Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Week 41: Flying Flamingos


Hola hola hola!! 

This week has flown, it seems like I just got to Puerto a couple weeks ago but the transfer is ending in a couple weeks so it's just crazy. ANYWAY.

On Monday of this week we got to eat with a family from the Spanish ward and a recent convert to the church, Juan Pablo. The family is from Honduras and makes super good food every time we go, we are going to try to make their corn flour tortillas this week so I'll let you know how that goes. Then we visited Manuel B, we talked about temples and it was really good!

On Tuesday we had district meeting in the morning which of course is always fun, we ate fajitas afterwards and then went to Jerez for intercambios! It was a little weird being on intercambios with a trio, and Hermana Moncayo had to sleep on the couch because there weren't enough beds for everyone haha. At first I was with Hermana Moncayo and Hermana Aguilar, then I went with Hermana Johnson to visit a recently baptized member and her family (they made us arepas, I LOVE AREPAS). Then on Wednesday morning I was with Hermana Malcolm and Hermana Johnson and we went and knocked some doors. Of course we were super tired after it all, but we got back to Puerto and went straight to a cita with Juan Manuel! I met him right when the other hermanas found him, and it's been really cool to see how as he learns, the gospel really is changing his life. After the cita with Juan Manuel we went on a bus to visit a member who's husband is overseas, we had a really good noche de hogar with her and her son and also went to see the ocean which is just a 2 minute walk from her house!
On Thursday we had weekly planning in the morning which pretty much took the whole day, then we had noche de hogar and English class in the evening. Noche de hogar and English class are always pretty crazy but also fun, although I'm not sure that some of the people who come are really learning that much english... we've been working on present tense for like four weeks. 

On Friday we FINALLY got to our pueblo, Rota! We hadn't been since... um... the beginning of February. We never really had anyone to teach there! But we had set a cita with someone who's number we had in our phone, Celeste, and so we finally made it over there! We had an AWESOME cita with Celeste and her 17-year-old daughter Andrea. When we told them about the promise that comes with the Book of Mormon, that if you read it and pray about it, God will let you know it is true, they were really interested and asked for all three of our personal experiences, how we know that it's true. They weren't able to make it to church on Sunday but we already set a return cita with them for next week! We were able to go back to Puerto in the afternoon and visit a family we didn't know very well, which was fun, and they invited us over to eat this week so we're excited. They had the two cutest little boys!

Unrelated explanation of this week's title: Sometimes we see the most random animals in Puerto. Goats, sheep, albino peacocks, horses, and now flamingos are added to the list. We saw them FLYING! I would recommend that you look up what flamingos look like when they fly, because it's pretty entertaining.

Saturday was a busy day of studies, contacting, and then visiting an older member who hadn't been able to come to church for a while because of health problems. She was so excited that we visited her and loved the new Easter video that we shared with her! Actually, we've been sharing the video with a lot of people and all of them have really liked it! On Saturday afternoon we went to eat with Abi and a family from the American branch, and they made waffles and it was wonderful. We watched the video with them too, but it was weird to see it in English. Since it finally wasn't raining on Saturday we were able to play futbol, which was a little chungo because we couldn't get the lights outside the church to turn on so it was kind of dimly-lit-from-the-streetlights futbol. Luckily with the time change it won't get dark until later so the lights won't be a problem for the next few months.

On Sunday we went to five hours of church as per usual, Hermana Malcolm sang a musical number with Hermana Fry in the American branch and then sang a solo in the Spanish ward which was fun. In the afternoon we went with Abi to the house of one of the American families so she could have a new member lesson with them, the couple did a great job teaching about service! They also have the three cutest little kids ever. They could be the cute model family on the box of a blow up swimming pool or something. There was an activity with the branch that night, so we decided to stop in for a few minutes but then ended up being there for a while because a few people brought friends to the activity who we were able to get to know! So that was really good.

Today hermana Malcolm is getting her hair cut, which will be a party. I'm reading in third Nephi right now, which is the book in the Book of Mormon that includes the chapters that Christ visits the ancient Americas. Normally I try to get through the first few chapters of that book as fast as I can, since Christ doesn't come until chapter 11 and obviously that's the best part. But this time I realized why the chapters that talk about the crazy storms and things that happened in the America's when he died are important--I like that first the nephites have to go through a bunch of super difficult things, crazy earthquakes and storms and darkness, before they can experience the blessing of Christ's visit. Even though they knew he was going to visit them and had been given the prophecy about all the destruction and everything, they forgot about it in the moment and were just suffering. In the moment of our trials we don't appreciate them or have the big picture (the wicked people needed to be taken away before Christ could come visit the Americas), but Heavenly Father always does and he is going to give us the best thing in the end. 

I hope you all watch general conference this weekend on lds.org!!! It will be awesome!!

Love, Hermana Walker





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