Week Fourteen: A New Companion

Area: Littlerock Spanish Branch
Companion: Hermana Gonzalez

This week has been crazy! I feel like everything has changed in the last couple of days, but I think that I am getting the hang of our new transfer. Everything is different now, but we are still having good experiences and growing a lot.

First of all, I have my new companion. Hermana Gonzalez is originally from Mexico City, but for the last three years on her mission, she lived in California (only about an hour and a half away from our area). With that being said, she speaks perfect Spanish and really good English. That is a good thing for me because she is able to help me with Spanish so much. I feel like I have become a lot better in speaking and understanding in this last week alone. Hopefully, I will be able to speak much better Spanish by the end of this transfer. 

We have been doing well this week going around and getting to know the area better. At the beginning of the week, we talked to a couple of really outspoken Jehovah's Witnesses. The first one only spoke English and he kept wanting us to show us scriptures in the Bible. We kept telling him that we only had scriptures in Spanish, but he wouldn't let up. Eventually, we were able to finish sharing our message and leave. Talking to people like that really makes me reflect on the way that I am teaching people. I don't want to be the kind of person who makes people uncomfortable and is confronting. Hopefully, I am not!

We talked to one really awesome lady this week named Hortencia. We found her while we were going through our area book and decided to try and see her again. She used to be an investigator, but she was always too sick to go to church because she had cancer, so the missionaries dropped her. When we went to see her, she told us that she loved talking to the missionaries and that she really like the messages that we shared. She even had pictures up in her house of the missionaries who had first taught her. We have started to teach her again. The best news is that she only has three more weeks of radiation therapy until she is officially in remission and is hopefully on the upswing. She has a super cool relationship with God and I hope that she will start to come to church. I am super excited to start teaching her again!

Another person who we started teaching this week is named Juan. He actually used to learn from the missionaries before as well, but was always too scared to come to church. Early this week, he called us and asked us to come over and share a message with him. He said that he has felt like he is missing something in his life and that he wants to gain a closer relationship with God. We told him that that was perfect and that we could definitely help with that! He is super cool. Normally, people try to avoid us, they don't ask us to come over and teach them. I have high hopes for him.

Hermana Gonzalez got sick this week. One day, she was feeling really bad, so we had stayed home for a while. We had appointments that night, so I went out with Michelle (one of the young women in our branch) and Hermana Gonzalez stayed with Michelle's mom. It was super intimidating and I felt a little scared to go out and teach a lesson in Spanish without my safety net, but I feel like I was strengthened by the Lord and I was able to receive a lot of help. The lesson went pretty well and we got a return appointment, so I counted the night as a success.

On Saturday, we had dinner at a ward party. The party was for a couple who had gone to the temple that day to get sealed. It was so beautiful and super fun. The family was so happy that they were able to go to the temple and be joined together for all time and eternity. I am so happy that I get to share that message with others during my time on the mission. I hope that I can make many other families happy like that.

This week has been a time of great growth for me spiritually. I feel like I have never been closer to Heavenly Father than right now. I am just so grateful for the opportunity to serve a mission and to be a representative of the Lord. I am becoming so much better and I feel like I am able to help other people become better at the same time. What a blessing!

Thank you so much for all of your support and for all of your prayers. I can definitely feel them and I really appreciate it. I love you all! Sorry that this letter was so lame. We didn't really do much this week. Next week will be better!

Hermana Blau