Sometimes I get so trunky. First things first. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I am so excited. If anyone is thinking of being super nice and wants to send me a package with some Christmas CDs I would probably love you forever. I know that is random, but I just realized I do not have any,and that is just not acceptable. I know I will not get it until next year or something, but I can make up for lost time. And really, I am not anti christmas music just because it is not the season.
Second, super sorry about last week. I had pure intentions to return and finish my e-mail after soccer with our district, but then it got late, and we have a 45 minute collectivo ride, so it didn´t end up happening. I will make it up to you guys in this e-mail, because we have plenty of time!
Third, I would like to give a hearty congratulations to Daniel Roylance for tying the knot this year. That really is heartfelt. And I would now like to give a hearty guffaw to Uncle Milton who always wanted me to marry him. I. Told. You. That is all I am going to say to uncle milton. There were actually a lot of people who wanted me to marry Daniel, looks like God had other plans. And that was probably very pecador-ish of me, so sorry Uncle Milton. But I can say it because I am in Argentina and a missionary. What are you going to do? Pray for me. And obviously I am not sorry enough about this because if I was, I would erase this paragraph, but look, you are still reading it. Tangent, felicitaciones to Tyson who is also engaged. Sorry, but I won´t be able to make it to either of your weddings.
Four: for every person who will be traveling this season, please remember:
Tis the season to be slow,
Not go dashing through the snow,
If you dont, well then, ya know
Youll be second hand smoked fo sho!
(editor's note: this is an inside joke from one of our many roadtrips between utah and colorado. in wyoming, there was an anti-second hand smoke campaign with billboards along the highway where they would use the words 'second hand smoke' in place of 'dead'. ex: ding dong the witch is second hand smoked. or who second hand smoked and made you king? while driving to colorado on a particularly snowy trip, carlee came up with this rhyme in reference to a particularly speedy driver who passed us up. hope you enjoyed it.)
Okay, I am pretty sure I just got out all of my Christmas trunkyness. There are a very limited amount of people who will fully understand how incredibly funny that poem is. Just...I don´t know, memorize it and think of me when you are traveling, for those of you that don´t understand it.
So! Training. It´s super fun. super glad I get to do it again. It´s a little bit harder this time around. Just because she has less spanish training, and isn´t super confident in her desires to push herself and share her testimony in broken spanish. Which means I have to be the momma bear and push her into doing things that she doesn´t want to do. I feel like every transfer I´m being more and more prepared to be a mom. I also appreciate every mother more. Did I tell you she´s from Vegas? Well, she´s from Vegas. She lives about 10 minutes from the temple, not a fan of the strip, worked before coming on the mission at Carmax, playing with numbers. And she knows a lot more about the different types of models of cars then I do. But it´s okay, because at least I know how to change the oil in cars. She actually does do really well, her spanish is fine, she just lacks confidence. Confidence in who she is, in being a missionary, in speaking spanish,in being social.
Brings back a lot of memories really, and has helped me seen how much I have grown as a missionary. In my personal testimony, in my personal confidence, and in my trust in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because I´ve learned how to put myself on the back burner. For instance, it doesn´t matter that I don´t know them, that I don´t know their needs, that I don´t know what to say to them, I know that each person on the street is a precious child of God who will not enter the Kingdom of God without being baptized by someone who holds the authority of God. Si o Si, they cannot enter the Celestial Kingdom without this key. So I will talk to them and invite them to know this knowledge for themselves. Because, it´s not about me. We´re on this Earth to help other make it to the same place we all want to go. If we remember that, why wouldn´t we open our mouths and invite our friends to church? Talk to the woman on the bus that looks like she´s about to cry? Or to the security guard who hasn´t seen his family in two years because he had to move to a different country to find a job? Don´t they deserve the happiness that we have too? ´Tis the season.
Sorry, didn´t mean to baja the cañe there. Want to hear about some amazing experiences that I´ve had with my newbie power? I love it. So last week, it´s Sunday. I have made it a goal this transfer to not go to church a single week without having at least one investigator with me. So even when we have plans to call some of them, or have members bring them (build friendships), the plan is to be out on the street at least an hour before church and bring someone in. So, last week we went to look for our investigators Roxanna and Jonotan. We go to their house, ring the bell, call them on the phone. No one answers. We had prayed the night before on who we needed to look for this morning and we were positive there was a reason we were there. But they weren´t...so what do we do? Well, we started praying, and in the middle of my prayer the name Adrian pops into my mind. And it wasn´t like "hey, what about that one antiguo investigador Adrian?" it was like "HELLO!! WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE GO GET ADRIAN!" I hope the caps on that crystallized how strongly the prompting was. So, we go to Adrians house. Knock on the door..... no answer. Now, I´m mildly confused at this point because the prompting was strong. pero, nada. He doesn´t answer. It´s 10 minutes before church and we´re about 9 minutes away so we have to go. And I´m crushed. So we get to church, sit down, and about half way through sacrament meeting, guess who walks in the door. ADRIAN! I´m not even going to give you time to guess. Yeah, he did. I have no idea why. Because we hadn´t spoken with him all week, but he was there. And afterwards he stayed. And I nearly cried. A tear may have leaked, because we were trying so hard, and in the end, it really isn´t about my efforts anyways, it´s all about what the Lord wants, and we just have to show our faith. And I did. I received the prompting and I went. And we haven´t been able to get a hold of Adrian since, but it´s okay, the church is still true and God still loves me.
