Week Sixteen: Do you have to bang on the door like that?

A drawing that one of the primary girls from my branch made. I think she captured me pretty well.

Area: Littlerock Spanish Branch

Companion: Hermana Gonzalez

This week has been really short, but all of the individual days have been super long. I guess that that is one of the strange things about missionary service. The time is always flying past. I realized that next week, I will have been out on my mission for four months. Things are crazy!

I think that one of the reasons that the days have been so long this week is because we have been spending a lot of time walking. Because our area is so big, we go through the miles that we are given each month very quickly. It doesn't help that we have had to go to Lancaster (a city about 25 minutes away) three or four times this month. As a result of that, we have been driving to the areas where we are working and spending as much time as possible in each area when we don't have any set appointments. It is super interesting because we get to meet a lot of interesting people and knock on a lot of doors. The other day, Hermana Gonzalez looked at me and said, "You make me exercise more than any other companion that I have ever had!" The month ends this week, so hopefully we won't go over our mile limit too far. After that, we can go back to driving from house to house.

The other day, we parked our car and started walking around. We had been walking for about two hours when it was time to go home for the night. At that point, we realized that we had no idea how to get back to our car. We knew which street we had parked on, but we had no idea how to get to that street. We started walking, but we just got more and more hopelessly confused. We decided to try and ask someone for directions, but it was getting dark and everyone was inside their houses. We finally found a little boy who was out riding his bike. He told us to make a couple of turns and then we would find the road. When we got to where he said that the road would be, it wasn't there. Then the little boy rode up on his bike and said that he was mistaken and that the actually road where we had parked was really far away. Eventually, we were able to find our car and make it home.

I have recently become a little self-conscious about my door knocking. I guess that I knock a little to loud for the tastes of some people. A couple of the people who answered the doors to us recently have told us that it sounded like the police were coming to arrest them. The other day, a lady came out and said, "Do you have to bang on the door like that?" I guess that people don't appreciate that I want to give them every opportunity possible to accept the message of the restored gospel!

We have met a couple of really cool people this week. We met one lady who was cleaning her garage when we passed by. We asked if she needed any help (because we always ask everyone that). Normally, people say that they are fine, but she said that she would really appreciate it. It was super cool, because we were able to teach her a lesson and talk to her a little more than the people who we normally meet. She had some really good questions and seemed like she was really interested in learning more. We are going back to help her some more on Wednesday, so hopefully, we will be able to have success through service!

This week, we have continued teaching lessons to Jenny and her family. We got up to the lesson about the ten commandments. When we started teaching, I realized that I don't really have any idea what the order of the ten commandments are. When we started introducing them, I had no idea which commandment came next. Luckily, Hermana Gonzalez knows them a little better than I do. The lesson went really well and I think that Jenny really wanted to work on following all of the commandments. 

We have been doing well here. The work continues to move onward. I have really been noticing lately that the Lord puts us in the path of people who are prepared to listen to our message. I am so glad that I am able to be a missionary and to share the message of the gospel with all people in this area of the world.

Thank you for all of your prayers and for the thoughts that you are sending my way. I love to think that I have so much support. I love you all!

Hermana Blau