Hola Family!
Well the title sums up the week, it was
strange. We had to drop Joel, since he hasn't fulfilled a commitment nor come
to church in several weeks. So that was sad. We also invited our two Paraguayen
ladies to be baptized, they didn't show up for the appointment last night to
follow up so we'll see what happens tonight. Seriously praying that they'll be
there!! But other than them, we've just been trying to build our teaching pool,
using various, and sometimes successful methods, including knocking buildings filled
with old people, hiking across a mountain in order to find our drug dealer
investigator(he's a champ), and walking into a gypsie yard filled with poop,
only to find two giant dogs and a kind of crazy looking gypsie woman. We didn't
stay very long there.
We also had some crazy successes in the midst
of that, such as this Nicaraguan woman who was working at this house on top of
the mountain behind our town when we knocked on the door, and Adam, a Moroccan
man we found for the elder elders. That was a memorable contact, after
establishing that we're human and missionaries and whatnot, he told us the
reason for being on the street, which was to find a way to rid himself of his
14 hamsters without being a sinner(his words not mine) by letting them loose in
the street, or handing them to random small children. The elders taught him and
he's totally going to be baptized, boom!
Elder Jacobson and I went on two more
intercambios this week – 1) while Elder Perry and Kimball headed to San
Sebastián to do a baptismal interview(an elder there also got his foot stuck in
the bus door, and ended up hopping down the street with the bus moving before
people told the driver to stop. Oops), and 2) while my companion was resting
his swollen foot from a soccer incident(we do many bench contacts now). We
found out though that in each of those intercambios we could only find
snakes(aka young flirtatious woman around our age), so we had some interesting
lessons. Three of them are coming to an activity this week with us so we'll see
where this goes...gosh dang it snakes!
In other news, Pakistani people live here, old
people are mean sometimes, matay’s the best(matay is like grass that you drink
with hot water and sugar from Argentina, it's the best), and the senior couple here
the Rhodes surprised us last night by telling us they'll be coming for a piso
check Thursday, aka, the biannual time to scrub your piso(and ours is quite
old), so this should be fun! Don't know when we'll have time to clean though..
This week I learned about what it means to be
genuine. It's to be you, and always you, no matter what the situation, and to
be a Christlike listener. This is a struggle of many missionaries, of relating
to people of many back grounds(like us, who contact people from 4 continents daily,
and old Spaniards by the dozens), and it's something I found I needed to
improve. After our zone meeting this week too, I have focused on sharing
personal stories more often in lessons, and just from the few times I've done
it, I've seen the impact a personal testimony makes on the people. So I'd like
to invite you all to think of personal stories about gospel topics, like
prayer, fasting, sacrament meeting, miracles, the priesthood, anything, and to
share it with your family and friends! I know that as you do this, people will
relate to your testimony more, and the gospel will reach many more
people!
Thank you for your emails and the love I've
felt as I've been here, and I hope you all have an amazing week!
Shout out to my amazing trainee/companion Elder
Perry, and Subway cookies!
Sincerely
Intercambio Kebab with Elder Jacobson
Zone Enfoque with the Bilbao zone
Preparation Day cookies!
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