Brisas - Week 7

¡Hola!

We just had our first week after transfers! I think I forgot to write about transfers last week, because nothing changed. I'm staying with my baby though haha:) Last Monday we all got to be together when transfers happened (because it was our stake MTC night), so we got the news face-to-face, instead of a phone call late at night. That was the first time that ever happened, so that was pretty cool.

This week was good and bad. I feel like most weeks are like that though. The mission president changed the sister training leaders thing, so now we only have 2 for the entire mission. The sister training leaders have to spend 24 hours with every companionship, every transfer, so they'll be crazy busy. We had Hermana Torales with us (my grandma:)) so we got to learn from her a lot Saturday. It was really helpful because she opened Brisas. There were a couple people in our area book she was able to pull out that might be promising to teach. One thing the president is pushing is for us to teach the atonement really well with investigators. Hermana Torales was showing us how we can do it better, but its hard!

There is so much about the church that took so long for ME to really understand, or that I'm still understanding and to teach people here with their Catholic backgrounds, you'd think would be easier, but it´s really not. Too many people here are content where they're at and its frustrating. One of our biggest problems right now, like most missionaries, is finding people to teach. You'd think because we're doing what we're supposed to, we're trying to follow the spirit, we'd magically find all these ready people, but no. Its so true that only a few out of dozens that you contact will be very hopeful. Right now I'm just trying to not get too discouraged!

On Friday night we had an especially tough night. We went to an appointment of this super nice lady, and AGAIN, said she couldn't because something came up. We went to our back up, who we've had one lesson with before, and I wasn't too excited because the time before she said she was just listening to us because her brother said she should. She's around 50 and kind of a grumpy person. She never married and her mom was her world, until she died like a year ago or so. We figured we had her "needs" figured out, so this lesson would be better, but it really wasn't. At least on my part I guess :/ When we were there we tried to get her to pray, and she absolutely refused to with us because she said she "didn't feel 100%."  Since she refused to pray, I decided to turn the lesson into a "we should always pray" lesson, but before I wanted to ask a couple questions to make sure that was really the direction we should go instead of our plan. My companion always tells me I don't leave enough pauses, so I purposely left more pauses for my companion to be more involved, but it came across to the investigator that I didn't know my scriptures or what to share and she totally let me know it. I can't remember now everything she said, but she was super rude. I explained that we wanted to share something that would specifically benefit her, and since she was impatient, I just went ahead and shared what I had been thinking. We read in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 32:8 - 9) where it says to always pray and when you feel like not praying, its the evil spirit telling you not to. My companion read it (this investigator also refuses to read with us) and explained it, then looked to me, so I asked her if she believed what the scripture is saying is true. I figured she'd be like, yes- now I understand that its not good to not want to pray. But nooo, haha. She went off at me AGAIN how it was a stupid question and that's why she hates having people like us visit her, and duh if its in the scriptures its true. She also said all kinds of stuff to me how I don't have confidence in what I teach if I ask questions like that and all sorts of nice stuff. I've never, ever had a lesson like that where I've just gotten attacked for everything. It made me mad that because SHE was the one who refused to pray, and if she really believed what it said, she should want to change.  My companion told me after that she probably just doesn't like Americans or something because everything my companion said was angelic.  I was the only one she had a problem with.

 

We had that lesson, and then right after, a lesson with a less active family. I think I have written about them before, but basically everyone had a problem with the law of chastity. I won't go into details about everyone, but its just sad because their family always has so much contention. We went and taught them the law of chastity finally and the seriousness of it, but when we gave the commitment, the mom refused. The mom wants to obey it because she 100% knows its true, but doesn't want to stop her relationship. Her daughter was there too, who's barely starting to get into that stuff, and the mom was criticizing her the whole lesson, yet the mom admitted that she's not willing to change what she's criticizing her daughter for.

