¡Hola mi familia y amigos!
I hope everybody is having a great day! So we were walking down this tunnel on the 191st subway stop and this guy is singing the same thing on repeat "e'rybody have a good day today. It's a beautiful bright sunny day, enjoy your day" hahaha we got part of it on video and randomly sister baker will just play it, or someone will start singing it, it's just so hilarious. Man I love the people of New York!
To avoid making this email too long I'm just going to hit the highlights! And mostly catch you up on some of our more progressing investigators!
Last pday we had my first lesson with our investigator Gloria and her kids, mostly her teenage daughter Fernanda is the other investigator. They are seriously amazing, I'm so excited to go see them again tonight!
Thursday we got to go to the upper east side for chiropractor for sister baker (she has migraines and other such things) but the point of this story is that it's just really fun to walk around the city and smile at people and to be a missionary in New York City! I love ever part of manhattan!
Thursday night we had 6 lessons from 6pm-9pm, yes that's the truth. 2 of them were people we stopped on the street...but still so crazy!! Our first lesson was with Lucy & Lorraine. We were really worried because last time they had been visited it was a really bad crash and burn about the law of chastity (Lucy the mom and serafin the dad live together, but they aren't really in a relationship, and the dad had been married before and believes God told him he should never get married again....it's complicated) BUT we went in there and Lucy told us she really wants to get baptized and she'll do anything to figure it out. And there daughter Lorraine (college age) set a date to be baptized inOctober 11th. We taught them about the word of wisdom and they were so willing to try to start living it! so amazing!! So to celebrate we ate froyo for dinner (picture included) needless to say we were so happy after that lesson!!
We were doing some lookups after and we approached this apartment and this guy sitting on the steps asks us if we want his key to get in since they weren't answering he buzzer. He hands it to me and without thinking I say "gracias" and he was like what did you say? Haha I was a little scared like uhhhh I just said thank you (FYI he's a rather larger Dominican man) and then he's like do you speak Spanish so we ended up talking to him, Miguel, for quite a bit of time. We invited him to church, gave him a restoration pamphlet to read. He was so interested!! He works a lot because he's some sort of chef. BUT I think something good could come in the future and all because we spoke Spanish!
After the lookups Thursday we went and taught our investigator Neris (she's the grandma to one of the young men in our ward) because we were really close to her house and it turned out to be really amazing!! We taught her about repentance AND she had a family friend at her house (he's like young adult age) and he had awesome questions about religion and we talked about BOM we are turning him over to the elders but he seems to have the perfect questions to start receiving answers as an investigator!
We went really late to our next appointment with a less active because of Neris but that appointment was really amazing too!! We met with Elizabeth Luna (and Milagros her mom and kids) we just read a little bit in the Book of Mormon with her and she stopped us so she could read more on her own!! So we gave her a card with the address of the church and committed her to give it back to us at church on Sunday (ie come to church) and what do you know after they had worked with reactivating her for 5 months she came up after sacrament meeting all excited with the card!! And then she stayed all 3 hours, and participated, and made friends!! It was an absolute miracle.
Since my companion is a sister training leader we have to go on splits with the sisters in our zone. So Friday I was in splits with Hermana Hall (she lives in our apartment which makes for an easy split) and it was a really awesome experience to be in a different area, everyone kind of has slight differences in how they do missionary work which was really cool to see. During our split we were in a lesson with the zone leaders because they were turning over this investigator to the sisters and the investigator, Laurie, was so amazing and interested. BUT I was sitting by this huge fan and every 2 seconds I was caught in a wind tunnel...pretty much impossible to interpret what limited Spanish vocabulary I have when my ears are being pounded by the fan and my red hair blowing everywhere. Hahaha at the end of the lesson she even commented on how beautiful my red hair was....hahaha

On Saturday we had a minute so we surprise visited Maria Espinoza and wow it was perfect timing. Sometimes we plan a full day, everyone cancels because someone else needs us more and that definitely happened. Wow I love her so much she also at the end (since it was a really rainy day) said oh let me make you hot chocolate and then ended up bringing us amazing cinnamon or something similarly flavored hot cocoa and these amazing toquito things! So great.
We finally got a bishop sunday! I don't remember if I told you...but about a week or more before it her the bishop moved without really warning people, so we finally got a new bishop called which is great! Also the closing prayer in relief society was this crazy old lady pretty much telling us who she was and rambling (no one even knew she was praying) and then she just said amen and that was it, bahaha Spanish wards are the best.
Awkward moment of the week. So were waiting on the stairs in this building we had just been doing lookups in (since it was the same building we had appointment with Hermana Jimenez, relief society presidente, in) We were kind of close to this door that we had just knocked but the music was really loud and they didn't answer. Then this huge group of people with food, etc come out of the elevator and approached the same door they saw our card and swore taking it off the door. Haha we're just chilling right there as they walk in and proceed with there party. Hahaha we were dying, too awkward and hilarious.
We had a lesson Monday with Valerie, Tammy's stepdaughter, and it was so awesome! Can't wait to start teaching her more. Also that night the Giffords sent pizza and dessert and soda to the apartment, seriously the nicest people.
Yesterday during the APF I was on splits with English sister hall. Haha wow I don't know enough Spanish....but so crazy fun 2 hours!! I Gave away my first El Libro de Mormon on the streets! (We also won the scavenger hunt, which was the activity this week to find people that fit certain characteristics) most we just talked to so many people!! It was amazing.
Well yet again this email got way too long, so sorry, hopefully it enjoyable:) I just want to leave you with a spiritual thought from president this week! We had an elder in our zone go home this week (he came out at the same time I did) so during zone/district meeting president talked to us for a minute. What I loved most from his thoughts was that the mission is so hard but it is so worth it! Like in ether12:27 it says that if you have weaknesses you are coming closer to God. Weaknesses are good they make us humble! Also you know you are growing in faith when you have more trust, more, understanding, more hope, more desire, and more courage!
I love y'all so much and hope you have he best week!
xoxo
Hermana Smart
No comments:
Post a Comment