As a missionary we are always talking to people and going into their houses to share messages with them and such. And that means you meet a lot of interesting (in good ways and bad ways) people and end the week with a thousand crazy stories of things that have happened. We have pretty much the whole spector of lessons...good ones, spiritual ones, weird ones, stressful ones, and everything else you can imagine. So here are a couple of stories to illustrate what I mean...
#1. Amazing lesson. We taught the most amazing woman of all time a super powerful lesson about tithing. Maria Yunga. Her husband is always in the lessons and always interrupts with weird comments. So we decided that we wanted to have a lesson with just her right before her baptism. We took her to a member`s house and talked about fasting and tithing. She told us a lot of things about her husband`s problem with alcohol and howe it is tearing her family apart. It was heartbreaking. But she loved when we talked about fasting. Her eyes lit up when she realized that she could draw upon that extra help from the Lord to strengthen her as she tries to lead her family and be an example to them. The sweet member whose house we were at (the infamous hermana Arteaga) gave the most beautiful testimony about fasting and the importance of paying tithing. It was an incredible lesson. And don`t worry...on Sunday right after her baptism Maria paid a fast offering for a special fast she did this week.
#2. Crappy lesson. We went to a follow-up appointment with a family we taught last week. We contacted their house and taught them lesson one, left a chapter in the Book of Mormon to read, and said we`d be back this week. So we went. We sat down, sang a hymn, prayed, and then the dad pulled out this huge list of every reason the Book of Mormon was false. Turns out they are studying with Jehovah`s Witnesses, who happen to LOVE bashing the church and arguing about things. It`s probably a good thing I am not a scriptural master because I wanted to prove him wrong in every single way. But we decided it wasn`t worth our time to contend, so we just bore testimony of the happiness and truth the gospel brings and got out of there. I sort of wanted to reach across the table and shake that man until he realized that he had such goodness right in front of him, but wasn`t willing to open his heart and give it a chance.
#3. Bizarre lesson. A woman in our ward gave us a reference of a lady named Blanca she met on the bus last week and set up an appointment for us. We showed up at her door and knocked for about 10 minutes. (Here`s a story about Ecuadorians. They take a century to answer their door. Always. And you have to knock for about 5 minutes to make sure they here. Knocking means banging a coin against their metal gate in front of their house. It makes the world`s most obnoxious noise ever and drives me crazy. But. When in Ecuador, do as the Ecuadorians do.) Finally this lady opened the door and just stared at us. The hermana from the ward reminded her that we were here to share a message with her about the gospel. She let us in to her house, which was richly decorated with all kinds of random things. We sat down and started teaching. Everything went well until we started talking about prophets. At this point she started thumbing through random things, staring off into space, and interjecting with random comments like "God is love!" and "Jesus had a lot of friends." We kept trying to get her to explain things in her own words to see if she was capturing anything we were saying, but she would respond by telling us random facts about her husband or how she hadn`t had water for 15 days. So we struggled our way through the lesson and finally made it to the end. Then she started telling us that she thought she was already baptized in our church when she was really little. We will have investigating to do on that subject. I was absolutely dying of laughter on the inside because everything about our time there was so bizarre. We finally were getting ready to leave when she insisted that we stay to have a cup of tea because Hermana Glanzer had a slight cold. She left for 20 minutes to boil water...and came back wearing this purple coat and green hat. Then it dawned on me...She was the madhatter from Alice in Wonderland! I promise. It was so weird. Also as we were getting ready to go she gave us little tiny sample bottles of perfume. Mine smelled like poison, and Hermana Glanzer`s was nasty men`s cologne. She was kind of kooky, but very sweet. Two hours later we escaped with purely confused looks on our faces. Neither of us could believe that we actually met the Madhatter.
#4. Stressful lesson. On Sunday afternoon we had an activity in our stake called Un Dìa Como Misionero. It was a chance for the youth to go on splits with the missionaries here. There were a couple of girls that showed up for the activity - a fifteen year old who was baptized a year ago, and a 20 year old who is preparing to leave on her mission in a few months. So Hermana Glanzer and I did splits with them and went to a few appointments. I was with the 20 year old...Anita. She is from a different ward, so I had never met her before, but she was way rad. She is going to be an amazing missionary. We went to an appointment with the familia Chuñir. We had another member, Giovani Barros, come with us to the appointment...and it was probably the most stressful thing of my life. I had to be in charge for reals...I didn`t have another companion to rely on. We taught a lesson about the importance of doign the little things daily to protect us from the trials and temptations we face in life. Somehow the lesson went really well, and luckily Anita and Giovanni were absolute champs. I sort of felt like an idiot because they said way more powerful things that I did. But that`s something I am learning...to swallow my pride and realize that sometimes other people know better than I do (even if they don`t even have a missionary plaque).
