Week 40 "Help me eat this" October 27, 2014

We've had a really great week this week! My comp. and I are finally starting to see the blessings!

We went to a contact's house (named Plinio) but he missed the "we're missionaries here to preach the gospel" and heard "we're coming over for a date." We got there with a lesson all planned out and he had a dinner already prepared for us. We tried turning him down but he insisted. So, we ate with him and his mom who is in love with us as well...He tried setting up another appointment (or should I say date night) but we told him we'd give him a call.

 

Hailey didn't include a caption with this one but little kids always love her

Wednesday we had a super great day because we were able to find a ton of new investigators and put baptismal dates with them. I've been trying really hard to be exactly obedient and to do the small things too. The small things make the biggest difference! "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass!" It's awesome to see hard work start to pay off (knock on wood). Lunch was tough...let's just say I've had to say a lot of "help me eat this" prayers. We sat down and she asked me if I could go into the kitchen to help her serve the food. So I got up, grabbed four plates from the kitchen cabinet (bucket), set them out onto the counter and she pulled out four cans. She opened each can and I could immediately smell what was in store for us...raw sardines. She plopped the fish out onto each plate, topped it with some chopped tomatoes and lunch was served. Bon appetite! I think we all said a few prayers during that one! For dessert we all got exactly 6 almonds. You just have to learn how to be extra grateful here and realize that these people don't have much...they put forth so much work and sacrifice to feed us here. So...moral of the story is...be grateful!

We got a message from Hna Lopez on Thursday saying that she had a neighbor that wanted to hear from us. So we taught him and his daughter (Geraldo y Karime) and they are flat out escogidos (translates to chosen with google...she didn't translate this) . He told me before I even invited him to be baptized that he was going to do it! That makes it easy! The Lord is truly preparing the people of Mexico to hear the gospel. We also found a lady named Irma and she LOVES hearing from us. She's not married so that's the only problem right now but we are going to talk to her husband about it soon.

Friday was another great day! It's the best feeling when your investigators progress....it almost makes you want to cry or something! Although...all this success we have been having must've affected the food.... We ate chicharron in salsa verde. First, let me explain what chicharron is: the skin of a pig fried for a good 10 minutes and then left to dry. They LOVE it here. Personally, I'm not a big fan (or not a fan at all). When you put it in a big pot of hot salsa verde it's a million times worse. Imagine eating palm-sized loogies with warm spicy salsa. It's not too tasty. And..that was the main course at lunch on Friday. Another prayerful meal. Elder Hunsaker (one of the Elder's in my area) was swallowing it whole...we do what it takes. ;)

Saturday was long and tiring. A lot of people weren't home and so we spent a lot of time walking and searching for people to teach. That's when my comp. and I start quizzing each-other's Spanish..let's just say we played that a lot. We've been fasting almost every week this month as a zone to help things improve and it seems to be working. God answers prayers everyone!

Scary story of the week: This week in our area they found a dead body that had been sitting in a car for 5 days..baking... kind of scary... But no worries! We're safe!

Yesterday our investigators all came to church and we didn't even have to pass for them! We woke up, got ready, and headed to the church for ward council. The streets were empty, the Tianguis wasn't even set up yet, and absolutely no one was at the church. The culture here is very relaxed which means that almost no one shows up to anything on time so at first I thought it was normal. We waited 30 minutes and still absolutely no one... It wasn't until someone showed up and hour later and told us that the time had changed that it all made sense. The one day we get an extra hour of sleep and I didn't even know about it! That's ok though. Ernesto Ayala got the priesthood and was so excited about it!

 

After church we went searching for people to teach and stopped by Rosa's house (one of our converts). She was painting Mexican "Día de Los Muertos" skulls. We offered to help her and she was more than happy..so..we helped her paint a bunch of skulls! It was actually a lot of fun. After we finished off with that we continued to search for people...and everyone was watching bull fights. Apparently right now is bull fighting season and EVERYONE watches it. It's actually really sad! Thousands and thousands of people pay to watch a ´Matador´ slowly kill a bull. They stab spear-type things into its back and it bleeds like crazy and starts to get tired. Then, the matador holds a red sheet and teases it for about 15 minutes until it can hardly walk anymore. Then, the matador finishes by stabbing it through the shoulder blades with a sword. It's very cultural here and they see it as some sort of art or sport...I just think it's sad!
Anyway...that's about it for this week! The Lord blesses us when we work hard and do our part! Pray to see the miracles that are surrounding us and He will show them to us. The mission might be tough sometimes but it is so worth it and I am learning so much here. I love you all! ¡Que tengan una buena semana!

Hermana Ingram