy. But yeah halloween like isn´t a thing here".]]]