Week 7 Headless Chicken Roast

Hola from Mexico!!!

This week was a great week!

Hermana Zambrano (my companion) is the leader of all the sisters in the mission which means that we have to do an exchange once a week. That means that once a week I have to be the senior companion and plan with another Hermana in my area. Late Monday night, we met up with two other sisters and I switched to a Hermana from Mexico. It was pretty stressful because the next day we were going to teach 5 lessons with investigators and 5 lessons with inactive families. I thought, "I'll be fine...she knows how to speak Spanish and will help me out..." But no! She was THE shyest girl ever and hardly spoke a word! Let's just say that it was a really good day to practice my Spanish.

 I love getting packages!!! The people here think my family is Catholic because of the way my mom sends them :)

Wednesday we had our second lesson with our investigator named Sofia. We took her to the church so that we could teach her about what we do there. We walked over to the sacrament table and began explaining what it was for. We pulled out the sacrament trays and asked her what she thought they were for and she replied, "Pues...por los galletitas!" (For the little cookies!) Wouldn't that be great? Little cookies instead of bread?? Then we went to the baptismal font to explain it and invite her to be baptized and when I invited her she paused, looked down at the floor for a few minutes, and said, "I have one concern....is the water going to be cold?" If that's her only concern....bueno!

Thursday, Zambrano had a big meeting with the president and all of the leaders in the mission. When we got there, the President sent me with THE GUERAS OF ALL GUERAS. We took the metro to her area and went to her apartment to plan for the day. Her apartment was a very tall building and she lived on the 5th floor. Every flight was separated by a hallway and at the end of each stairway was a tall barred gate with a lock. As we were leaving her apartment, we walked down the first stairwell and as we approached the gate, I reached down and accidentally hit a button which locked the gate. I thought we would be fine and that she would have a key but she didn't... We were locked in the stairwell and couldn't leave....In my head I was thinking, "Great...I'm going to have to tell the President that it was my fault that we couldn't teach because I locked us in a stairwell for the entire day.." We sat on the stairs for about an hour waiting for someone to walk by with keys. Thank goodness for the little old lady with the keys! We got to our first appointment with a 70 year old Catholic investigadora and began teaching. She started telling us about her conversion to the Catholic religion...that she had had a vision and in the vision God had sent a headless chicken roast to speak to her... She went on and on and on.. I'm pretty sure the other Hermana had no idea what the lady was saying because she was testifying about testimonies... I was just trying not to laugh the whole time!!!

Saturday was my first baptism! We baptized a 9 year old girl named Mildred. When we got to the church, the family had forgotten to bring the baptism clothes they said they had and we had absolutely nothing... Finally, one of the Elders ran to the bathroom with a jacket, changed out of his white shirt, put on the jacket and that's what we used...his white shirt! We sure know how to improvise!

Sunday we met with the Elders in our district to report for the week. As we were sitting in the meeting, we heard a lot of noise coming from the hallway. One of the Elders opened the door and we did not expect to see what we saw...about 50 people in an all out brawl. May I remind you that this was in the church!!! There were ladies ripping out hair and throwing punches, men in head locks! We quickly closed the door and blocked it off with chairs and waited it out. I see something new everyday;)

Yesterday we got a call from some sisters with a reference for a family in our area. We went right away and knocked on the door. A lady answered and immediately asked if we were representatives of Jesus Christ. She had been praying for help when we knocked on the door and invited us in. She and her two other sisters started talking to us and within minutes all three were crying telling us that we were answers to their prayers. Crazy!

Miracle Family from yesterday

They fed us and fed us and fed us and fed us and we didin't even know them!
The people here love a food they call doritos locos (doritos with jicama, peanuts, cucumber, chile salsa...I'm not really a fan but we ate it to be nice)

This past week has been RAINY and pretty chilly! But when there isn't any rain...it's super super hot! I can tell that it's starting to get a lot hotter... And it's not really humid at all. Probably a little more humid than Utah but not much of a difference.

A family in our ward make jeans for a living. We sometimes help them.

Adios por ahora,

Hermana Ingram