June 9, 2014 - Week 23

This week was full of stuff that we did. It was pretty fun, though! Let´s start with Wednesday... We had divisions with the Hermana Leader trainers. So I stayed in our area and my companion went with Hermana Gutierrez to her area called Mburucuya (it´s pronounced booducuya--which means passionfruit in Guarani...) which is like super chuchi and it´s like right where the mission office is. So she had a fun time and stuff. And I stayed here with Hermana Owen in my area. It was really fun! Of course, I was a bit worried that she was going to drop cane on me at any second for doing something wrong... But nope! It was pretty good. We had some really good lessons. Actually, one of the most spiritual lessons that I have had so far. One of them... But this is what happened...

Hermana Owen & Hermana Whittaker

So we started off in a ´´neighborhood´´ that is in our area named Conavi 3. We visited a menos activo there first and had lunch with her. That went well. Then we visited the familia Portillo and then Sabrina. All really good lessons. Also, while we were walking some guy on a moto drove up to us and said, ´´Are you guys mormons?´´ We say, ´´Yeah...´´ And then he says, ´´Well I want you guys to come to my house and teach me about your church and stuff and about the Bible...´´ So we were pretty shocked at this point cuz this never happens. Then he like asks us if we are Americans and stuff. So really we don´t know if he is actually interested in the church or...... Yeah. So that happened. Hahaha but then we had to go in front of the chapel to contact for the Visitor´s Center thing that we did this week. Me and Hermana Owen contacted a good number of people in the 3 hours that we had to contact. I think she contacted like 40 and I contacted like 30. Something like that... But it was good. Then after all that contacting and inviting people to the Open House for Saturday, we went to find a reference from a member. Long story short, we couldn´t find it. No problem though, cuz we were just going to do it another day with the member himself. So we needed to find someone to teach closeby. Then Hermana Owen says, ´´Hey, isn´t that the house of an investigator? I remember when I went on divisions with Hermana B we went to that house and taught that lady...´´ So I look and sure enough, it was the house/dispensa (store--there are a lot of houses that are small stores, too) of a lady named Emeteria that we used to teach at the beginning of my training. I remembered that we stopped teaching her because she never went to church. So we decided to try again... I mean we needed to find someone that could be our new investigator that day and she was a really good choice. So we went and she was so happy to see us! She told us, ´´I thought you guys forgot about me!´´ And also she remembered Hermana Owen, so that was funny. She then decided to give us some Ñanduti... Just as a gift! It was so sweet! So that was cool. But anyway... It was her and her daughter and we shared with them. We shared the restoration with them and I don´t know why or what happened... But the spirit was SOOOO strong! It was seriously so cool! After we shared the first vision with them it was just silent.... Their faces were in awe. It was awesome!! But anyway, they accepted the baptismal invitation and we are for sure going back to visit them. So that was my cool story about an awesome lesson that we had. 

The other cool thing that happened was that on Friday, me and Hermana Morales had to contact again in front of the chapel for CVC and we got like 108 contacts! I got like 50 and it was just cool. So that means for this week, I got like 87 contacts total. That is really good. So I was so happy! That was thanks to this time we got to contact though... But whatever! It was cool! But anyways, we had the Visitor´s Center thing on Saturday from 4-8 PM and it went pretty good. There was a missionary couple that is like in charge of it that are in the South mission (they totally know Elder Lyon, too). The cool thing is that we are the first ward to do this in our mission and it went well! So anyway, Elder and Hermana Arnold came to set it all up and there was like a ´´statue´´ like the Cristo statue in SLC... But it wasn´t an actual statue. Just like a hard posterish thing. I don´t know how to describe it. It was kinda like a cardboard cut-out, but not really. Anyways... They came to set it up and teach us what we would be doing. So we (the hermanas) had to lead the tours. Which was welcome the people to the thing and start the words of Christ for them to listen to (same in SLC, but in Spanish--of course) and then teach shortened versions of like ´´The Life of Christ´´ and ´´The Restoration´´ and ´´The Plan of Salvation´´ and stuff like that. There were like different pictures and stuff set up and we just lead and taught the tour. So that was really neat. There were 3 different companionships of hermanas doing the tours, so it wasn´t like we were the only ones. But it did go for 4 hours... So that was fun... ;) But we had about like 100 or so people show up and it was really nice. Well... We invited through contacting like over 1000 people or so... But that was a really good turn out and probably a breaking record (according to Hermana Arnold). In one of the tours that we were teaching we had like a family of members in our area but with their sons (who are menos activo) and an investigator but also a few other people that were interested. There was one girl who some of the missionaries invited off the street to come in and learn more and she totally did and she was in that group. She lives in our area so we were excited about that. Well.... We were almost done with our part of the tour and my companion was testifying of the importance of temples when this girl just like starts swaying... Her eyes were like fluttering and I just knew that she was going to faint. So my companion is like 3 seconds away from saying... ´´in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen´´ and then I was going to ask her if she was OK. Then BAM! She just falls to the floor! I just run over to her and all the people in the room like help her up and stuff. My companion didn´t even see that that was happening to her, but she just runs to get water and stuff. Turns out that everything was ok and she fainted cuz she had taken some medication that morning and the cultural room in the chapel was kind of hot. So she is ok! And the good news is, we are going to visit her soon in her house! 

Cake for Lidia's (Angel's Mom) birthday

So that whole activity went really good. Even President and Hermana McMullin were there! So that is about all that happened for this week. It was a full week, for sure. ONLY ONE MORE WEEK OF THIS CAMBIO! That--I cannot believe. Seriously. Well... Next week you guys should know what is happening with changes. I am pretty sure there will be no changes for us, but you never know! Hope you all have a marvalous week!

LOVE YOU GUYS WITH ALL MY HEART!!

Love, Hermana Whittaker