This week I am going to tell you about Friday. It was a party.
So I was sitting at my desk, studying the Book of Mormon like a good missionary and I noticed that the carpet was a little damp where my feet were. I was kinda confused because I didn't actually have water at my desk, but I just moved my feet and kept reading. Then I noticed they were still wet. So I moved them again. Still wet.
I decided that this was weird enough I was allowed to stand up and assess the situation. Well, wherever I walked around my desk there were footprints of water. We are on a second level apartment. That's not supposed to happen, in case you guys were wondering. I walked around the corner. We had a waterfall coming from our washing machine and about three inches of water all around the entry way, kitchen, our room, and the living room. The level indicator on the washing machine had broken. The people that live below us came up and banged on our door to tell us that their apartment was raining....Needless to say, that morning was an adventure. It was super funny and everything is good now. We had the loudest fans in the world on to dry everything out until yesterday, but our apartment is back to normal now. :)
Also, on Thursday we decided to bike so after we had gotten our apartment to a place that we could leave for the day we brought our bikes down and headed out...my chain had fallen off and was very much jammed. We spent about 20 minutes trying to un-jam it until I finally just asked one of our roommates if I could borrow hers. So we set off again. The maintenance guy came by and said "Wait, aren't you the apartment that has had a package for a week?"
....
Yes, I had been waiting for a package for a week. My companion didn't realize that the key that had been in our box was to open the package box so it had been there, we just didn't know. haha. I'm pretty sure God just knew I would need it Thursday. And guess what...my mama sent me the softest Tshirt in the entire world!!! I love it. Sometimes I just think to myself "Do a good work for four more hours and you can put your t-shirt on." haha. It's the little things, people.
Oh, also. I cried in a lesson for the first time this week. I don't know if I should be proud of that or dissapointed, but there it is. Hugo is this amazing person that is waiting for First Pres approval to be baptized, so he is basically a dry member. But...he struggles with a lot of depression because past choices haunt him and he told Sister Lake (the sister I replaced here) that he would never open his heart to whoever replaced her. He has been super nice to me, but closed which I understand and it didn't upset me at all because I would be the same way.
On Saturday, we were in his area and had some food given to us by a member so we decided to bring it and give it to Hugo. He was in pretty rough shape because he found out a couple days ago that his brother had died. The elders gave him a blessing last time we ate with him, but he was understandably still torn up. We started talking to him and after 15 minutes or so I just looked at him and said in the worst Spanish grammar of my life, "I know you don't know me very well, but Hugo, I know you were strong in the Pre-Existence. God only gives hard lives to the ones that can handle hard lives." I didn't think all that much about it. It wasn't the first thing I had said to him, but he just started crying. He kept repeating that over and over again and then he told me that I had just told him exactly what he needed to hear. He started applying it to himself.
Hugo and I had an awesome conversation filled with me not understanding Cuban and him being really nice about my Spanish that I'm pretty sure is getting worse, not better. Haha. We talked about the atonement some more and how he has to be an example for his family that is watching him from the other side. Then he told me he didn't think anyone could do it, but I made him open his heart to me. I don't think he knows how much I needed to hear that, but that was by far my favorite moment of the week. It is really, really cool that the spirit can take our words and turn them into what people need to hear. It also showed me that no matter what happens, God knows what is going on. He will never push us more than we can handle. :)
Oh, also. Update on my bike. My roommate helped me two nights ago and we got it unjammed and back to normal so we are good on that front. Question though: Why do people say "it's like riding a bike" to mean that everything will come back to you and it will be super easy? Riding a bike after several years of not riding a bike is not easy people. Not easy. Stop using that analogy. Hahaha. No worries though, I can now ride a bike perfectly again.
Love all of you tons! Have a great week and make good choices!
-Sister Bren Scadden