Tres Cerritos

many thanks to carrie, betsy, gee, sam, ma, jmag, rachel and sis. patino for your emails this week! loved them all. loved all the photos. i have a few to send myself, but haven´t had a computer that can download them for a while....grr...... congrats to gee! loved the photos of your graduation.

trivia answer for two weeks ago: chip flavors that you´ll never see in the states: ketchup, pizza, and roast beef (just to name a few). i have tried the roast beef (but only because someone else bought them. so so so so weird.)

i´m back in tres cerritos. i came back on friday. was a little sad to leave guemes...i really really really liked the area. some funny stories that happened that i forgot to write last week: we were teaching a lady in her front room (which is really the "everything room") with the front door open. we were in the middle of a great lesson when two guys clap her door. they were testigos de jehova (JWs), which look very similar to us missionaries because they dress in ties/skirts/etc. anyway, the lady looks at us and asks, "are they from YOUR church??" uh, no...it was only mildly awkward, and very funny because no one wanted to tell them to go away. so i turn around so they have full view of my name tag and politely tell them that we´re busy teaching them right now and too busy to come to the door. when they passed by the open window, we saw they were laughing too.

sunday, easter, we were busy busy busy trying to shepherd people to church. we went to pick up rosa, a 12 yr old girl with an upcoming baptism date. no one answered our clapping, so hna villena marched up and peaked in the house (no door, just a sheet hanging in the doorway). the mom´s boyfriend was sleeping on the floor, but woke up and told hna villena that she could come in a get rosa, she was just sleeping in the next room. hna villena walked over and pulled the blanket off the first sleeping body she found...only to discover that it wasn´t rosa, but the teenaged son of the boyfriend. oops! after apologizing, she invited him to church with us. he declined. we found rosa, helped her get ready and left. funny.

friday we had a zone conference. president levrino talked a lot about diligence and consecation--how many people are honorable missionaries and do many good things, but are satisfied with just doing what is expected and not doing more. the difference between being honorable and diligent is in not committing sins of omission and really consecrating all your time and efforts. everything he taught was really really good and i learned a lot. we also did a lot of practicing--figuring out the needs of the individual and then teaching that the book of mormon can help them in their life--all in a short lesson. president first called up a companionship to pracice on another elder in front of the whole group. easy. then, after some good feedback, called up another companionship to do another practice, but said this one would be more "real". he gave them 10 minutes to go out to the street, make a contact, and convince the person to come back with them into the church to receive a lesson. whoa. in 7 minutes, the elders came back with an older man, who it turns out, liked to talk a lot. like pres said, it was definately more real!! the elders had only 10 mintues to teach the man about the book of mormon, but it was going long with no real progress so pres stepped in and helped them. it was good to see him in action. he´s a good teacher and the man left with a book of mormon, having committed to read it, and his address with the elders to follow up. later, pres levrino talked about this exercise with other zones. one companionship found a married couple that was passing by the church. JUST before the elders contacted them, the wife commented to her husband that she sure would like to know more about the church that met in that building, but had been told that only people with blonde hair and blue eyes could enter. and then up walked elder salazar (from guatemala!) and invited them in to learn more. inspired, eh? after our zone conference, as we were leaving, it was neat to see all the missionaries making contacts with people in the sidewalks and bus stops. we talked to our taxi driver, who turns out has a member ex-girlfriend and had lots of questions. too bad he doesn´t live in our area, but we passed his info to the missionaries in his neighborhood.

friday night i returned back to tres cerritos. it´s a little tricky in a trio, tyring to make sure that no one feels like the third wheel on a double date. the dynamics are definitely different. the area is definitely different too--no real progressing investigators, a small ward (because everyone gets offended by the bishop), not many recent converts, and a whole lot of innactives that have NO interest in returning (because they were offended by the bishop). but, i feel like there is a lot of potential, and that i´ll learn a lot of things that will prove helpful in other stages in life.

thanks for all the prayers! the church is true!

hermana magnusson