Hey, I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and I wish you all a happy New Year. It's been a good week with some rough patches but I am doing great now. I'll just dive right in and get to it so you'll understand.
Last P-day we went to go have dinner at a member's home but everything kinda went crazy after that. She and totally spaced on it and didn't have any man in the home so we couldn't go in. So we figured we would go find a referral in that area but she wasn't there so we went out and found us some dinner. We walked by a papusa stand and we figured it was a good time to try some. We all bought some Mexican deliciousness and chowed down there on the corner. It was not the night we expected to have but it was super fun and delicious.
The next morning we went out to our car and found that we had been robbed! I'm not even kidding, the car was a mess and someone had stolen Elder Froisland's GPS, his CD's and my shades! It would be the most disappointing loot ever though. The GPS doesn't work without the charger and they left it and the CD's were all church music. Suckers are probably gonna get baptized for all that, God works in mysterious ways like that and always gets you in the end. I'm not really too mad about it mostly cause I didn't really lose too much from that but Elder Froisland is super paranoid about locking the car now.
As we were walking around that day and as we were doing so I saw a woman putting away some groceries. I felt the need to talk to her but at the same moment I felt like every time we had tried that it came up to nothing but an annoyed woman and a bit disappointed. I turned to Elder Alls and told him we needed to talk to her anyway though and so we went.... and exactly that happened. But, her brother came out! He was 21 and talked with us for about half an our about religion and God in general. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a Mormon.org card and he said he would read and go to the website! We were super pumped, too bad he lived out side our mission by about an hour. It's okay though, some missionaries just got a golden referral.
That night we had dinner with a Latino sister. Turns out that Christmas Eve is Christmas to Latinos.... who would have thunk it? So she had the whole spread for us. Turkey, mashed potato and tamales galore! I only ate a bit, truly, but the spirit in the room was one of close friends and good food. I brought my guitar and sang the family "Silver Bells" and they were really appreciative of that. I didn't think it was much but they loved it and it felt nice to have done so. We went home with warm hearts and full bellies.
Christmas day we went to work as usual. We went to go meet a young man named Kenneth, and we found him close to his home throwing a football around. We started teaching him about the Plan of Salvation when his uncle came out. The man was more than a bit tipsy and louder than a pregnant angry lion. He went on a rant about not being fake and some other stuff and we all just stood there awkwardly for about half an hour while he went off. We ended up just leaving mid-sentence and taking off. You sure meet some crazies out on your mission....
That night was super great. I got to finally Skype my family back home and see them all again! It was so fun and we talked for waaayyy longer than I would like to admit. It was super great and we talked about everything from the mission to the MLS final. I was just thankful to see all my family again. I got some super great gifts too, but my favorite was a calendar of my family for 2014. I thought I would be more trunkie (missing home) after that but it just rededicated me to the work and got me even more ready to find, teach and baptize.
The next morning we had a district leader training with Elder Froisland that we got to sit in on. In it we learned a lot of things:
1. We will be moving apartments at sometime this transfer because we live outside our area
2. We should only do sports on P-day once or twice a transfer (I'm a bit ticked about that one)
3. We will be going "electronic" in the next 12 months.... I won't be here
4. More missionaries will now be using public transportation
There was more but that was the gist of it. It was cool to be there because it was really a representation of all the mission in one meeting.
That night we went to have dinner only to find our dinner appointment wasn't home! We were a bit sad about that but luckily a tender mercy happened in the form of an old investigator. He was walking by and told us where to get some cheap dinner so we scurried off and got us some Chinese food. As we were eating the Sister we were gonna have dinner with showed up at the restaurant. She had just gotten back from a doctor's appointment and had saw us in the restaurant. We went back to her home on foot and helped her with some online job hunting through lds.org for about 2 hours. She was super pumped about that and it was good to she her in such a good way.
The next day we found the worst smelling home in exsistance. I kid you not, it is that bad. We went and visited an investigator at his step-mother's home where there are 12 cats. Just imagine that smell. The place smelled so strong of ammonia that it stuck to our clothes and we had to go us some fabric cleaner to get off us. It stung your nostrils so bad we couldn't even think straight. I swear the place has never been cleaned. Ever. It was sooooo bad.
That night got a little worse though. I got a call from Pres. Weidman saying that my great grandma was in the final hours of her life. It was pretty devastating and I admit I cried very hard. Pres Weidman then asked me to teach the Plan of Salvation to him in a minuet and a half. Through sobs and tears I managed to get it out and kinda took the night off. It was 9:30 so I went to the kitchen and made some hot chocolate, which always helps me feel better. I calmed down and kept telling myslef "I'm gonna make her proud, this is what she wants me to be doing". It was a hard night but I know God gave me this trail so I can grow. I'm fine now, I was a bit shaken but I'm doing well now.
The next day went by fairly unremarkable but we had dinner at our bishop's home with the entire district. That was fun, he's a character and a half and he actually brought an investigator. We answered some of his questions and bore some testimonies but bishop finished off the night with a spiritual thought. He told us about his mission in Germany and some cool stuff from it. I was pretty pumped to have another German-fanatic around and it was good to geek-out with him for a bit.
After that we went to visit Louie, where we finally met his daughters! With him having a baptismal date and wanting his daughters to be baptized too it was about time we met them in 2 months. We talked for about half an hour and we've got another appointment with them soon. It is so good to see these miracles happening in my life!
We went back over the next night to actually do a lesson with Louie's housemate/friend Brother James. I was actually super skeptical about this lesson because he tends not to make commitments. We watched Finding Faith in Christ with him and that went so well that he promised to read the BoM every night! I was blown away. Here we were, meeting with this man for the past 2 months and he had always told us "I can't promise anything" and now he was actually gonna read the Book or Mormon! Such an awesome miracle! I love seeing God work in these people's lives!
Well that's all for this week. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and hope you will have a happy new year! God bless you all!
- Um no exercito de Deus
Elder Teela
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