Tuesday, October 21, 2014

10,000 Bottles of juice & Grape Soda

Hola mi familia y Amigos!

          It was another amazing week here in Inwood! First to explain the email title this week, haha. So we get offered juice at pretty much every house we go to either that or it's grape soda! A fun little culture fact but sometimes it's comical to think about how much of that stuff we drink as missionaries- Grape soda and juice siempre! Well I had an awesome week, so I'll just jump right into it:)

          Wednesday after last pday our appointments all fell through but we had a member, Tati set up to go as a member present. So instead we went over to her house to get to know her a little better and she ended up giving us amazing NYC pizza (the lady she lives with went and got us the by the slice good stuff) she was just so amazing! We shared with her about Preach My Gospel and how it's for all members and she was so excited and had so many questions on how she could do more missionary work and how she can help us more. Pretty much it was a little miracle because member missionary work is so important and she's so willing and ready to help! She was relief society president back when we had 70+ sisters a week a few years ago and investigators were paired with members and it was perfect. So excited to see how she'll be working with us!

           Thursday night we were able to go to a recently reactivated members house, 
Zenia. She had also been one of the few names that came up when we prayed who to ask for referrals from. So we had a fun little FHE thought about strengthening her family (she has 2 kids) and the kids were so excited we brought them a little jar with paper to write things they can do each day to strengthen their family. Then she made delicious steak sandwiches. And then we proceed to ask her for a referral. She the. To,d us this amazing story about this girl she had grown up with. This girls dad was a drunk and eventually got kicked out, but later on found the missionaries I think I'm Puerto Rico or something? He was converted and changed his life around. He now tries to get his girls to go to church, and one of his daughters was baptized and now one of his granddaughters is getting ready to serve a mission!! All from just the dad! But that being said the daughter that is Zenia's friend has kind of been an investigator in the last but  that we should follow up! She speak English, so it goes to the English sisters but when we gave it to English sisters they said they had been looking through past investigators and were thinking they should see her!! So crazy how the Lord works, revelation is real!!

           Friday was kind of an unusual day... We started the day off with helping one of our members Maria Lall in her garden. Well it's kind of a garden haha. She used to be a volunteer at the park behind her building but after crazy disagreements and stuff she removed herself and now gardens on he other side of the fence to the park in land her landlord owns. Haha there's even a movie about this whole situation with the park department she created called The Power of One. It pretty great. She from Spain and very passionate and  little crazy. It was fun to work in her garden most of the garden is from pieces of plants she find and then turned them into huge plants. We mostly helped her put her homemade mulch on. After we had chips and salsa while she told us some of her crazy stories. She also told us her conversion story which is crazy! She would tell the missionaries they had to stay until all her questions were answered even if that meant 3 am....eventually they worked something out no worries, but one of the elders teaching her had a brother die in the process of making the vernal temple in a construction accident and before he died he said 3 people would live by him dying, and she has 2 kids so she was baptized! Now she's got a really strong testimony and she's hilarious and so nice to the missionaries, also we committed her after our little message to bear her testimony in church and then she did this Sunday!! I took lots of pictures of her house and garden, so I'll send a few!



          After gardening we got to go to dinner at Maria Espinozas which was delicious as usual and the other Hermanas came with and brought an investigator/friend of Maria's which was awesome. THEN we got to go to our ward misson leader's, Jose's, wedding!! Haha it was so great they are the cutest and they had fun music (wish we could dance sometimes) we had to leave early so they let us smuggles some food before we left! But it was an awesome way to end an unusual Friday. 

        Saturday FIRST OUT OF AREA SPLIT...DUN, DUN dun. Haha worst part is having to pack a bag to go like 10 blocks away haha. But it was a good day in the English program with Sister Keeling and I even still managed to have a Dominican food appointment haha (English ward less active) 
        Also Saturday night we got to go down to the temple building for REUNION DE MUJERES! Or the general women's meeting if you don't yet speak Español ;)  they provided dinner and it was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had in one sitting in a long time! It made me SO EXCITED for general conference this weekend, and I hope y'all are so excited!! I received answers to a lot of questions and gained insight I needed just from the women's meeting....challenge y'all to think of questions, ponder before general conference this weekend! Some thoughts that I want to share is that everything is just by consistent effort, drop by drop, little by little we don't become something overnight it takes the baby steps. There was also a lot of amazing talks about the temple and cove gas but I really gained a lot from President Uchtdorf so here's a few of my favs: 
    
               You are ALWAYS a child of God, it's not something you earn and he loves you ALWAYS. Despite every flaw, you're value to Heavenly Father NEVER changes. The one who created all loves you always, despite what the world may think. 
                KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS, God knows the best way for us, he sees the big picture and is trying to guide us back to him, he will never force us but he desires us to return. He is constantly raining blessings upon us all we have to do is close our umbrellas of disobedience, pride, etc ☔️ it's NOT a to-do list to live the gospel. It should be something we desire, we obey because we love God and Jesus Christ. Little by little it becomes who we are!
                 

         Sunday there was a medieval festival at the cloisters which caused so many people to be walking through our neighborhood in all sorts of strange costumes haha. Also we went to the Giffords for dinner which is always the best. And we ended up having an amazing correlation type discussion about the ward since he's now the bishopric member over missionary service and it just got me so excited for all the work we have to do in ward here! also midway into this discussion one of their little girls climbs up on my sits down, farts, and the says "I tooted" and then gets down and proceeds to play. It was HILARIOUS. 

        Monday we set a baptism date for Valerie and we're bringing her to general conference and to the special youth lunch after on Sunday! Also midway through Monday we got a call from a member that wanted to come with us to our two appointments that night! It was so awesome, we visited a member/less active and they fed us, and then we got to visit the Castro family and Hermana Familia (the member) got along really well and we had an awesome discussion about conference and read in the BOM and it was just amazing! We've had so many tender mercies with our members lately!

        Tuesday I went on split with sister hall into the English program (yes another split, that's what happens when your companion is a solo STL) we had such a good day! We started off my jogging down to this really cool skate park by the water with awesome graffiti (I'll eventually get some pictures). We constantly talked to people all day, a crazy old man ripped part of his fruit strip thing off for us on the subway (picture included), we had a really cool APF with chalk in the park about conference, we met with amazing less actives and investigators and it was just amazing! 

Sorry these are always such long emails but we just meet so many people and are constantly having great experiences! I wish I could share it all! I'm going to send some pictures of this week for all y'all's enjoyment :) I hope you have an amazing conference experience this weekend! Love y'all and hope you have another great week 

xoxo
Hermana Smart 

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