Week #19

WELLLL......

About twenty minutes ago I said goodbye to my trainer and sent her off to the mission home. It's been an interesting last week with her. Because we worked really hard in our area. We didn't want to slack her last week and we definitely didn't. We only found two new investigators this week... but both of them are incredible. Both have accepted the invitation to be baptized, and one has a date for the 23rd of June. The one that has a date, Luis, is a former investigator. So he knows a lot about the church, but wasn't baptized because he had a really big problem with the Word of Wisdom. But he has quit everything and is ready to be baptized. We took time for Sister McKee to say "Bye"  to all  the members and investigators. We took time to pack and get everything ready for her. But in the end... she's going home and I'm still here!!

I spent a lot of time this week making sure that I knew the area, that I knew all of our investigators needs, all of our potential investigators, and less actives so that I would be ready to take over our area! Usually we find out transfer news on Saturday night, but for some reason (probably that he was still making changes!) President didn't let us know until last night. And I'm leaving my area :[  I'm sad about it because I'm just starting to feel like I know the area, and I know the members. I'm sad to leave all of our investigators. It's hard to just hand them off to other people that don't know them and just hope it all works out! They are actually consolidating our area. Which means the elders in our ward are taking over our entire area... It makes me really nervous. But it's okay. I'm going to the Mesa Grande Branch. It's really close... it actually borders my current area. And my companion will be Hermana Falcon. I already know her a little bit because we are in the Visitors' Center together. She's from Mexico and has been out almost a year (I think). I'm excited to be with Hermana Falcon and to learn from her. She's very different from Hermana McKee and I'm grateful for the opportunity that I'll have to learn from two different people and their teaching methods. I'm also grateful that I'll really have an opportunity to improve my Spanish! It's really hard for non-natives to speak the language in their companionships, because English is so much easier to communicate. But with Hermana Falcon's first language being Spanish, I'm really excited to get more practice in. Also I'm still going to be in the Visitor's Center this transfer. And I'll have a car. So, not much else is changing. All the companionships in the VC are changing a lot though. Everyone is getting a new companion except for one companionship! So it'll be different... but good.

 

This past Saturday Hermana McKee and I had the opportunity to go to the temple with a family in our ward that was getting sealed. She didn't teach them before baptism, but because she was about to go home, and Hermana Leon had asked her to escort her through, we got permission to go. It was such a neat experience. I was a little nervous to be in a Spanish session... but it was actually really cool. And I was quite impressed with how much I understood (but that might be because I am so familiar with it in English!) There is only one session on Saturdays that is in Spanish... so practically our entire ward was there. It was a really neat experience. Also getting to see them get sealed was so awesome. I'd never seen a live sealing before. And it was just so sweet. Can't really even describe it more than that. They are just such an adorable couple.

 

I hope that everyone is doing well! A lot is changing here... change has always been hard for me, but I'm actually doing okay. It was hard to say bye to Hermana McKee, but I'm excited for her to move to the next chapter of her life!

 

I miss you all!

Love,

Hermana Larson

Week #18

Hola,


How was every one's Mother's Day?? Mine was pretty good! Seeing as I got to talk to mom, dad, Julie and Kelli! It was a really good talk.  I was lucky that it wasn't too much of a distraction for me. It was tough hanging up and I may have cried a little bit afterwards, but an hour later I was on shift at the visitors' center and haven't really thought much about it since! Mother's Day in Mexico was on Thursday, then we had a Mother's Day activity on Saturday night, and then yesterday was actually Mother's Day. So it's kind of been like a week long activity! But it's been fun! Our ward activity was really fun. It was a dinner that the Elders Quorum made, and then there was a talent show. There are six of us missionaries in our ward, and we put a little number together for others to laugh at us and enjoy. It was La Bamba... so funny. We had an Elder and my companion that played the guitar, and then the rest of us sang. We put sunglasses on and were just silly. They were loving it. We changed the words a little bit to make it more of a missionary message. Our ward was just dying. We had a lot of fun. 

We have an eighteen yea- old girl that we are teaching that is very interested, but her parents are not convinced that this is something that she should be doing. We were over at their house having a pretty intense lesson and we were talking to her mom, when my companion noticed a scorpion that was crawling on the blinds right behind me. That definitely changed the atmosphere! haha I had never seen a scorpion before and we had fun with them catching it in a jar and then flushing it down the toilet. We got a lot of fun pictures... I don't know if I will have time to today to send any of them, but we will see! 

Every Friday (that we can because sometimes we are on shift at the visitors' center) we go over to Abuelita's for lunch at noon. Her name is Teresa but she calls herself our Abuelita, which is like little grandma. She's from the Dominican Republic and always make really delicious food!  It's usually just the 6 of us that are in our ward (or 4 if one of the sister companionships is on shift), but this past week we had an extra sister with us, and the Elders were working with the zone leaders. So there were nine of us at abuelita's. And she was loving it. These people really don't have a ton of money, but they absolutely love to feed the missionaries! One of our zone leaders had never been to her house before and told us that he really had to go to the bathroom. We told him that she didn't have one and that you have to use the outhouse. He didn't believe us at first but we talked enough that he was finally convinced. So he walked up to her and was like "Abuelita, is it okay if I use the bathroom outside?" We were laughing so hard. She was like "No... don't go to the bathroom in my backyard!!!" He eventually came to think that it was pretty funny too. 

I'm seeing a lot of improvement in my Spanish and am feeling very blessed. I know that God is helping me because there is no way that someone can learn a language as fast as I am, with the kind of exposure I am having. It's not much, but I am doing the best that I can and He is making up the rest. This past week I started making my first calls in Spanish from the visitors' center. A lot of times I don't know what they are saying, but I just pretend the best that I can and it usually works out okay. I am terrified most of the time but people keep telling me that this is the way that I am going to learn it. So I am trying!

I love you all!! And I hope everyone is doing so well. I'm doing great, so don't worry about me :]

Love,
Hermana Larson