Ya soy viejo!
Wow, it's hard to believe I'm already 20... 2 decades old. I think I'm starting to feel it in my joints and back. But that might just be from being a missionary - I'm not sure. This morning was AMAZING though. A super cool family from our ward that has been helping us fellowship invited us over to make a huge birthday breakfast. So Elder Johnson, the zone leaders, and I went over this morning and made waffles, biscuits and gravy, bacon, all kinds of fruit and fruit juice, and finished it off with a strawberry cheesecake. So at the moment we're pretty full and satisfied. It's just cool to be able to have your birthday somewhere so completely different and have people make it a special day for you.
So there hasn't been anything terribly huge and exciting this week - we had a way good zone conference and we're getting all kinds of sun out on our bikes. We're working on finding new people and spreading out a little bit because we do almost all of our work in one tiny little area but as we've been trying to move out more we've been realizing more and more why the work is generally done there - that's where the Mexicans are!
But it was pretty fun, this week I was going on exchanges (we go on one every week) and I was in an English area and we had the craziest, weirdest exchange. It was a good start, because we got to start off by going to the temple that morning - goodness, I LOVE the temple! It was so peaceful and you're just able to take a break from everything else that's going on. You're able to get guidance for yourself and those you're teaching. I honestly felt like it spiritually charged me, and I just wish I could go more often! So that was sweet. We had a super good lesson that afternoon with a lady named Brenda. She had never really progressed, but when we came in we found her reading the Book of Mormon and she had all kinds of questions for us. We answered them and she was just talking about how much she trusted us and could feel something different with us (it's actually interesting - I was there for the last lesson with her when I was on an exchange there) and she 100% opened up and started bawling and talking about her life. It can be interesting sometimes as a missionary to be in these types of situations... But she made a mistake, and literally felt worthless because of it and said she wasn't worth her time. So it was a perfect opportunity to testify about Jesus Christ, His Atonement, and the worth of every soul in the sight of God. For the first time she wanted to go to church, and she wanted to go buy clothes so she would feel better there at church. It was just cool to see the huge turn-around, and see the hope, brightness, and happiness that were coming into her life. The church is so true.
So that lesson was sweet but everything else that happened that day was just weird. People we talked to were on drugs and not making any sense, and I had the craziest lesson of my mission experience. We had a first lesson with this guy (his girlfriend grew up in the church but fell away a long time ago and wants to come back) and he was higher than a kite. Not the easiest people to teach. So he was telling us how he gets pain in his feet, side, and palms (and wrists) every year like stakes and spears are getting driven into him... like he gets crucified i guess? We talked about what Jesus went through for us and said that we can't comprehend it and he said he could because he goes through it every year. Can't say I've come across that before. That, plus his girlfriend says she's fasted for 51 days and died numerous times and has been to the gates of...outer darkness, for lack of a better term. So we did our best to bring the Spirit and got out because it was just hard. That and we had all kinds of fun encounters with grouchy people that remind me why I like my Spanish work and am not the biggest fan of English work. Hey, mission calls are inspired.
But life is good, and things are going well. We had a random exchange with the AP's yesterday and it was our first double dinner we've had in a while - way good lesson with Mayola who made carne asada but hey she came to church so it was worth eating the food. We just laughed because he got to go to that, and then the rest of our lessons canceled so we got to do a lot of biking and talking to people in the streets and trailer parks. Oh good ol' spanish work...so unpredictable but always exciting.
So we've got a lot of families that are just inches from baptisms and we're really working and praying that they will get their answer and have that faith to do it. In the meantime, we've testified and they've felt the spirit, so it's up to them. Work is good, and I'm having an awesome birthday! We're going to play at the park and enjoy the day so hope all's well there! Love y'all!
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