Dear Friends and Family,
It has been another eventful week here in Barrio 4. I love my new companion. Hermana Pack is spunky and fun and she has an infectious laugh. So far we are laughing together a lot and that has been good for my soul. This morning when we woke up at 6:30 AM the first thing she said was "I hate my life" (she is not a morning person) and the first thing I did was laugh. Then she laughed. Then we said a prayer.
This week has not been her week though, poor thing. Last Monday afternoon she tripped and sprained her ankle pretty bad. She took ibuprofen and iced it and we stayed inside Tuesday to give her a rest. We went out to work on Wednesday which irritated her ankle quite a bit, so Thursday morning we got permission to go buy her an ankle brace before we went out to work. Literally on our way home from buying the brace we stopped by a member's house to pick up our lunch and Hermana Pack fell down the stairs! It was raining and slippery and it was quite a scare but we think she is okay, no major damage, just sore all over.
In other news on Saturday morning we had a service activity at the church. All the missionaries in my district and members from the two wards and 1 branch that meet in our building came to clean the church. They made us wear those "Mormon Helping Hands" jerseys ("Manos Mormonas que Ayudan") which I thought was funny just because we didn't leave the chapel and were basically only helping ourselves. But I was still excited because it was my first time to put on the famous yellow jersey.
Although I am doing well, it was honestly a little difficult to start another transfer here in Barrio 4. I have been here almost 5 months now and I still have not seen much of what you would count as typical south American missionary success (i.e. not one of our investigators has progressed towards baptism). I love the ward and I even love the area but it is hard not to feel discouraged sometimes. As I have meditated on all of this I was reading through the set of talks by Chieko Okazaki that mom sent me for Christmas and I happened upon one entitled "Raised in Hope." It is a beautiful talk that talks all about the virtue of hope. As I read I decided I'm going to focus on hope more these next couple of weeks. She calls hope a "modest but very tough everyday virtue" she also said, "hope persists, even when experience, reason, and knowledge all say there is no reason to hope. Hope does not calculate odds." I love that line. It touched me deeply. If I were to calculate the odds of having success in my area after 3 transfers of very little success, I would naturally fall into despair. But hope does not calculate odds. Hope is optimistic even when there is every reason to doubt, despair or give in. So, I am continuing optimistic. We are meeting good people and having good experiences every day. Sometimes, often, they are not these huge life-changing Chicken Soup for the Soul or ensign-worthy experiences. But there is Marcela cooking lunch for us and spreading out her little fold-up wooden table in their cramped one room apartment and eating lunch together sitting on the edge of the bed. And there is Juliana trying SO HARD to sing along to Abide With Me Tis Evetide. And there are facturas (delicious pastries) in the corner store. And there is Ezekiel actually showing up at the chapel for a lesson. I am counting my blessings.
Until next week,
Hermana Parker
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