Story numero dos: Also happened this sunday, so we go out looking for investigators again. As we´re walking to the parada we receive a phone call from our awesome Testigo de Jehova investigator (Have I told you about him? He doesn´t feel the love of God in his congregation, so he´s searching for the church that has it, and is super pumped to get baptized January 1st? yeah, him) Apparently, his friend got killed by robbers the night before so he wasn´t going to make it to church today. Which, really, what do you say to that? I asked him if there was anything we could do to help. But anyways, so he wasn´t coming to church, at least he called us. The other investigator had called us the night before and specifically said that he didn´t want us coming to his house to walk together...okay. So we go out for another family. Reach their house, and they don´t answer. What is this curse upon me?? ("Honey, that´s called Satan." "Oooooh. Now I see." Sorry, Random). So, with 45 minutes until church starts we literally start talking and inviting people on the street to go to church with us. They all said no. But we got a few good contacts in. I think there´s an aethiest now who will atleast give our pamphlet to someone prepared to receive the Gospel. Whatever, not important. Okay, so again, 2 minutes before church starts and we don´t have anyone. So I¨m getting out the phone, going to call our investigator who said he would meet us at the church to confirm, I almost press send when this woman comes up to talk to us. "Are you missionaries?" I LOVE that question. Yes ma´am we are. Anyways, so we talk to her for like two minutes and then we invite her to come to church with us. Miracle of Miracles, she says yes! God LOVES me. And As I was super willing to put forth my efforts into this work, He has blessed me un montón. Lots? I don´t know. It sounds weird in English now.
Story Tres: So, in a lot of our Capacitaciones with President Gulbrandsen we have been talking about how the Lord is sending angels to prepare the people in our areas. And we need to really focus on finding the people who are prepared. But there are angels out there, and the people will recognize the voice of Christ if we but open our mouths and let them hear it. Because we know that our message is of Christ (literally and spiritually...like the words of Christ and about Christ..whatever, you know what I mean). Anyways, so we´ve been focusing in on that and being prepared to receive the promptings to go to the people God has prepared. So, we´ve received over 30 references of people we need to go contact lately, and it is my goal to actually contact them all (harder then it sounds, don´t judge). So we had this one contact, he is a security guard ( by the way, I love all the security guards here. They are all from Peru, and all super prepared, and they all accept baptismal dates. The only downside is that they don´t live in Vicinte Lopez. Pucha!) So we go to contact Daniel. It´s about 8:30 at night so we have to be very efficient in our teachings to make it back to the pension in time. We go up and make the contact, it turns out his name IS Daniel, but he´s not the Daniel that we were looking for. But who´s going to drop an opportunity to preach the word of God? NOT ME! (I know, look at that change) So we start talking to him, and tell him that we are missionaries and about our message of Jesus Christ and how through a boy named Joseph Smith the church of Jesus Christ was restored on the earth once again, with prophets and apostoles y todo, and we just got really bold with him. We started saying, and we are going to teach you everything that you need to know to make it back to live with your wife again (his wife had died two years ago). And as we teach you, you will feel the desires to make these changes in your life, so will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who holds the authority of God? And he said yes! so we said, perfect. We wrote down his address, found out he lives in the area of our zone leaders, so we told him that the Elders there were going to teach him, and that they were preparing a baptismal service for January 1st, will you prepare yourself to be baptized that day? And he said yes!
And then we had to go. But it is true, God is preparing people in our areas. Now I just have to start praying more specifically to find the people that God has prepared that live in my area (I´m willing to teach other missionaries areas, but I would like to find some in my area too).
Anyways, it´s just another testimony that all the promises that are in Predicad Mi Evangelio are the truth. God is preparing people to receive His gospel and he will lead them to us or us to them. We just have to be willing to do our part. Oh, did I mention that we didn´t find Daniel until 8:30 at night, after 4 hours of trying to contact people? Yeah, we´re putting in our effort to find. Pray for us please that we find the people who are prepared to receive the Gospel, and that we will say the words so that they can recognize the voice of the Lord! Thanks!
All in all, it has been a great week. Full of adventures, and good spiritual discussions (that was the Capacitacion). God sure does love everyone of His children.
Thank you for all of your love. I hope this e-mail made up for the lack of one last week. MERRY CHRISTMAS! HoHoHo
Oh, P.S. Get stoked for next weeks e-mail, because this week we´re doing a Capilla Abierta, or Open Chapel(?) where we invite everyone off the street to come into the church for a brief presentation. And us Hermanas are incharge. I´m excited for the adventure.
Besos to all the females, a nice hearty handshake to the males. Got to stick with the mission rules =)
Hermana Reed
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