To end that night, we got home late, so my companion got grumpy like she always does when she's tired, haha. It was just tough. When my district leader called that night though, I told him it had been a discouraging day and he reminded me how things we do now will have an eternal effect. I started thinking about my converts from my other area and how they'll forever be my converts and that's a pretty cool thing. It really made me want to work hard here and activate all these less actives that are falling away and baptize.

Maybe right now things seem hopeless, but I'm just really hoping all our efforts will somehow help these people!

Love to you all,

Hermana Harper

Brisas - Week 6

Hola!

So this week was a little different that usual! Our proselyting time got cut short because we had two huge meetings this week, plus Friday we went to the temple! One of the meetings we had was Saturday, Ward Conference, and on Sunday we had a Ward Missionary "MTC." I'm not sure how big the ward missionaries are in other missions or wards, but our stake is really pushing missionary work through Ward Missionaries here. Earlier this week they got their official "calling" and all have little name tags like the real missionaries do. We trained them on teaching lessons in the MTC night, so that was fun. The Ward Missionaries are the ward members who usually come out with us and add to the lesson by bearing testimony, or teaching a principle. It’s good because a couple of the members that come out with us are future missionaries, so they get to watch how we teach and practice and all that.

Super Cute Couple we are teaching!!!

On Friday, the Missionaries were at the temple for the first time in a while! With the other mission president, I don't think Missionaries ever went to the temple, except for their last week in the mission,  with the President. The rule for Friday was if we wanted to go to the temple, we had to bring recent converts and help them get the names of their family to do. We originally thought we wouldn't get to go, because the only recent converts in our area are a couple with 2 little kids. Thursday night they told us they worked out their schedules so that they could go, so we had to scramble Friday to help them with their names and figure out rides and everything. That day we had to cancel all of our appointments to be able to get everything done, that was kinda sad, but going to the temple was super fun!

We got there at 6pm and the missionaries had to wait until it slowed down to be able to go through, because the temple isn't very big...we ended up waiting outside until 9pm! That's technically when the temple closes, but they stayed open another 2 hours to let the missionaries do baptisms too. That day in the temple was CRAZY. I've never seen them go through baptisms so fast. Since there weren't enough rooms to do confirmations, the had to do a bunch in the hallways and wherever they could find room. With clothing too, they barely had enough...like they were handing it out as they came out of the dryer. Crazy, crazy day for everyone at the temple.

Hermanas at the Temple!

Other random things from this week that I wanted to share: The tooth fairy here is a mouse. Haha like the Easter bunny, but the tooth mouse. Another thing. We were talking about jobs the other day and all the little jobs in the USA,  that would be a regular minimum wage job, like working at the movie theater, or burger king, those kind of jobs here only pay like a dollar or less an hour! I knew people made less money here, but when you think of it like that, dang! Another random thing is that I saw fireflies for the first time. Maybe they exist in Utah and I’ve just never seen them or knew what they were, but my companion pointed some out the other night and I thought that was kinda cool! I couldn't take a picture because they flash super fast and are really tiny, otherwise I would have!

Well, that's all I have time for this week! Hope everyone has an awesome week this week, Love you all :)

Hermana Harper

Brisas - Week 5

¡Buenas Tardes!

So this week, again, was a little bit of a bummer. We surprisingly had a lot of lessons with a lot of new people, but it's SO hard for people to accept the restoration. Most people think we're nuts to believe Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon is everything we say it is.

Iguana just roaming around Brisas

Sometimes its just hard to get people excited about going to church or reading their scriptures. Haha, it's funny because I totally understand that it can be boring, but I also see things with my missionary perspective too. You just gotta make time for God and make his commandments a priority and life really is just happier. More wholesome. It's frustrating to see how much effect the world has on so many people. Including us sometimes! Life is FULL of distractions and it's so easy to put off things that God has asked because something in the world is more fun for the moment.

Something different about this week is that we had exchanges with the sister training leaders. I stayed in my area with one and my companion went to another area with another sister training leader.  My companion that day was Sister Nuñez. It was so fun watching her teach and being able to learn from someone, instead of having to be the missionary who's supposed to know what's going on all the time. I loved it because Sister Nuñez really has a way of bringing the spirit. We had one lesson with a brand new person that were able to have set a baptism date, so that was really cool!

