Companion: Hermana Zambrano
Howdy y'all! This has been a really good week and we have had a lot of adventures our here in the great Bakersfield mission. We have been spending some time teaching some really cool people and we have had a lot of conferences, so we have been able to receive a lot of inspiration and instruction.
One of the big things that happened
this week is that we have started going to a place called Pumpkin
Center. Our area is on the very southern edge of Bakersfield, so we
cover all of the area surrounding that edge of the city. There are
several little towns in las afueras that we haven't been going to very
much because we have been trying to visit the main parts of the town,
but we decided that it would be worth our time to stop by this week.
Pumpkin Center is about 10 streets in the middle of a bunch of dirt, but
a ton of Spanish speaking people live there. Despite the name, there
isn't a pumpkin to be seen. We were able to talk to a ton of people who
were eating at the taco trucks and hanging out in their yards. It is a
super fun place!
We found an investigator down
there named Francisca. She is a young mother of two and her family is
super cute. The first time we met her, we walked into her yard and
knocked on her door. The second time, the gate was locked. Hermana
Zambrano asked if there was a dog inside and I laughed her to scorn
because we hadn't seen a dog the last time. I walked right into the gate
and made it to the door of the trailer when I heard Hermana Zambrano
say, "Hermana, look out. There is a dog!" I turned around a saw a giant
pit bull out of the corner of my eye. It hadn't seen me yet, so I was
trying to gauge my options between knocking on the door and hoping that
they opened it in time and sneaking around the car to get to the gate
while not letting the dog see me. I chose to walk around the car. The
entire time, Hermana Zambrano was telling me that the dog was walking
around the car and about to see me. Picture the scene in Jurassic Park
when the little kids are running away from the raptors and you would
know about how I felt in that moment. I had almost made it to the gate
when I looked and saw that the dog was right behind me. In the end, it
turned out that the dog was actually super nice and friendly. We walked
back and knocked on the door and I could still feel all the adrenaline.
I was shaky for a couple of minutes after that! jaja
We
didn't have dinner one night this week, so we decided to go and eat at
one of the taco stands that are all around town. We parked outside of
the one that we had chosen, and the lady who ran the stand came out and
stared at us while we were in the car. We were a little concerned about
it, but we walked out and started towards the stand. She called out to
us and asked us if we were missionaries. Then she told us that she was a
member of the church and had recently moved from El Salvador. She
hadn't been able to find the church and she wanted to go back to church.
It was super cool how the Lord put us in her path! Also, she made us
super good pupusas!
We have started teaching a
couple of really cool families recently. We went over to teach one
family and after the lesson, they said that they had some cake for us.
We were super excited! They brought the cake out and cut the pieces for
us. When we asked them what kind of cake it was, we discovered that
coffee was one of the ingredients. After a quick word of wisdom lesson,
we told them that we couldn't eat it. I felt really bad because they had
gotten the cake special for us, but after we told them, the hermana
said that she totally understood and got out some chocolate cereal for
us to eat. It was super funny and we all had a good laugh. They are
super cool!
Things are going well in the work.
We had a member of the seventy (Elder Cook) visit the mission and we had
a really good training with him. The next day, the South Bakersfield
Stake had it's stake conference and Elder Cook stayed to train the
Stake. It was really cool to be able to hear from one of the general
authorities and to receive teachings from him!
That
is about it for this week. We have been having nicer weather down here.
It rained last night for the first time in about six months, so we have
been enjoying the water. I hope that you all have a good week at home!
Hermana Blau
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