Guys some really cool things happened this week! Some pretty
unordinary things too. Transfers happened this week and my new
companion is Elder Cristaldo! He's from Paraguay and he's been on his
mission about 10 months, but because of visa issues he's only been in
our mission for about 5 months. 5 months? I think back to when I was 5
months in this mission and I was so lost. Then again I was 18 and
Elder Cristaldo is 24 so he's got a grip on life. His English isn't
too shabby either! He didn't know what a slurpee was but I fixed that
real quick.
We picked up a new investigator this week named Jacob, who lives clear
out in 'nam. Anyways, he's only 17 and the kid quoted the Bible out of
the wazoo. He wants to be a missionary too! We can make that happen!
We also have a Chinese investigator named Nina we are teaching. Nina
is Chinese and has very broken English. Last time she was taught I was
on exchange so this week was my first time teaching her. We taught the
restoration and it was probably the weakest attempt of a lesson in my
life, I felt like she didn't understand anything. The good news is
that we taught her the same lesson later in the week, but with a
little help! I don't know too many people out here who speak Chinese,
but I do know someone back home who does. So I talked to President
Randall and he thought it was a wonderful idea and exactly what the
church wants us to do with the technology we are blessed with, to get
those involved from back home. So I got to skype in my brother in law,
Tyson, to teach with us! It was amazing! We'd teach something in
English and she'd seem to understand it, then Tyson would check for
understanding in Chinese and she would actually ask questions and make
comments! It was so awesome! I'm so thankful to live in this time and
serve a mission for opportunities like this. She came to church too!
This week we were able to have our friend Jennifer get baptized and
confirmed! Jennifer was just a former in our areabook a couple months
ago and all it took was a call and a lot of lessons and now she's
getting ready to go to the temple! Let me tell ya though, this was
such an awkward baptism. Now bear with me on this, because I feel like
most of my missionary work is just awkward. We heard the font takes 45
minutes to fill up. Nope. 15 minutes before the baptism it wasn't even
half full of hot water, so we had to turn on the cold water to fill it
up faster... luckily I didn't have to get it! Jennifer showed up and
we could not find a jumpsuit for her anywhere. Luckily she decided to
swallow some pride, because she's a "tomboy" and wear a white dress.
Wow I felt so unprepared! Then our first speaker at the baptism was
late, so we had to wait. Jennifer's boyfriend baptized her and he's...
different. He could not figure out how to baptize her and it was a
struggle for everyone. I don't even know how many attempts it took.
Then we are smooth sailing to the end and the member conducting forgot
to have the bishop welcome her to the ward, so the closing hymn starts
and the bishop stands up and rushes to the front to stop the music and
give her a proper welcome. Nice! The great thing is that no matter how
awkward it got, it was a special day for Jennifer and the spirit was
very strong when she bore her testimony at the end. She said that when
she stopped coming to the church in the summer she felt something
missing and now it's back and she doesn't want it to go away again!
In closing, for dinner last night a member had us over and we made
homemade sushi. I didn't even know that was possible. Who's game to
make sushi with me in the future? I hope you all have a great week!
Thanks for the support you give me, love you all!
1) start off day one of the transfer with Taco Bell... it's gonna be a
good transfer
2) font filling & wawa
3) don't let your 60+ year old members take your pictures, they never
turn out as good haha
No comments:
Post a Comment