It was SOOOOOOO good to see my family this week and talk to them! It felt like I was home again. It's weird but also good that not much has changed in three months. I can't wait for Christmas when I can talk to all of you again!!!!!!! :)
This week was a whole lot of knocking. I've got sweet tan lines on my feet for the first time in my life so I'm hoping to make them even better before I get home. I also have a really ugly missionary tan line so the sun comes with trade offs. haha.
So some funny stories from this week:
Ricardo (the recent convert) was talking to us about some not so fantastic decisions he's made recently and I was asking him some questions to make him think about the consequences of his decisions.....well, suddenly he just stopped and said to my companion "She needs to study the laws"...my first thought is "Okay, I get it. My Spanish sucks and I'm a gringa and I need to study the rules of Spanish. I'm working on it." My second thought was "Am I breaking a law right now?" and my third thought (the one he actually wanted me to get to) was "Oh....a lawyer." So mom and dad, a recent convert told me I need to be a lawyer because I have good, hard questions. I laughed pretty hard because that's what you guys have always told me....from the time I could talk.
Second. I have been having pretty bad headaches since I got to Florida, but not anything I was super worried about and not anything worth complaining about. Well, I was at District Training and my headache got so bad my vision was blurry...so then I figured I should probably maybe get some meds....so I asked my companion if she had any (mine was at the apartment) after DT was over and Elder Lemmon heard me. He whips out this huge bag of essential oils and tells me to put a bunch of stuff on my forehead. Well, no one had medicine so I figured it was worth a shot. Boom. Headache gone two hours later and I haven't had one since. It was a.m.a.z.i.n.g! I asked him what it was...turns out one of the ingredients, frankincense, costs $75 for a bottle...so I'm glad it worked and I'm very appreciative another missionary let me use some. haha.
Oh, also, I sang in sacrament meeting. In Spanish. Like, I was up close to the mic. Singing. This happened because the bishop called and we put the phone on speaker phone (because our bishop talks really fast and is really hard to understand through the phone so we put it up to both of our ears and try to piece together what he is saying) and he asks us to sing on Sunday. I'm being very clear to my companion (silently, of course) that I have ZERO desire to sing but apparently she didn't understand me because she said yes. So yesterday the four Spanish missionaries got up and sang "Love is Spoken Here" as the closing hymn....Spanish wards are a little different than English ones....I don't ever want to do that again.
WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS WEEK! Josh got baptized and it was awesome!! This one has a funny story too....Around 4 we texted his mom to tell her that everything was ready and good to go. We asked her if there was anything we could do to help her out. At 6:30 we got a text from her..."Hello sisters. Everything is good and ready. I was just wondering what time the baptism starts?" .....uh, in 30 minutes..... We had definitely discussed 7:00 on Saturday every day that week. Haha. Like I said, Spanish wards function entirely differently. We laughed pretty hard and then the baptism went really smoothly....once it started at 7:50. Haha.
Oh yeah! This week while we were knocking we found a guy that was really impressed by two young people "preaching the word". We talked to him for a little bit and he goes "Hold on, I want to show you guys something." So he comes back with the coolest bible ever! It was printed in London, but I couldn't find a printing date, but I thought it was really cool! So I asked "This is a really weird question, but could we possibly get a picture with this?" And then the coolest thing of all time happened. He said "You know what, it's yours. I have a lot of old books, and this bible is too small for me to read. I know you'll take care of it." WHAT?! I was freaking out. So yeah. Now I have a really really old Bible and get this....it's the King James Version so it's even cooler! Definitely keeping it forever.
We are working with one investigator right now named Jennifer. She works for 4 Life (based out of Utah) and she just went to a conference in SLC. She said that she went to temple square and felt a "special spirit" so she came back home, looked up the Spanish bishop, and came to church. She loves it! She is really impressed by the people in this ward and loves the influence it has on young people. She has come to church twice now and we have an appointment with her and her son, Vicente, tonight. They are awesome! I am excited to work with them and see them progress.
Well I love all of you and I hope everyone had an awesome Mother's Day! School is almost out!!!
-Sister Bren Scadden