Week 36: THE BEST WEEK
We laughed SO much this week. So much is was unreal. Like... I have loved my mission up till now, but in this one week in Jardines with Hermana Tolliver, I get it. GET what it means to LOVE the mission with a fiery, burning, passionate missionary love-crush. Is it a ´hard´ area? People say so, because it´s people in a different wealth class than the other areas. People with a lot firmer mentality. Plus, opening the area. Yeah, a couple investigators were left, but there are reasons that areas get white-washed. Bring in new faces into the old places.
I don´t even know WHAT was so hilarious this week. EVERYTHING. Hermana Tolliver is the coolest person in this w.o.r.l.d. We are tearing it up. We were doing service with the bishop´s wife, and one of her friends that was there asked us, ´How have you learned Spanish so fast?´ Hermana Tolliver´s completely truthful, straight-faced response was, ´We pray REALLY hard.´ I don´t know WHY it was funny, but we all lost it. Could be our ward mission leader, Abraham, who commented that, ´Jedis are like missionaries. They come in pairs, and one of them is always mayor.¨ Maybe it was this creepy old man speaking to us in English, telling us he had lived in New Orleans, and doing some weird shimmy. Maybe it was the puffy lips, our habit of getting lost, our 65 year-old investigator Hernan who, now that we are bringing in the habit of singing with him, always anxiously asks, ¨Aren´t we going to pray first??¨.... maybe the fact that I shower 3 times a day, because if not, I reek like something other. could be that we eat balleadas every day and we LOVE it, that one time we ate a lump of refried beans just like it was truffles.... maybe our constant eating habits.... (okay, that´s getting a little outta control, let´s be honest now). oh! that an RM from the ward came back from El Salvador and he knows JOSH RICHARDS and AMIE ISOM´S now-husband was his trainer!.... or, the highlight of the week: our district had a goal of having 7 baptism challenges on Thursday. We laughed when we heard it, knowing that we are lucky to get 7 appointments in in this area, let alone 7 with INVESTIGATORS. But, we determined that yes, we would do it. That it can be done. So, we started the day really strong... until we got a medical phone call and had to be out of the area all day until 5:00. Ohhhh... So, we recounted our dilemma to the Assistents to the President (AP´s) and asked their advice. He said do it in the bus.
Ummm.... it was there on that beautiful bus ride that we made our most awkward memory yet of this beautiful mission. When we told our district companion at the end of the day of our glorious successes, he recounted how he imagined the conversation:
¨Where are you going? Do they have a chapel? I think they have a baptism font...¨
We walk in the rainy weather of the week, laughing. It was cute that an investigator later related how she saw us always happy, even in the rain. We had no idea who saw us, joyfully huddled under our one broken umbrella, laughing.
We made this beautiful little ´business cards,´ for the ward members that have our picture, phone number, and says, ¨We´re the new missionaries and we´re here to serve you!¨ Cheesy? You´d better believe it. Wonderful? Also.
Our happiness has not gone unnoticed. Several ward members have noted and commented that we´re just so HAPPY. That they´re happy to have sisters again. (ha ha ha take that, elders! :) )
While we are having the time of our LIVES, we are probably the most happy because we are seeing real people benefiting, improving their lives through the gospel. We have an investigator who is separated from his wife; the two live in the same neighborhood, just 3 streets apart. We went with him for the 3rd time, and I just wanted him to get it. To feel it. Not just receive us, listen, answer well, do his committments. I wanted him to feel the Spirit. We started reading with him in the Book of Mormon. And then, we hit a fundamental part that maybe we should have covered by now, but the flow of the visits hasn't led us there: telling him that God loves him. We asked him if he knew that, and he said yeah, because that´s what everyone believes, right? I asked if he could feel it. If he believed it. If he knew it. Something just swelled inside of me and I wanted to share with him why all this matters. That it´s more than just happy visits with the missionaries, that Heavenly Father wants him to feel peace in his life, forgiveness for the things he´s done. He wants to liberate him.
Well, the spirit was very strong in the lesson, almost palpable. We invited him to church, and he gave a half-hearted ¨maybe,¨ then we followed up with his doubts, which are he always left his church angry, when he went. Hermana Tolliver beautifully promised him he would not leave angry, that he would feel something so special. I testified of that, that he would leave with peaceful feeling, and would be able to change his life around. This 35 year-old, (semi)-broken-hearted man had tears in his eyes, and whispered, ¨Yes, yes, I´ll come.¨
We left there on cloud 9. I left in tears. That´s missionary work. That´s why we´re here. To bring hope to the Carlos´s of the world, who have a heavy burden they need to leave behind.
A member commented to us later that night that he had passed by after we left, and he saw Carlos waving good-bye to us, with a stunned/reverent look.
Are all our lessons that amazing? I. W.I.S.H. Working on that!
It was incredible.
