Another Week in Mexico Week 5 February 24, 2014

Hola!

This week has been pretty normal overall...(normal meaning no crazy ladies trying to break into our apartment).

Hermana Zambrano and I are working so hard everyday and we are finding a lot of people. We are leading our district in street contacts and new investigators by a landslide. The trick is getting them all to continue to progress!

Tuesday we went to visit a contact we had made to teach them for the first time. They are a couple and both are 85 plus years old. We taught them while sitting on logs in the street because the other families in their home didn't want us in their houses. While we were teaching, the man would ask my comp. questions about where I was from, if I was learning Spanish well, etc. Just because I'm a gringa doesn't mean I can't speak Espanol! When I started speaking to him in Spanish he was pretty surprised but still continued to act like I wasn't there. We started by singing a hymn and he listened (he can't read) and when we ended he said, "Thank you so much for singing that hymn but how am I supposed to learn from the words if you are singing in English?" We told him that it had been in Spanish and he refused to believe it...yes I can speak Spanish and can sing in Spanish too. We ended by teaching him how to pray and asked if he would offer the closing prayer. He agreed, folded his arms, looked up to the sky and said absolutely nothing. After about a minute of silence my comp. asked if he would please say it out loud. He agreed and again did the same thing. We literally sat there for 5 minutes in absolute silence while he stared at who knows what. Finally my comp thanked him for his wonderful prayer and we left. It took everything in me not to bust up during those 5 minutes!

We are finding all kinds of people who are very interested in the church. We have a new investigator named David. He is homeless, jobless, and left his family because his neighbor tried to shoot him. He lives on the streets so we teach him at the church. He quit smoking and drinking and is coming to church every Sunday. He tells us he is doing it for his kids because they aren't making the best decisions. His baptism date is in two weeks!

In a Moto Taxi on the way to Church

My companion and I have to return to our apartment at 8:30 every night. The normal is 9:30 but because our area is dangerous (and because I'm a white girl), we have to return earlier. Two nights ago we were walking back to our apartment and as we got to our front door my comp stopped and said that she felt like she needed to call one of our contacts. Her name is Marisol and we found her about 3 weeks ago in the street and she was very interested. When we asked if we could teach her sometime she said, "How about right now??" We walked with her to her house and her mom wouldn't allow us inside because she thought we would corrupt her house and family. We made an appointment for a few days later and left. We had tried about 30 times to teach her but every time her mom or her sisters would tell us to leave and that Marisol didn't want anything to do with us (which we knew wasn't true). When my comp. got the random thought to call her, but this point we had stopped trying to find her for about a week, but when we called she answered. She was crying and said that we needed to come to her house right away and help her because her mom had gone into a diabetic coma. We told her to call the police right away and when we got to her house the medics were putting her mom in an ambulance. Her sisters were NOT happy that we were there and told us to leave right away. We helped with what we could, made another appointment, and left. We are hoping for the best! 

Our Ecuadorian companions taught us how to make their food (greeeeeeeen bananas cooked and mashed with cheese and butter served over black beans) Sounds weird but it was REALLY GOOD!

So...the moms here LOVE my companion and I...to the point where they want to make marriage plans with their sons....NO WAY JOSE!! Last night we were invited to dinner at a members house..or should I say, an "unexpected dinner date". We got there and the mom started ranting about how her son had made a special dinner just for us, and that if we wanted we could live in their house for free, and that her son could show us all of Mexico, and on and on and on. They always ask me questions like, "Do you want to live here in Mexico after your mission?" or :"Would you ever consider marrying a Mexican?" No ladies! I don't want to marry your sons!!! So moral of the story, if I get married while out on my mission..blame it on the moms! (don't worry mom...it's not going to happen!!)

That's all for this week! Hasta luego! Gracias por toda!


Hermana Ingram

In our "Mormon Taxi" after a big family home evening.