Monday, November 24, 2014

November 24, 2014 Letter


Well right now it´s 10 in the morning, almost 11 actually, and we are prepping up to play some futbol! I am very excited and that will probably become more and more apparent in this email. To start off, as usual, I will answer your questions.

This week has been mostly good! There were a couple really hard days, but for the most part, it´s been good.  Nobody came to church yesterday, so that also added to the slightly frustrating number battle that we´ve been having. But I know that it´s really not about the numbers, it´s about the people, and we have some fantastic people right now. The family is doing so good! Last week we had another lesson with them and the mom is an angel and like, already a missionary. She´s been talking to people about the Gospel! At work, she told everyone about the Chapter in the Book of Mormon that she was reading (Alma 32 about faith) and she actually invited a friend that she had to the lesson! Her friend, Janina, is golden. Absolutely golden. She invited us back to have another lesson separately with her later in the week, and that went really really well. She´s awesome. None of them came to church which was a little bit heartbreaking for both of us, but it´s ok! Back to the drawing board, as they say.

 We had some good lessons on the street this week, as well! We starting talking to this one lady who was sitting on a bench from Hungaria and she was SO RUDE. Before the mission, I hated contention and awkward moments and I still sort of do! But I don´t know what happened, but something just lit up inside me when she started saying these extremely rude things to us- I just had it. I started preaching like I´ve never preached before! I didn´t back away, and I was proud of myself! It was a good moment for me to stand up for who I am and what I believe in and not back down.
Hopefully I can continue to get better at that.

Spanish is surprisingly becoming less and less of an issue. I´m not good yet, but I´m really improving, thanks to the divine help that I have and the fact that I have a very native companion. It´s coming, slowly but surely. Ok, to finish this email up, I will end with a funny story and a spiritual story, good?

Ok so the following story reprises the stupidest thing I did all week. So we were in the piso and I was waiting for Hermana Irigoyen to finish up in the bathroom so that we could leave and go start working. I wasn´t hungry but rather concerned about the lack of food that we had in the house, so I was looking around to see what we had to make sure we didn´t need to go to the grocery store. I opened up the freezer and before that moment, I didn´t realize how cold our freezer truly was. SO COLD. There were icicles and it like, fogged up when I opened it. I just got lost in this moment of fascination with this stupid freezer, and for some reason, I decided to see if my fingers would stick when I touched the inside of the freezer. They did a little bit, and that was so cool to me, for some reason. So, being me, I decided to lick my ring finger on my right hand to see if I could make it stick even more. So I licked it, stuck it to the bottom of the freezer, and it immediately froze. Like, my finger was both frozen and stuck. I was FREAKING OUT and it hurt so bad! I couldn´t get my finger off! So I started yelling, "Hermana... HERMANA!!" and she couldn´t hear me because the fan in our bathroom is so loud and wow I was so scared. So I just grabbed my hand with my other hand and just ripped my finger off of the freezer. Luckily, I didn´t lose any skin, but I still have a blister. Yes. You can get blisters from the cold. So I guess you could say that I still not the most highly intelligent human being on the planet.

Ok, spiritual story to end this sucker. So we were at Zone Conference this week, and I was in charge of playing the piano for two special musical numbers. I got the music for both the day before, so I only had a couple hours at medio dia to practice and I was so, so nervous. The first one was fine, but the second one was harder and there were only two girls singing, which meant everyone could really hear the piano. We performed in the middle of the AP´s talk. The song was "If the Savior Stood Beside Me", and that title was the theme of their talk. They talked about how the Savior is literally with us, we just can´t see Him, and if we follow spiritual promptings and let Him help us, we will feel His presence. I felt the Spirit SO STRONG during their talk, and I really, really didn´t want to ruin that Spirit by making a lot of mistakes on the piano. So I just said a prayer and asked God to help me at least not ruin the Spirit. I was praying and praying, and as I got up to play, I honestly felt someone else take over. I cannot tell you how I hit the notes that I did. It wasn´t perfect, but it was good, and I know it wasn´t me playing. It was really, literally my Savior. I know that. I know that He cares about the BIG things in our lives, but also the little, stupid ones, like playing the piano well. He will magnify our abilites and help us with everything, if we can just turn to Him and let Him help us. He is literally always there, and I felt that in a very real way during that song. It was a good experience for me, one that I don´t think I´ll ever forget.

So, life is good! Missions are amazingly hard and amazingly beautiful. I know that God loves us all and that He can fix things that nobody else can. I love Spain, I love Spanish, and I really just love the people here! I love you all so much, mom! I hope you all had a good week and I can´t wait to hear how this one will go!!

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