Birthday Party for a Ward Member

Other random things...My companion and I are slowly getting along better.  Last Monday we made a whole bunch of bolis, which are a big thing here.  Bascially, it’s just a bag of frozen fruit, like a popsicle pretty much. We bought mangos and mamey and blended them with milk and sugar and poured them in these special bags, and yeah. That's all you do to make them.

Making Bolis (Fruit Popsicles)

Bolis - Ready to Freeze!

How we got our mameys is kind of a funny story. One day we were out walking and saw a tree with a whole bunch of super ripe mameys and decided to ask the owner if they would let us have one. When we knocked (more like "yelled" haha), we discovered that it was an old couple that lived there who couldn't get their mameys down themselves.  So, we offered to get a bunch down for them and they gave us 5! We had a member with us, so of course we made him climb the roof, and we caught the mameys he threw down. Haha, one of the many mini adventures we have here in Merida.

Mamey's

Well, I can't think of anything else to report back on, so I'll leave it at that!

Hasta Luego, Hna Harper

Internet Cafe where we write our emails on P-day!

Typical Foods We Eat

Papazules

 

 

Brisas - Week 4

Hello!

This week was a pretty normal week. We have a baptism date with a cute old couple that I'm excited for. We have to teach them SUPER slow, but I think they mostly understand the restoration. I don't know what it is about them, but from that first lesson, I totally fell in love with them. You know how sometimes old people are super funny, but because they're old, not because they have a funny sense of humor? Haha, That's totally them. We were talking about the life of Jesus Christ with them this week and to start I asked the wife what she knew about what Christ did while he was here on the earth and she told me. "He walked and walked and walked!" I laughed so hard because usually people say, "healed the sick" or "taught about God," but hey, her answer was right! Haha:)

So our mission goal that they've really been pushing is to have a baptism EVERY week. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with that because the investigators we have right now aren't progressing, but I keep hearing over and over how missionaries are setting that as a serious goal and achieving it. We had a muli-zone conference this morning and they were saying how as missionaries its our DUTY, not just a goal, to be baptizing so often. They said it requires a lot of faith and a lot of work, but it's possible.

That's one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, how we can use our time efficiently to have enough lessons, meet with enough people, to really do it. I really hope in the next few letters I'll be writing about all the miracles of baptism dates we have. Right now we are definitely lacking!

One thing that has been working for us this week is focusing on less actives. We have tonsss! I think I wrote last week about how dramatic our ward is. Half of the ward has tons of active members in it and it's where the previous missionaries focused, and the other half (where we are) is where all the less actives are because a lot of them just felt left out I guess.

The family we found last week wasn't able to come to church this Sunday because the mom got sick, which made me sad. I'm crossing my fingers for next week though! We got the old bishop to accompany us to our visit with them and it really got the family excited to go back to church, I think :).  We met the son yesterday when we were at their house and he used to be the ward secretary, so he knows tons of the members on our side that no one knows. We got super lucky finding him on Sunday!

Working with all the less actives really is pushing me as a missionary. Besides training and always having to be the one to answer because my companion doesn't know what to say, less actives problems are so hard to help them with! We have one mom of 3 kids who's daughter got pregnant, so consequently they have hard feelings there. In addition to that, they're super tight on money annnnd the mom has this lover that's always over. Its sad because the lover has another family that doesn't know.  We are actually going to teach him because he's genuinely interested.

We have another less active family that stopped going to church because they don't see the need. They grew up in the church, but I don't think they ever had testimonies. Those ones are hard because they say they're content, but they don't realize that's 100%  Satan who's trying to keep them away from the incredible gifts that God's just waiting to give them.

Another less active we ran into is divorced and told us that he thinks he doesn't need the scriptures or to go to church or anything because all that is important is love and service.  He said he doesn't believe in Satan, just God.  He's going to be a tough one ...We'll see.

