Here are the highlights from these past 2 weeks:
--We are climbing a bazillion flights of stairs multiple times a day in order to teach our families in the mountains (the people here call them “hills” but for someone from Kansas, they are mountains). It makes the stairs of the RB (at BYU campus) a cakewalk. I thought it would get easier every time, but so far we are not used to it. But, the families are the best. We visited them and have done 2 service projects there, hauling buckets of water, planting trees, building houses, and clearing lots. It is a new establishment and we are trying to get the ward involved with serving and fellowshipping these families. I jokingly asked, “Does this service count for my Eagle project?” My district leader assured that it definitely counted.
--Amador and his wife Rosa Angelica and their 6 kids are the pioneers of this new establishment. We are teaching them and they attended church on Sunday and said they wanted to come back. We went to church during the week and found that the kids have the lead roles in the sketch for the ward talent show. They are more active than the members! There are other families that have attended church, as well.
--Our ward recently called ward missionaries who are the best! They are older women of the Relief Society, and they have more energy than the missionaries to climb the stairs! Their testimonies are strong and they face so many hardships in their own homes, but are so willing to accompany us and share their testimonies.
--We started teaching a woman who let us in, thinking we were Evangelicals. She then told us, “I don’t accept any Mormons or other people of other faiths.” My companion and I tried not to laugh, but we carried on and taught the first lesson. She accepted everything and felt the Spirit. We returned for a visit with our ward missionary who bore a simple and sincere testimony. She was agreeable and wanted to attend church. However, the last time that we arrived, her countenance had changed. She figured out that we were “The Mormons” (probably because we told her in the second visit) and became very disagreeable. I felt sad—more than anything because she represents millions of people who reject the Lord’s message without even listening or trying to understand, or accept what other people say about us without trying to find out for themselves. She rejected the Spirit that she felt and the truth that she received. All we do as missionaries is teach and testify, and invite people to read the Book of Mormon and to pray to God to find out if what we teach comes from Him and if it is true. We direct people to God and He answers the sincere prayer.
--Hna. Nina ends her mission this week, so we are creating a scrapbook of advice for her. We are a unified zone and it makes missionary work a lot of fun.
--On Saturday the zone surprised me by having a birthday party in my honor, complete with a piñata and flour dumped on my head. Later on in the week, my comp, Hna. Avalos, made a flan for E.Ruiz and we sang Happy Birthday (and then the elders cracked eggs on his head…poor guy, but that is the tradition! Luckily I escaped the eggs, although some say that egg makes hair shinier).
--Every day my testimony is growing more and more as I pray, study the scriptures, and serve others. The gospel is the best!
Make it a great week!
Hna. Christensen
