Week 19

Hola!

This week was crazy... My comp is really sweet and quiet! She speaks zero English, but we're working on that.  To be honest, is insanely difficult.  We cant hardly communicate, so planning for our day is hard.  However we do language study together, I help her with English and she helps me with Spanish. I taught her the word "freakin" on day one. (Why? Well....why not?) On our second day together we were standing outside a house and at the same time she yelled "Alo" (that's how you get people to answer their door here) two cars drove past completely overpowering her voice. I said, "perfect timing" and she said, "freaking autos!" I'm so proud of her English improvements...haha

My area is really big with some fields. So in this area we get bikes!! It is really cold but it's fun. Also I thought I knew how to ride a bike, but when my skirt got stuck on the seat the first time and I about ate the ground, I was humbled. I must learn to ride a bike in a skirt now.  This is a much nicer (wealthier) part of my mission so our house is really nice! There's no mold, broken ceilings, or gross kitchen. I live with Hermanas B----/R----, and each companionship has their own study room. We all share a big room, and there's two bathrooms. I live in a constant state of frozen. We have tiny heaters and bed heaters but that's it. Hermana B---- gets up super early and she just stays in the study room. The other day I opened the door to see what she was doing and she had "hot boxed" the room! She turned on both heaters and shut the door, it was soooo warm! Genius!

Last Thursday we taught a guy named J----. We stood in the streets for almost an hour and taught him lesson one. When we talked about the Book of Mormon we asked if he would like a copy and he replied saying, "yeah, and can you write down a part for me to read too?" Ummm YES WE SURE CAN! Ha it was perfect. 

My Spanish is getting a lot better really fast. Saturday X----- (from Departamental) called me and we talked on the phone for 10 mins. I understood everything and was able to have a more normal conversation with her! It was a great feeling!  This week I found a quote that made me feel so much better about my Spanish! It said, "I throw my Spanish in the air sometimes, saying AYYYYOOOO NO COMPRENDOOO!" (Sing it to the tune of Dynamite by Taio Cruz). As silly as this sounds, that quote has kept me smiling and when I say something with awful pronunciation, I laugh. Because what more can you do?

The Ward is great, the bishopric does a ton and we have a really good Ward misión leader who helps a ton! We meet at his house on Monday nights and have potlucks snacks while discussing all our people who we are teaching/visiting and who we need help with.  It was really fun and productive which is a step up from my last ward where we didn’t have a ward mission leader…

We did a service project this week at a home for the elderly in Quimey.  When i first got to the place it looked like a nice garden area with broken down buildings.  After about 20 minutes the elderly in wheel chairs and walker started coming outside and i learned we were at a home for the elderly.  It was really sad.  The place was beautiful but there were far more people to take care of than there were people working there.  I would never put my family there, and the sad thing is....its one of the nicest places for the elderly.....we weeded a bunch and cleaned it up a bit, it looked a ton better! At first we were just shoveling the weeds into a pile....making it look better, but more or less just planting seeds for it to all grow back, not really helping the situation.  One Elder laughed when I said, "What is the purpose of this? To make it look good for a couple week until it all grows right back cause were just spreading seeds?"  His response was...."Poor missionaries who come in 9 months....theyll be here doing the same thing."  Kinda  funny and sad thought, we just created another service project for future missionaries....but in the mean time it looks great!

I started reading the Book of Mormon again, but this time I am using a black pen and writing/underlining anything that stands out.  I was reading in 1 Nephi when Nephi and his brothers go back to get the brass plates from Laban.  During the third attempt Nephi goes unto Laban and the Lord delivers him into the hands of Nephi and Nephi slays him.  Following he gets Zorem to give him the plates by dressing as laban and talking in his voice.  Many times ive wondered, “Why did Zorem go into the wilderness with Nephi?”  After reading I discovered, that Zorem first went because he thinks he is following Laban, but outside the city walls is when he learns that it wasn’t Laban and was Nephi instead.  Nephi talks to Zorem and convinces him to come with them into the wilderness.  Again I thought, “Why does Nephi want him to come?”  Then the scriptures say that Nephi wanted him to go because he was the only witness that he had killed Laban and fled to the wilderness.  If they took Zorem with them, then there would be no witness.  A few verses later it says Zorem made a covenant with Nephi, and Nephis “fears” left.  Following the footnote for “fears” it says, “Trustworthy”.  A convenant back in the times of the scriptures must have been one very powerful thing.  To simply make a covenant and then be deemed a trustworthy person would be really cool.

Well have a great week everyone!

Hermana Sullivan