"This week was kinda crazy."

thanks to jen w, ma, sam, renee, jmag, gee and rachel for the emails! loved the photos of my sobrinos favoritos and of sam´s dance!

this week was kinda crazy.  last monday night i got called to go to güemes again.  the hermana in the other companionship was way sick and could i pack a bag real quick and be ready to leave in un ratito (a little bit) to go for an unspecified amount of time??  SURE THING!  i love guemes.  this time i was working with hna buchanan.  she´s fairly new in the mish--about a month--though she was in north carolina for a month waiting for her visa.  i was in guemes with her from monday late late (i got in just before midnight) to late saturday night.  we had so much fun!!  she has a fun personality and has zero fear of talking to people and is fresh out so she wants to change everyone´s life and has a ton of good ideas and goals.  and her comp has been sick for a while, so she was so grateful to have someone to work with.  she´s been going solo with members for a long time.  SO HARD when you´re still so new.  she´s a champ.  the weather was super crummy the whole time (cold and rainy) and i had a nasty sore throat on monday which turned into bad congestion/cough-of-the-devil, but thank goodness the holy ghost told me to bring my medicine with me, so i was faithful about taking it all week and now i´m on the mend.

had some interesting experiences in guemes.....like.....

had the hardest lesson of my entire life.  it was with luz, a young single mom.  the hnas had recently begun teaching her and she has a ton of potential.  when we stopped by for a lesson with her, her uncle was also there--and he was SOOOOOO drunk.  like, super duper drunk. and he wouldn´t shut up and he wouldn´t leave.  kept talking about how he believed in jesucristo todopoderoso (all powerful) and were we catholics??  we tried to ignore him, but it was way too distracting. plus, luz´s super cute but super active little boys were running around all over the place.  i tried to distract the older one with stickers, but then he kept trying to sneak into my backpack to get more.  we kept the lesson super short--just tried to share a scripture--but she didn´t understand it (or didn´t understand us??) and we made a quick getaway.  aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh.....

had interesting lessons with 12 yr old brenda.  she lives with her grandma and a few other relatives, who are all inactive.  not sure if her parents are members.  she is a little bit of a stinker, (ie: the hnas have been teaching her for a long time, with little progression). she is finally to the point of baptism, but she is still lacking...something.  our first lesson with her was hard.  pretended like she didn´t understand us any time we talked about church stuff (but understood just fine when we talked about anything else). wouldn´t answer our questions.  wouldn´t participate.  it was a little bit manipulative/attention-getting-behavior.  she has a hard family life, so i´m sure this is how she gets attention.  this lesson also went nowhere.  at the end, hna buchanan was inspired and asked her what she liked to do and she said draw.  so for our next lesson, we brought drawing stuff and tried to teach while we were drawing.  she kept changing the subject anytime we talked about church stuff.  and then at the end she gave us all these random presents: a jewelry box, a little journal, a mother´s day wall-hanging.  SO RANDOM.  and then on friday, the zone leader and district leader came to guemes to help out with some lessons and they met with her.  she was totally intimidated and said nothing.  the poor elders were so frustrated. 

working with brenda was interesting for me.  i think the answer with her is to stop pushing and to help her get active in the young womens and then it will be something she wants.  she came to our english class on saturday and was super helpful in setting up for a baptism. so interesting.

we did fun things too.  like, one of the families they are teaching owns a panaderia (and their bread is sooooooooo good!) and we got to help out in the back one afternoon.  totally something that would NEVER happen in the states.  like, we just waltzed in and rinsed our hands off (there was no soap) in their scummy sink (you just can´t think about it too much.  that and the flies that were flying around...) and then i got to brush some facturas with some shiny glaze.  and two kids that they are teaching were in a running competition for their school.  so we went down to the main plaza early in the morning to see them start their race.  and hna buchanan teaches an english class that people actually go to.  and one day, we were looking for the address of a referral, but we couldn´t find it, so we clapped at a house to ask for help and it turns out that the girl that answered "used to be a member of our church".  it was so inspired that we were able to find her.  she was baptized as a teenager a couple years ago, but then had a baby last year, so she stopped going.  the spirit was strong in the lesson, and it was so obvious that heavenly father is aware of her and wants her to come back.

and now i´m back in tres cerritos.  it´s the same old, same old here. the ward had an activity today--tomorrow is labor day and so today is a holiday too.  and it´s tradition to eat locro for this holiday--a random soup-ish dish with corn, zapallo (a squash), random chunks of fatty meat/animal insides, and not sure what else.  so for the ward activity, it was a kind of locro potluck.  we didn´t stay for the eating part.  ah, no thanks.  but i kept myself busy by taking photos of everyone.  hopefully we can print them up and post them on the ward bulletin board to build some enthusiasm for attending ward activities. the bishop told me he was glad i didn´t stay in guemes because i "play the piano so well and what would they do without me?"  so glad they love me for my talent.  :)

the church is true!

hermana magnusson