I could probably tell one thousand more stories about crazy lessons we have. Some people LOVE to tell you their entire life story and comment about every single thing you say. And other people just sit there staring at you awkwardly and won`t even give a single answer when you ask a question.
Some other tidbits about my week in Ecuador....
1. If you`ll notice in the pictures I sent (hint hint to mallory...you have to post pics this week!) my companion and I are wearing the same plaque. We`re both Hermana Glanzer. Somehow a few weeks ago I lost my plaque and they can`t send me a new one for like a month. So we are twins for now, and I am not really sure what I am going to do when she leaves. Make a way white trashy plaque out of paper?
2. On wednesday we were out walking on this super busy street. Probably the busiest in our sector. We approached this roundabout and there was this man in booty shorts and a wife beater jazzercising right in the middle of it! Aka with a thousand billion cars driving by! Maybe it was rude of me, but I started laughing uncontrollably. Seriously. What was he thinking?! When is it ever a good idea for a man to go out in public dressed like that and do some crazy air punching right in the middle of the highway?! I will never understand.
3. We eat EVERYTHING here with a spoon. Literally. But today we went to this restaurant and they gave us a fork. Both of us took 3 bites and looked at each other and said we missed our spoons. I will miss spoons when I go home. Spoons and rice.
4. This week we planned a super cool activity for the zone for pday. We were going to go to lunch and play a bunch of games with everyone for Glanzer`s last pday. But. Last night they called us and said that all the senior companions (minus Glanz...thank goodness!) were going to Machala for a training. Awesome. All that planning and getting excited for nothing. So instead we decided to hop on a bus to a quaint little town called Chordeleg. We had no clue what we were even going to do there, but we`ve pretty much done everything there is to do here in Cuenca. It was a lovely little escape for a few hours. We wandered around and were shocked at how quiet everything was! There wasn`t all the crazy Cuenca traffic and people everywhere! We loved it. Plus we wore our new Pony Club tshirt (Note to Haggs: Yours is on its way when Glanz goes home!!).
5. BAPTISM! Maria Yunga got baptized this week! We had a noche blanca...which means that we had a combined baptism with all the missionaries in the stake. We had some major challenges that day because Pablo was supposed to get baptized, but last minute he wasn`t able to come for some challenges he was facing (details post-mission). So we were up there for like 2 hours trying to deal with all of that. We told Maria we`d pick her up at 6pm. We got there at 7:30. I felt so bad. We raced over to the stake center and finally had a chance to have a deep breath. Luckily everything went well and Maria is an absolute champ. Love that lady.
6. Glanz and I prepared a song all week long to sing at the baptism. It was the spanish version of Come Thou Fount. We seriously practiced a thousand times a day. It was going to be incredible. We practiced real quick before the baptism with the elder that was accompanying us. During our practice we burst into uncontrollable laughter, but resolved that everythign would go well in the real thing. Not so. We got up there to sing and about halfway through the song I had to quit singing because I was on ther verge of exploding with laughter. And then Glanz caught it too...and the end of the song was nonexistant. We just stood up there and laughed hysterically and wished Elder Ludlam would just finish the song! It was torture. Also really embarrassing. And reverent. Whoops.
7. Glanz is going home in a week. I am freaking out a little. I adore that girl. We have had an absolutely blissful few weeks together. But I am excited for her to go home and see her family again. Uncertainty of the future is kind of frightening, but I am trying to learn to embrace it and be excited for new adventures and things to learn. If there is one thing I am learning here it is trusting that the Lord knows how to lead me better than I do.
8. Packages in the mail are the best thing of all time. And letters.
9. I know there are a thousand other things to say, but my mind is drawing a blank.
10. I love you all and think of you and pray for you every day.
Hope your week is full of rainbows and my little ponies.
No comments:
Post a Comment