Brisas - Week 33

Me and My Companion (Hermana Pitcher)

¡Bueno!

Hermana Pitcher and I definitely had an unforgettable Christmas! The whole week we were laughing because Christmas Eve and Christmas day we had VARIOUS meal appointments.  We both thought we would be able to handle it, but I really suffered, haha. Christmas Eve we made pancakes and had a normal morning contacting people. We were pretty hungry when we got to the food, but when we got there, they said they had a surprise for us. Some of their friends went out of town and left their house keys, so we went with them to the friend's house. The house was REALLY pretty, so while the mom cooked, we went and explored the house with the daughter. After about an hour of being there, the mom fed us a little to hold us off until the "real" dinner was ready. We hadn't planned for that though, so we had to leave to go to another appointment at 5pm, and then told them we'd come back. At the next house, we visited Henry and Susi (investigators) and ate dinner with them. They made a broth with chicken, lettuce, corn chips, avocado, and lime (very typical). We only stayed there about an hour, then had to go back with the family we had been with before. We couldn't stay that long with them again because we had ANOTHER food appt at 8pm. I felt bad because I think they had thought we'd just be able to be with them all day. At 8pm we ate with another investigator family who is really awesome. It was a struggle eating that last dinner, but we both managed to eat everything and not let it show, haha. :)

Christmas day we got a surprise from the Zone Leaders and a member who inspected the house and asked about repairs that we needed.  After they left, we went with an investigator (Alma) who has a son on a mission and had "breakfast." I guess breakfast food here isn't really a thing because we ate dinner leftovers, haha. That was at like 10:30am and at 12pm a member family came and picked us up to have lunch with them at their house. If their food hadn't been so good, I'm not sure I could have done it, but it was delicious! After, we watched the video with them "He is the gift." Everytime we watch that video with someone the spirit really hits the people watching it...and I love it! Once we finished up there, the wife took us across the street to her husbands family because they were they ones who were going to lend us their computers for the Christmas Skype call. Hermana Pitcher decided she wanted to test it before, so she did a test call to her family, but right as they answered I think she regretted her decision. Haha her dad answered and was like "Hija bonita!" and all the members of this family who's house we were at were laughing. I don't think her family knew a bunch of people were right there so they started freaking out all excited and asking questions and Hermana Pitcher was super embarrassed. Once she hung up, one of the members was helping me set mine up and I didn't want to call yet, but he hit call anyway! Haha it was a little awkward because everyone was watching at first, but I'm glad I did because I got to see Drake for a minute! After that, they took us home to drop off MORE food that a different family had dropped off for us and to leave the computers at our house until 6pm. We didn't have much time when we got to the house, so we hung out at the house for a minute, and around 5:30 went to the other member's house to Skype. It was definitely a fun couple days, but I think it threw us out of our missionary groove a little!

The rest of the week we did our normal missionary stuff. On Friday we went as a zone to a tianjis, which is like a flea market,  pretty much. They´re pretty big here and they're kinda fun. We sang as a zone, then after contacted those that we could.

That same day we went and saw our recent convert, Jose, and to our surprise, he wasn't doing too good. I think he was a little hurt  we hadn't come by the two days before because he got really critical of us and told us a bunch of doubts had come into his mind. He said he felt confused now because he felt like he was still catholic in a way and he told us our time should be used to look for people who don't know anything about God. He said he felt like we didn't seem real because we don't share that much about our personal lives and he feels like we're always disappointed with him because he feels like he can't ever be how we are. We had a long lesson and apologized because we don't always do things perfectly and reviewed the restoration with him, because I think he had been forgetting. The lesson ended pretty good, and he apologized too for being critical. On Sunday he came and brought his mom even, so that's a good sign!

Other than those things, nothing else was too out of the ordinary. Starting in January, church starts at 8am, so that will be fun getting all our investigators there so early! Haha. I think our next baptism will be the 10th of January. We just need to get Henry's family to church one more time, and I think they'll be ready! Then the week after, we'll have another baptism for Leticia. She's been an investigator for a while, but has just been waiting to have her divorce finalized so she can marry the guy she's living with, who's a member. Hopefully we'll be starting off the new year good with a few baptisms!

¡Hasta Luego! Hermana Harper

Fancy House - Taking a Swim!!!

The Fancy House!

Christmas Food!

Christmas Food!

Christmas Socks!!!