Hey People!
So I may or may not have just spent way too long responding to you guys, so my e-mail will be a little shorter this week. Sorry about that butttttt....
MY ELEMENTARY TEAM TOOK STATE, WHAT?! And MY GIRLS ARE RANKED SECOND RIGHT NOW!!!!!
Sorry. Polo. It's the thing that makes me most trunky. But I had to say congratulations to my teams. And don't worry middle school, I'll be back next year and start whipping you guys back into shape so you guys can take state too!
This week we had zone training which was awesome because we listened to Elder Holland, and he just knows how to say things, ya know? We listened to his talk he gave to mission presidents about missionaries and the atonement. There are some good points in there for everyone....including one that I really liked: Even Jesus Christ had questions. Even He wondered if there was an easier way, and He is perfect. Questions and hard times are not bad. They are part of what we signed up for. :)
Just a side note, I may or may not have a Pros-Monday next week. I'm pretty sure my P-day will be Tuesday. Not sure, but probably.
This week my companion and I were standing outside of La Tapita (one of many Latino stores) and handing out cards because if I had to knock another door I was going to explode. We got a call from President Richardson...my heart dropped because...why was he calling us?!? Turns out he just wanted us to bring a Book of Mormon to a hotel near the airport for a man whose brother is a bishop in California. They had a great conversation about religion but now the guy was getting ready to fly to Paris....where he would then fly to Iran.....it was an adventure getting ahold of him, including a not so happy lady answering a phone and being quite upset at hearing two girl's voices, him not being registered at the hotel (sketchy, right?) and about 30 of our very precious miles....but we got to him and got him the information. I had the briliant idea to ask him what he does for work....he hesitated and got a weird look on his face and just said "military contracting". Allllrrriiiiggghhhttt sir. Sorry for asking. I actually have no idea if he is a spy, but that sounded cool so I wrote it. You would think I would stop asking what people do for work after being here in South Florida for three months but nope. Haven't learned yet.
The cool story from this week is Jennifer. She is AMAZING! I seriously love her so much. She is an awesome example of someone who hears the truth and runs with it. I don't know if I'll find anyone as ready as she is for the rest of my mission, but I'm super grateful for the chance I'm having to work with her. She texted us earlier this week and told us she was having some doubts about baptism because of her boyfriend which was not the greatest news in the world and she is hard to meet with because she works, but she came to a ward baby shower on Saturday and still talked to everyone about getting baptized so we were like...okay? Anyway, we met with her last night and talked to her about the commandments (which we had already done a little bit) and she is super excited! Turns out her doubts were actually just questions. She showed us where she is in the Book of Mormon and her frame she got for the temple picture we brought her. She watches Mormon Messages every night before bed. She told us that her "boyfriend" ("well, he's not my boyfriend but he wants to be...") is actually in Istanbul right now (seriously, what do these people do for work?!?) and that she told him about her decision and she doesn't care how it affects their relationship because she knows this is right and she doesn't want to lose the feeling she had at the temple or the answers she is finding and she reads the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants. Pretty cool. She has already told us she is going back to SLC in five years and we will all meet up again. She is so excited about the temple. She participates in church and is super outgoing, and she is fascinated with missionary work. She is already telling her son to prepare. This is the first religion she has ever introduced to him because she was never sure, but now she is. She found out there are other missionaries in our area and told us she is going to cook for all 8 of us so we can try Peruvian food. And last night she gave us some juice from Peru that was super great.
Also, yesterday I tried "Frijoles Dulces" from the Dominican Republic, so that was fun.
Love all of you and hope you have a great week! The "wet" picture of us is when my companion and I had a door approach where the zone leaders were checking to see if we knew how to do one. They didn't think we would recognize them in hoodies. Wrong. It was really funny though even though it was raining pretty hard.
-Sister Bren Scadden