Week Thirty-Six: Fun Times

Area: Buena Vista Ward

Companion: Hermana Zambrano

This week was super good and we were able to see a ton of miracles in the work. We found a lot of new people to teach and we have been working extra hard.

One day this week, we were walking down the street and we saw an old man in his lawn. We went over to talk to him and he came up to his fence. He put his hands on my hair and started talking to me. I guess that there are a lot of people in Mexico who have hair like mine, so he asked me if I was from Mexico. The entire time he kept his hands on my hair. It was a super strange experience. 

One of the people we met was really interesting. We were walking down one of the streets in our area and we decided to try and knock on the door of one of the former investigators who the elders who used to work in this area taught. We wentp to the door and we knocked on it. We waited for a while, but then a lady opened the door. We asked her if we could teach her and she said yes. While we were teaching her, she looked really out of it and we were wondering if she was on drugs, but she said that we could come back. 

Flash forward to a couple of days ago. We went back for our return appointment and the lady answered the door again. She asked us if we would like to go into her house. We walked in and immediately noticed that something was up. There was absolutely no furniture in the house. Rosario asked us to sit down, so we sat on the fireplace step. We were teaching her across the room and she kept giving us this strange stare and laughing a Joker-laugh. It was super creepy. We asked her if she had had the opportunity to read in the Book of Mormon. She said that she gave her copy to her cousin and then gave us his phone number. Rosario told us that she couldn't come to church because her cousin took away the key to her house.During the rest of the lesson, Hermana Zambrano was really uncomfortable and thought that Rosario was going to knife us. I did not notice her concern, so I made a return appointment. After we left, we called the number that we had for her cousin. The number was right, but he said that he had never gotten a Book of Mormon and he didn't have a cousin named Rosario. When we went back for the return appointment, we asked her what her name was and she said that she was named Elizabeth. She was still laughing really creepily and looking at us strangely, so we decided to give her some time before we go back. Fun times on the fly.

One cool story from the week. On Monday night, we were walking down the street and we saw a little family walking around. We went up to talk to them and we were telling them about how we share messages about how we can come closer to Christ and be happier in our families. We got down their contact information and they told us to come back the next day. When we returned, we sat down and started talking to the parents. We asked them how they were doing. The husband then told us all about his life story and the problems that he has had. Then he told us that he wants for his family to have a deeper knowledge of Jesus Christ and that they have been struggling as a family. They said that they had felt something when we told them that we could help them out in their family life. We taught them and it turned out really good. We are super excited to teach the entire family!

This week was pretty good. We met a lot of cool people who are interested in learning more and we have been having a lot of really good lessons. This week, we had a Zone Training Meeting and President Layton challenged all of us to read through the Book of Mormon in 65 days. It has been a really cool experience reading hard core through it. I really have a testimony that the Book of Mormon in true and that the church of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth. I love being a missionary and being able to share this message with other people as well.

I hope that you all have a good week and that you are able to have fun! I love you all!

Hermana Blau

Week Twenty-Eight: Miracles

Area: La Cresta Spanish Ward
Companion: Hermana Perry

This week was really good. We saw a lot of miracles and we were able to talk to a lot of people. There was a lot of craziness, but by the end of the week, we were able to see the hands of the Lord in many different ways.

After emails on Monday, we went over to have dinner with some members of our ward. They live in the nicer part of our area and their house is pretty fancy, so we felt really cool while we were sitting in there. I asked to use the restroom and it was super nice. There was a really cool vase with flowers sitting on a table in the bathroom by the hand towels. After I had finished washing my hands, I went to dry them. While I was moving towards the towels, I accidentally knocked the vase off of the table and it instantly shattered into a million pieces. I was mortified. When I walked out, the members were really cool about it and they told me that it was not a very expensive vase, but I still have a little heart attack when I think about the sound that the vase made when I knocked it onto the floor!

We had interviews with President Layton on Wednesday. He is super cool and super in tune with the Spirit. While I was talking to him, I asked him for advise on how to find more prepared investigators, so he told us that we should start using our car like a bus. Based on that, we have started parking a couple of streets away from our front plans and then walking, talking to all the people that we see on the way. It has turned out to be a really cool thing for us. We have been able to meet a lot of cool people!

This week, we had an interesting adventure. We decided to go out to a rural part of our area where we had never been before. When we were there, we walked by a house with a gate that was hanging off of its hinges. We are never ones to pass up an opportunity to walk into a creepy yard, so we decided to go in. There was a ton of trash in the yard and there were about a million chickens and cats running around. When we finally got up to the door, it was wide open and creepy piano music was coming from the inside. We knocked on the door frame and I tried to ring the doorbell, but it was covered with spider webs. Nobody came to answer us, so we ended up leaving. It felt like part of a horror movie. When we were talking to the neighbors, they told us that a old lady lives there with about twenty snakes. 

The best part of this week was definitely church. We saw a lot of miracles there! One of our investigators comes to church every week. She was there even though she felt sick because she loves the feeling that she gets when she takes the Sacrament. We were a little late getting to Sunday School because we were getting information from a nonmember friend of a member who lives in our area who wants to start taking lessons from us. When we got to the class, we sat down in some empty seats in the front. When we sat down, we looked over and got a super big surprise. We had been teaching a lady named Dana for a while, but we decided to stop going by because she wasn't going to church or really progressing. When we sat down in Sunday School, she was in the seats next to us. When we asked her why she came to church, she told us that she had moved out of her boyfriend's house into the house of a close friend (who is also a member of our ward). When she was introducing herself to the Relief Society, she said, "Hi, I'm Dana. This is my first time here and I really like it!". It was super cool. We are going back to see her this week!

Things have been going along. I love being a missionary and getting to see all of the miracles that the Lord sends into people's lives. I am positive that he directs this work! Things have really started to groove and the days are flying by! I hope that you all have a good week and that everything goes well. I am keeping you in my prayers!

Hermana Blau