I hate to have to send one of these emails, but here it goes:
I just wrote a wonderful, beautiful, eloquent, spiritual email full of interesting details and then BAM the power went out in the whole internet cafe. I was writing in a word document because the email window was being glitchy so I lost it all.
I am including an excerpt from Hermana Hobbs email because hers automatically saved on myldsmail.net and that way you can know some of the things we have been up to. We´ll just think of it as having a guest-poster on my blog this week! :)
Here you go:
I decided to get more serious about this language learning business. One night I was talking to my district leader (he calls every night to ask us about our lessons and investigators), and Elder Garret told me what he did, so we copied his genius idea.
We made a language contract, and it says,
"We hereby declare that the days of Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday shall be dedicated to the speaking of the castellaño tongue. Any who dare to violate this contract by polluting our ears with the foul sound of the english language shall be punished with three lashings to the back, and one minute off of their weekly epistle to their beloved for every paragraph spoken."
Needless to say, my email this week is only 55minutes....Starting tomorrow we are modifying the contract to be every day except Monday (our preparation day and day of rest!!). I will learn this language if it kills me!
I had an experience this week, that I didn’t love, but I learned from. Let me start off with saying that I am gawked at, yelled at (good and bad things), chased by dogs, laughed at for my terrible Spanish on a daily basis. I am used to it. I can handle it, but this one day was a little different. We were invited to sit down with these girls and we were teaching them lesson one about Joseph Smith. They were being pretty rude and giggling and just completely uninterested. I wanted to go right away, because it was pretty clear that they did NOT care about what we had to say. I was dreading talking, and I figured that maybe sis. parker would just teach the whole thing because it was not a wonderful teaching environment...and then she turned to me. I start talking and the girls could not contain themselves, just laughing a ton, one of the girls had to leave because she was laughing so hard. ugghhh....it was painful. I am used to being laughed at for my terrible accent and language skills, but in a nice friendly way...they weren’t being friendly. In that moment I remembered the Apostolic Blessing from elder Cristofferson. He said that every trial, heartache, rejection, door slammed in your face will be swallowed up in the joy of Christ by coming to truly know Him and by truly becoming His disciple. I knew that everything would be ok. For a second, on a very small level, i felt like a got a glimpse more of what the savior went through in His mortal life. Being laughed at and ridiculed. Anyways this other girl comes over and starts asking these really antagonistic questions, and is just really rude....there is no way we will get anywhere with their attitudes. And then they started asking us about where we are from, what we do here, if we can have boyfriends in our church, and if we can date here, do we like it, do we miss our family...this was my chance. Sis Parker told them that yes, our church allows you to date, but we don’t date while we are on missions, and then I said that "we left our families, we left boys we were dating, we left jobs (my little boy!!), we left our lives for 18 months because I know that our message can change your life if you let it. We gave up everything to share with you this message because it has blessed our lives so much, and we want you to have the same joy that we do." In that moment it really felt like everything changed. The girls were nice and calm, and one of them said that anytime we want to come and teach we are welcome. I know it was the spirit carrying the message to these girls hearts, because nothing else could have. And really the apostolic blessing was fulfilled...my little bad experience was swallowed up in the Joy of Christ!
Mom, you asked how people say my name. They say every name but Hobbs..They cannot say the letter "h". That much I figured, but I didn’t know that they couldn’t say the "b" either. They say "ops". Almost like "hops", but with no H. They also say "ohps".
We taught one of our investigators, Karina, the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy. She said she would try it...she was testing God to see if she really would be blessed like we said she would. I told her a story of Yvette (love you Yvette!) in nursing school ,and for our very last test in nursing school how Yvette didn’t study that Sunday. I had told Yvette that she would feel so much better and refreshed and that the Lord promises to bless us when we keep his day holy. In nursing school it is sooo hard to not study on Sunday. But Yvette didn’t study that Sunday and she told me how great she felt taking a day of rest...and then of course she rocked that test (God helped)! So Karina said she would try just like Yvette and see how she felt. Karina loved it! She felt so great. Her kids loved it because usually she makes them clean on Sunday. She said that someone had owed her money for years, and they just happened to pay her this week out of the blue, and she knows its because she kept the Lords day holy. Isn’t it kind of funny that the Lord gives us a commandment to rest--and we fight Him over it!!! Shouldn’t we love to take a break? There is this scripture that i found in Isaiah..and of course I don’t have the reference, but it says that when we keep the lords day holy he causes us to "walk upon the high places of the earth"...that’s beautiful. It shows that he helps us to live happier, better lives by keeping his day holy.
We had an investigator, Martin, and we had to drop him. Its sad when you drop your most promising investigator. He would come to church every week, he was always there when we went to teach him. I bet all of the Returned missionaries are yelling, NOOO! Well, we realized that he was in love with my companion (Editorial Note: This is Brooke. I wouldn´t say he was in love IN LOVE with me. But he might have a had a small...crush...and we slowly gathered that he didn´t have one hundred percent pure interest in the message necessarily...), and he would keep every commitment that allowed him to see her (like church and appointments), but he wouldn’t keep other commitments like reading and praying because he wouldn’t see her by doing those things. He just wasn’t progressing. we went over there to tell him that we need to not see him anymore. Sis. Parker said she was going to tell him, but as soon as we got there she gave me the "help me" look. I am very familiar with that look because I give it to her at least 26 times every day. For the first time I got to bail my companion out!!! It was a great moment. Dont judge...but it felt like a break-up. Because he was saying no, no. I told him that we liked to teach him, but it just wasn’t going anywhere, etc, etc. It was really sad. As missionaries we have a very specific purpose..invite others to come unto Christ through baptism....and if it is never going there, then we really need to move on and go to the people that are ready to make covenants with God, because there are people out there that are eagerly looking for the gospel/answers to life questions.
Con AMOR!!
Hna Ops, or Ooops, or Ohbps. or Hobbs ;)
Hermana Parker again. Here is one detail from my lost email:
I was electrocuted for the first time this week! It was weird. But I am fine. Plus, Hermana Hobbs is a nurse and she studied electrocution in nursing school and she said as long as I don´t have blood in my urine or kidney pain then I should be good to go. I am just trying to scare you. It was just for a moment but it was intense.
Here are a couple pictures to make up for the lost email.
Love,
Hermana Brooke Parker
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