And his mom cancelled her former plans, and went to the temple with her neice today, the last temple open house day. I can´t wait for her to tell us how it went, how she felt. EVERYTHING. LOVE it.
I´m GIDDY to keep working. We´re seeing amazing, perfect, wonderful miracles every day around these parts.
I don´t even know WHAT was so hilarious this week. EVERYTHING. Hermana Tolliver is the coolest person in this w.o.r.l.d. We are tearing it up. We were doing service with the bishop´s wife, and one of her friends that was there asked us, ´How have you learned Spanish so fast?´ Hermana Tolliver´s completely truthful, straight-faced response was, ´We pray REALLY hard.´ I don´t know WHY it was funny, but we all lost it. Could be our ward mission leader, Abraham, who commented that, ´Jedis are like missionaries. They come in pairs, and one of them is always mayor.¨ Maybe it was this creepy old man speaking to us in English, telling us he had lived in New Orleans, and doing some weird shimmy. Maybe it was the puffy lips, our habit of getting lost, our 65 year-old investigator Hernan who, now that we are bringing in the habit of singing with him, always anxiously asks, ¨Aren´t we going to pray first??¨.... maybe the fact that I shower 3 times a day, because if not, I reek like something other. could be that we eat balleadas every day and we LOVE it, that one time we ate a lump of refried beans just like it was truffles.... maybe our constant eating habits.... (okay, that´s getting a little outta control, let´s be honest now). oh! that an RM from the ward came back from El Salvador and he knows JOSH RICHARDS and AMIE ISOM´S now-husband was his trainer!.... or, the highlight of the week: our district had a goal of having 7 baptism challenges on Thursday. We laughed when we heard it, knowing that we are lucky to get 7 appointments in in this area, let alone 7 with INVESTIGATORS. But, we determined that yes, we would do it. That it can be done. So, we started the day really strong... until we got a medical phone call and had to be out of the area all day until 5:00. Ohhhh... So, we recounted our dilemma to the Assistents to the President (AP´s) and asked their advice. He said do it in the bus.
Ummm.... it was there on that beautiful bus ride that we made our most awkward memory yet of this beautiful mission. When we told our district companion at the end of the day of our glorious successes, he recounted how he imagined the conversation:
¨Where are you going? Do they have a chapel? I think they have a baptism font...¨
We walk in the rainy weather of the week, laughing. It was cute that an investigator later related how she saw us always happy, even in the rain. We had no idea who saw us, joyfully huddled under our one broken umbrella, laughing.
We made this beautiful little ´business cards,´ for the ward members that have our picture, phone number, and says, ¨We´re the new missionaries and we´re here to serve you!¨ Cheesy? You´d better believe it. Wonderful? Also.
Our happiness has not gone unnoticed. Several ward members have noted and commented that we´re just so HAPPY. That they´re happy to have sisters again. (ha ha ha take that, elders! :) )
While we are having the time of our LIVES, we are probably the most happy because we are seeing real people benefiting, improving their lives through the gospel. We have an investigator who is separated from his wife; the two live in the same neighborhood, just 3 streets apart. We went with him for the 3rd time, and I just wanted him to get it. To feel it. Not just receive us, listen, answer well, do his committments. I wanted him to feel the Spirit. We started reading with him in the Book of Mormon. And then, we hit a fundamental part that maybe we should have covered by now, but the flow of the visits hasn't led us there: telling him that God loves him. We asked him if he knew that, and he said yeah, because that´s what everyone believes, right? I asked if he could feel it. If he believed it. If he knew it. Something just swelled inside of me and I wanted to share with him why all this matters. That it´s more than just happy visits with the missionaries, that Heavenly Father wants him to feel peace in his life, forgiveness for the things he´s done. He wants to liberate him.
Well, the spirit was very strong in the lesson, almost palpable. We invited him to church, and he gave a half-hearted ¨maybe,¨ then we followed up with his doubts, which are he always left his church angry, when he went. Hermana Tolliver beautifully promised him he would not leave angry, that he would feel something so special. I testified of that, that he would leave with peaceful feeling, and would be able to change his life around. This 35 year-old, (semi)-broken-hearted man had tears in his eyes, and whispered, ¨Yes, yes, I´ll come.¨
We left there on cloud 9. I left in tears. That´s missionary work. That´s why we´re here. To bring hope to the Carlos´s of the world, who have a heavy burden they need to leave behind.
A member commented to us later that night that he had passed by after we left, and he saw Carlos waving good-bye to us, with a stunned/reverent look.
Are all our lessons that amazing? I. W.I.S.H. Working on that!
It was incredible.
And his mom cancelled her former plans, and went to the temple with her neice today, the last temple open house day. I can´t wait for her to tell us how it went, how she felt. EVERYTHING. LOVE it.
I´m GIDDY to keep working. We´re seeing amazing, perfect, wonderful miracles every day around these parts.
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