First of all I have the pictures of Ninas baptism. She is awesome and got confirmed yesterday. She walked past us right after and grabbed her heart and just said, I can already feel it! She sent us a text later that day saying "I love you! My heart is full of joy and my love for Jesus Christ is unbreakable!' So basically Nina was the perfect investigator.
The life of a missioary is hilarious! We are constantly put into situations that make our work so interesting. For instance, last week Sister Millward was called right before church and asked to give a talk. Speaking of church, I now lead the music in sacrament. Something I learned how to do once I think.. Luckily our precious little branch averages about 30-40 people a meeting and they just sit there and chuckle at me because they can see I have no idea what I am doing.. but I'm almost to the professional level. I was thinking of maybe getting a job leading music when I got home. I mean last week I was leading a song that I had no idea what we were singing. I was turned to the wrong page and was just mouthing spanish words and hoping to tempo was correct. Another one was yesterday as we got to church the relief society president called us and asked us if we could give the lesson. Of course we can!! Those phone calls are hilarious because we always are SO HAPPY to do the work and when we hang up we just look at each other and laugh because we have no idea what we are doing! Fake it till you make it right?
The language is coming along great too! That one is a little harder to fake... but sometime if you mumble and talk really fast they might understand what you are trying to say. I've been working on my latino accent this week. My goal is to have somebody ask me what country I'm from! I might be able to pull it off one day! I have been working so hard on it that its becoming a little bit of a challenge to speak in english without sounding a little latino... Especially if the person doesn't look white. My brain automatically thinks "speak spanish" but sometimes the switch from spanish to english doesn't happen as quickly. This week we knocked a door and a little latino man came out and the conversation went a little like this,
"ALO!"-Sister Millward
"Hola"- Him
"How are you?" (Added in a STRONG accent for that one!) - Me!
Oh he looked so confused.. and apparently I did too. Sister Millward was telling me that right after I said that I made this face as if I was so confused as to what just came out of my mouth! I was!
Oh the life of a missionary. We were in the library to look up something on mormon.org and this man waved us over. This generally does not happen unless they really know who we are, usually members. So we went over and this man, probably in his 50's started to talk to us. First of all.. he was loco! We had no idea what he was saying because he was talking in three different languages and none of them made any sense. The spanish didn't and especially the english. He started to tell us how beautiful we were and starting singing some good ol' John Lennon to us. (spell?) We quickly closed the conversation and he turned to Sister millward and said "Hermana, I have fallen in love with you!! Are you married?" My jaw dropped. The best part was Sister Millwards reaction. " THAT..... is NOT okay" ha ha and then he said, " Oh, not in this context?" " No not ever" she said! and then he asked us if we could still give him a card and come over to his house! THERES NO WAY! ha ha Sometimes those things just happen!
The most dramatic thing that happened to us this week is this. With a new month, comes a new baptisimal goal! So.. we knelt down and prayed about what our goal should be. Four came to my mind. FOUR! The best part is after saying a prayer like that or feeling like you got an answer like that, especially when you have zero investigators!!!! is that you just look at each other hoping that the other person says what they thought first, and that it's the same number! Four is what we both got.. ha ha with zero, absolutely zero investigators. So we were at our zone meeting and everyone generaly set a goal for one or two.. and in walks President.. and its almost our turn to say our goal. Four... seriously. Its just funny sometimes. But we know for some reason or another we need to be concentrated on getting four this month wether we actually get them or not. We have made our focus really strong on finding those, like NIna, who have been prepared. Its almost a waste of our time our here to try and convince and drag people to be baptized. We need four more Nina's. One of the most amazing things that happened the following couple days we taught two people, Frank and Steven, and that said at a couple points during the lesson, " I think I already know that it's true" It will almost throw you off your seat when someone tells you that. They said that they would prepare for baptism but these two men are really going to need some extra help. Lots of prayers.
Something I am really grateful for is that I am teaching the latino people. They are some of the most humble and generous people. Generally willing to listen to a message about Christ and help us in any way that they can. This week we learned how to make Papusas, and to eat them really well. (generally with your fingers. Its super lady like!) We had a couple great dinners with some of the best people this week! Can't wait to come home and cook for everyone!
Two more things. There is this bug that comes around every 17 years.. I have no idea what they are called. Can't remember. But they are discusting! They stay in the ground for the whole time and them come up to reproduce and shed their skin. When they fly around its sounds like you are in the middle of a swarm of crickets. and their dead skin just stays where they left it. Little creepy! They are harmless though!
And the last thing, Did you know its illegal to fill up your own gas here? I haven't gotten out of the car to fill up in months! Weird at first but now I'm thinking that Utah should adopt that too!
Love you all!
Hermana Schwendiman
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| Nina's baptism |
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