Everything so far is pretty good. My companionship is still tough, but it's like a lot of relationships I've had, I'm realizing. There are bad moments and good ones. I'm just learning to be patient and to leave my companion alone when she's tired or late at night, haha. People always say having companions in the mission is the best way to prepare for marriage, which worries me sometimes! At least you choose who you marry though, right?

Ok well, gotta go. Bye!
Love Hermana Harper

Brisas - Week 3

Familia y amigos -

First of all, I can't believe it's June already! Right now it's starting to get into the rainy season. Three days this week it rained! People here are super hilarious about the rain. The yucatecos all have this fear that if you're outside when it rains, you WILL get sick. For the most part people will just stay in their houses and only leave if they have some kind of emergency. I always laugh because we're alllllways outside and haven't gotten sick yet!

Rainy Season

Other things this week...this week was a little tough honestly. I'm getting a little frustrated because we're trying to talk to people in the streets and if they don't have time right then, we set up a time to come back and teach them. A lot of times they aren't there when we show up. We end up losing a lot of time because our back up people aren't usually the most promising either. Sunday was especially frustrating because all three of the people that we had scheduled weren't home. After the third person, we decided to check with the neighbor to see if she knew when she'd be back, and took the opportunity to introduce ourselves and everything, but she wasn't interested.

I don't know if I just had a girl/hormone moment on Sunday or what, but when we walked away from that neighbor I just wanted to cry! We talk to SO many super awesome people who believe in Christ, go to their little groups, church, and everything, but don't realize that what we have is what they need. They always say stuff like "well it’s the same God," so I'm good. And we usually bring up prophets and the book of Mormon, but it really turns a lot of people off. I just wish I could know what to say and how to say it better so people could get it...because so many of them are such good people. The only problem is they're totally deceived that what they have is correct.

As we walked away I was venting to my companion about this and what we should do differently and she said, "I think you need a prayer." And I was like, "Yes. I think I do." So we turned the corner to look for a place a little more private and as we were trying to decide who should say it, my companion looked across the street and read the house plaque that read "Familia Donde Guiterrez." We'd been looking and looking for their family the last couple days but the directions were wrong, so we ran over to see if they were the less active family we'd been searching for. Thankfully they were and let us in. 

Touristy Shops

The family consists of the parents, daughter who lives there with their baby and husband, other son and adopted son. The adopted son's dad also lives there and his wife died a while ago, but died a faithful member. The family was super warm and friendly and told us how much they love the missionaries and that they stopped going when the bishop got released, but want to start going again. We also got three new investigators from them because the daughter's husband isn't a member and the adopted son and dad aren't members. It turned out to be a super awesome lesson.

I think I had a bad taste in my mouth from visiting less actives in my other area because all of them had been offended or something like that and knew they should go back, but just wouldn't. My other area was so easy to find people too. Another thing I realized is that a bunch of the less actives in our area (and there are tons of them) stopped going to church for the same reason as this family, a new bishop. I have a lot of hope for them though. The current bishop for some reason has neglected our half of the ward.  I think having two missionaries completely focused on our side will help the ward a lot.


Another happy thing this week is that we found a new investigator through the prayer of my companion. Last week she told me she said a specific prayer to find a boy who was wearing a light blue shirt who would listen to us. That same day  (I didn't know about her prayer at that point) we were walking down the street and all the sudden she grabbed me and was like, "we have to talk to him." He was right in the path we were walking, sitting on a rock, texting on his phone, so I was like "sure!" Sure enough, he said we could come back, so this last Thursday was the return appt and the lesson went perfectly. He told us he believed everything we said was true and accepted a baptism date and everything!

It was cool to see when we're specific with our prayers, we get specific answers. I told her we should start doing that every day to find more people who are prepared to hear the gospel, so we're going to start doing that.

Well, I hope everyone enjoys the break from school and the start of summer!
¡Hasta luego!
Hermana Harper

Buildings Downtown Brisas

Downtown Centro