Hey family!
Another transfers week. I´m writing from my hometown of La Paz! Wow.... we´ve been traveling traveling traveling, but it just makes for a change in the routine. Today me and hermana sherman got to get up bright and early to catch a bus at 4:30am to get to SPS in time to pick up a new Hermana from the airport! She came a day earlier, because most will be coming tomorrow. She is our first missionary from puerto rico! So here we are spending some time in my first area :) I´m super content. As we were walking to the internet cafe I saw a familiar face... C!! When we saw each other we both came running to give each other a hug, both with tears. Oh it just made my whole day! I wasn´t sure I would ever get to see her in person again. She is baptized, going to church, going strong, and told me that she has already started preparing to go on a mission :) This truly is what makes missionary work so worth it :)
It´s been a busy week. On tuesday, we did the whole 4:30am bus thing to come to a leadership council meeting in la paz and then took a detour to a different area to visit one of the sisters who was having some struggles with her health. We got to travel there with some of the other sister training leaders, including my "mother" hermana baltazar! We´ve been in separate parts of the mission ever since my first transfer with her so it was great to be able to rub shoulders with her again. After visiting with the sister we went to catch the bus back to ceiba. It was already pretty late, and the bus station was closed so we bought a bag of lychees, sat on the curb and waited 30 minutes for the next bus to pass by. I´m getting a lot of these sit there and reflect moments... haha I love just looking around and soaking it all in. Here we are in the middle of tropical nowhere, thousands of miles from family, in a culture completely different from our own, and yet somehow this place has become our home.
We did divisions twice this week with the areas closest to us. I worked with Hermana T and then Hermana O. I really love getting to know the other sisters, their areas and their investigators. With Hermana T - I felt like we hiked all day long - her area is FULL of big huge hills in the back country! But I felt right at home :) With Hermana O her area is very residential with huge mansions so it´s a little tougher crowd. We spent the majority of time contacting to get references and find new people. It was a lot of fun! We ended up contacting a lot of the guards that work at the houses and got references for other missionaries in other areas. I used to be so afraid of contacting but now I really enjoy it. Yes, sometimes it makes for some awkward and uncomfortable moments, but that´s why we have companions! We saw a man trying to start his motorcycle and went to talk to him and after a while he said, "let me guess, you are from Utah??" Turns out he was a member.... 2nd counselor in a bishopric, actually. Super funny... haha but he gave us lots of references. We also found this lady that was working on her stove outside and sang her a hymn. Then we found out that she had met with missionaries like 15 years previously and had learned all about the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. She seemed super interested in learning more. I love meeting people like that! Missionaries who planted seeds years and years ago and then coming along later to harvest them. It´s a testimony to me that no work we do is wasted. It all counts!!
This week was a little tough in our own area because EVERYTHING was falling through and we were hardly getting into any houses. We walked and walked and contacted, but the people weren´t interested or were hiding. But sometimes that is just how it is with missionary work. We were okay though, we still tried to keep our spirits up! On saturday it was a little difficult because we were a little tired from doing divisions and my spanglish started popping out.... haha we walked to this house and I asked the guy that came out, "is your mom home?" Then Hermana S turned to me and said, "wait, does he speak english??" hahaha I didn´t even realize that I was speaking in english! Every now and then an english word will come out without me even realizing it!
The church is true! Love this work, love this gospel. We really are so blessed to have the priesthood! I hope you have a great week!!!
Until Next Week,
Hermana Bennett
No comments:
Post a Comment