A lot of changes are happening in the mission this transfer! ...Except me and Hermana Whetten, we are going to party here in Reseda/Africa together for another 6 weeks! I guess the inflow of new younger missionaries has not hit our mission yet because we have no hermanas coming in.
This week was just a week of, I don't even know, weird and funny and crazy. I think we might have set a record for losing the most progressing investigators in the random est ways in the fewest amount of days. One went to Jail, one completely avoided us, one is an old lady and is literally going crazy, every person that had a baptismal date was gone one by one until we now have no one with a baptismal date! Yes, we had a rough start to the week. But it was bearable because we also had the funniest things happen!
We had a family home evening with a few families in the ward, investigators and recent converts. An hermana brought a dessert called 3 reyes magos, i think that is what it is called. It is something they do in Mexico to celebrate the 3 wisemen. It is a cake, bread thing that has 3 plastic dolls hidden in it somewhere and everyone gets to cut a piece wherever they want and whoever gets the dolls has to cook something for the next party. The first doll the person has to make tamales for everyone, the second has to bring this mexican hot chocolate stuff and the third person brings something else! Guess who got the first doll?! I thought they would let me off the hook and an hermana would make them or something, but NO, they were dead serious. They were all laughing so hard and saying the misionera has to make tamales! I just stood up there in front of everyone looking around at them like seriously you guys want me to make tamales for you. And they all just kept laughing and took pictures. The only person who offered to help me was our brand new investigator we had found that day and invited him to the activity, a 50 year old man, and I took him up on it! So project old man, white girl tamale extravaganza will commence shortly.
I also got proposed to this week! We were contacting people in the street, and this guy we were talking to kept telling us how pretty we were, and when I gave him a pamphlet and told him he had to read it for us to come back he asked me to marry him! uhhh...awkward moment. Then he made us wait in the street while he ran back to his apartment to get us a box of chocolates before we left. When we called and invited him to church he said he'd rather take us out to dinner....
Yesterday at church was one of the best because of Antonio. He wore a white shirt and tie (before he did not wear that), and brought a brief case, we asked him what he had in there and he said all of his church books. A.K.A. His Book of Mormon and all the pamphlets from the lessons. He was confirmed in sacrament meeting and interviewed by the bishop to get a calling! It was so cute to see how happy he was and see him walking around proud with his briefcase! When he talks,sometimes this is seriously what I hear, "Niiiurhiiiiummmoh ya estaiiiujaeeeuium ya bliiiiuulshk" really fast. And by the looks he gives me after I try to talk to him I think that is what he hears when I talk too, but somehow we have a friendship!
For new years eve we had dinner with this family from Peru, a girl for our YSA ward and her parents. They asked how I like the food and I said I like it but it doesn't seem like the spanish culture eats that much chocolate. For the next ten minutes this mom bore her testimony about chocolate! How much she loves it and how she used to not have that much sympathy for people that had addictions to things like alcohol or drugs, until one day. She realized whenever she got chocolate she would hide it so she wouldn't have to share it with her kids, and she thought to herself, that is a type of addiction! And how she has to not open chocolate because if she opens it she has to eat it ALL, but if she just doesn't open it then she can be ok. We had a bonding moment over chocolate and then she sent me home with a ton of the chocolate she had gotten for Christmas!
Something I learned this week that just hit home to me with all the experiences of this week was about charity. There are so many things we don't take with us when we die. And life on Earth is so short. But charity is one of those things we will have in the next life. Our love for the people in our lives, and our ability to love other people is something that we take with us. We can pray to have more charity and we just need to enjoy and actually be with the people around us. I am so grateful for all the people I am meeting here and for the experiences I am having with them. I am also so grateful for all of you and your support! I love you all so much!!!
Love love lovey love,
Hermana Mulliner
such a positive attitude will keep things balanced, despite the setbacks, things work out would love to hear how the tamales turn out! Exciting to read about Antonio !
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