Hi family, as usual, I cannot focus on writing and have no idea what to write about. This week has been really good, and probably the most productive week I have had in Lakeville. We had lots of fun interesting experiences.
On Monday night we went to a less-active's house and she was out walking around the neighborhood so we parked and got out and walked around the block a few times before our lesson. The weather here has been gorgeous this week. And this Wednesday is supposed to snow haha classic. But it was really nice to go for a walk. It was also one of the first times where I really felt conversational in Spanish, like we talked about hair, and exercise, and random things. It was a good bonding experience.
BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE. We were visiting a different less-active family and they asked if I was mixed, and usually when they ask, they mean half black, but they said that I look and SOUND Latina. I freaked out. I'm so happy. I have been waiting for that for more than eight months. My accent is getting better and I am excited again to keep working on it. They also said that my eyebrows are Latina too haha.
Another less-active family we stopped by, live in a bright blue trailer and we knocked on the door, and the husband? answered. We asked if the lady we were looking for was home and he said no shes at work and the kid standing there said "siiiii....!" and we kind of smiled and he started laughing at himself a little and kept saying sorry and then he said she was vacuuming and then taking care of the kid and would just laughed embarrassedly and then said hold on and went back into the house. A few seconds later the lady came out and said she was about to get into the shower. Haha. Worst liar ever. Also they're attending a different church, so that's cool I guess.
ANOTHER less-active family went to a catholic mass on Sunday and now the mom is confused and has some doubts. She has a lot of faith, but they just haven't been coming to church. She reads the scriptures and prays, but they have not been attending church and that's where her doubts are coming from. She asked what she should do and we told her the same thing we tell every investigator, if she wants answers, she has to be reading, praying, and attending church.
We started teaching a new investigator this week. Her name is Elisa, she's 20 yrs old, has 2 kids, we met her while knocking. We taught her the Restoration and she was interested in learning more. We did not do a very good job of explaining and teaching, but luckily God doesn't let us fail even though we aren't perfect teachers. Our second lesson was awesome. Like best lesson we've taught in a long time. She loves the idea of eternal families and was excited to invite us back. We are going to reteach the Restoration, and hopefully that will help. We've been working really hard on our teaching. I LOVE teaching that age group. I think it's my favorite. I wish that Spanish missionaries could go to the YSA ward, because I would love that. That age group is so receptive.
On the other end of the age spectrum, we talked to Leonor this week a couple of times. She turns 85 at the end of this month. She is really sad. She really doesn't want to have another birthday in the nursing home. In the last week she has told us a lot more about her life. She has had a really hard life. Her mom pulled her out of school when she was six so she could do the grocery shopping and clean the house and things like that. Basically everyone in her life has hit her at one point: her mom, her kids, her husband, everyone. It's really sad. It's so hard being a 20 yr old listening to all these life experiences. It's so hard to know what to say. I've never been even close to mistreated in my life, I have the perfect life. I think that having the gospel really puts a bubble around us and helps a lot. I've thought about that a lot as a missionary. Like what have I done to be born into the family that I have? Why has my life been so easy? Why do people have to suffer so much? I don't really understand, and it makes me question all of life's existence.
We got to see Lamb of God live this week with the family that we live with. We were in one of the big auditoriums on the U of M campus. It was incredible. I was so happy. Lamb of God is a concert style musicals based on the book of John.
A big focus of our studies this week was on the apostasy and how we can help people understand it better. We've discovered that explaining the concept of dispensations actually really helps teach the principle. God has always sent prophets to guide his people. When the people reject the messages of God and choose to not use or to abuse the authority of God, he takes it away until they are ready to have it again. Then he calls a new prophet, and a new dispensation starts. An analogy we thought of to help explain it to Elisa, is that it's like if you buy a kid a new toy, and they start to throw it around or leave it outside or just don't take care of it, what do you do? You take it away or or you don't replace it if gets broken. It's the same idea. Eventually when they're mature enough to take care of it, you might get them a new one. Right? That's the idea of dispensations. And so with that background, it makes perfect sense that God would give us a prophet to guide us in the latter days. At first, I thought explaining that would be way to complicated, but since studying Preach My Gospel with Hna H we've discovered that it actually is the link we've been missing in our lessons.
So couple questions.
1. Have you been able to get levo sent in the last week?
2. Can I make an Easter basket request? I need new heads for my electric toothbrush and also this month I have my "hump day" which is 9 months. Can you believe that? But I think I need a camel t-shirt or something. I know, weird.
3. I've been seriously thinking about turning in an application to be an RA in the Winter, could you look around and see if I have a resume saved on the desktop anywhere that I could work off of?
Thanks, I love you! Keep me posted! I love getting the pictures throughout the week!
Emily
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