Ok, first thing first. Last tuesday we got to watch 17 miracles at the mormon battalion - best movie ever. Well, at least the best movie I have seen in 18 months, so that may not be saying too much. I wouldn't take any youngsters to watch it because there is a lot of suffering and dying, but it was so well done. Something about serving at the mormon battalion and getting to know their story has helped me to love the stories of the pioneers even more. It was fun to watch the movie with all of the sisters.
That evening we taught Rina and she said that she wants to wait to get baptized, so that is sad, but also ok. I wouldn't want to force anyone to get baptized when they didn't want to. She is going to keep reading and see what happens. After that we had coordination and then Hna Lewis and I went to pick up the new sisters. They stayed the night with us before transfers on wednesday. Ironically, one of the new sisters is named Elizabeth and I knew her pretty well at BYU. She is besties with Kelsey and Kristin, so I saw her all the time. It was fun to be the one to pick her up. She doesn't serve at the battalion though.
Oh, you are probably all wondering if I got transferred...maybe you can guess by my not saying anything that I didn't. You would be right. There weren't too many changes, but Hna Stevens, who I trained a transfer ago is now training in a trio with sis lee and the new sister, so that will be fun for her. It's unfortunate that I never work with the barrio 20 sisters now that I was transferred.
Wednesday morning after transfers we went to visit Julie, but she wasn't home. Instead we went to see Hna Roman and had the funniest conversation with her and her husband and Ivan. THey were talking about how they wanted Juan to get married in the temple. Juan is almost like their other son. He stays with them all the time (he's the one who got baptized a couple weeks ago). Then we started talking about marriage and how they had kept their marriage strong. Hna Lewis tried to congratulate them for still being in love after 30 something years, but said something more along the lines of them still being lovers, which was pretty hilarious. Also, while we were there Ivan was cleaning and listening to music - it started with just your average mexican music, but quickly changed to "barbie girl" by aqua. Hilarious. I hadn't heard that song for a while. haha.
We were at the battalion in the afternoon and Hno Chavez came in for us to teach him, well really to teach us. I told him last time that it was his turn to prepare the lesson and teach us because we had taught him plenty of times (and we want him to practice to be a home teacher). He brought us take out from olive garden (he works there) which was excellent, and something he calls "agua de los dioses" or water of the gods. He has been talking about it forever and finally brought it. It turns out that it is basically chocolate water. It was ok, but not quite worthy of its title. Horchata is 100 times better for sure. We didn't tell him that though. haha.We had a nice lesson with him. We got him pumped for conference because he and some other guys from the ward were going to go in Salt Lake.
That night something pretty epic happened. I gave my first tour in CHINESE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was so excellent. Some elders brought an investigator who spoke some english, but is from Taiwan. Hna Lewis and I did the tour and obviously we spoke english, but the pictures and videos all spoke chinese. There are some parts where we talk to the pictures, which was pretty hilarious. Also there are a few parts where people sing and it is so much funnier in mandarin. SHe loved the tour and said afterward that it was the first time she felt the spirit ever. IT was awesome.
Thursday morning was very successful for us. Julie and her son came to the battalion and did a tour. They both loved it. They were out of town this weekend though, so she still hasn't been to church. I hope she comes soon because I would like to see her baptized! After that I gave a tour with sis kunz to a woman who is married to a less active man. She didn't know anything about mormons, but referred herself after the tour.
After that Hno Chavez brought Hno and Hna Roman for the tour. They LOVED it. Juan showed up halfway through the tour so he joined also. Then we talked to them all at gold panning for a bit and the romans left and we taught Juan after that. We mostly just talked about conference to get him excited. We told him to write down some questions he has and he suggested "how can I be better at video games." haha. I wonder if he found the answer among the talks.
We contacted a referral that night that we got from the fiesta a few weeks ago. IT's the mom of a member in the english ward, but the mom only speaks spanish. We went over and chatted with her for a bit and she is super nice and wants to learn more. We visited Ximena after that and watched clips of the apostles speaking and then talked about prophets. Ximena's cat tried to attack me several times, which was a first for my mission. I've only had trouble with dogs up to this point.
Friday morning we had another traning meeting with the evans and salt lake about the mormon.org chat. They had us get online and do a chat and the woman who got on and chatted with us was named cindy. We have had several chat appointments with her since. Basically the chat went something like this: she said she was having a hard time, I shared 3 nephi 9:14 and said it was from the BoM and she asked where she could get one. We sent her one and then gave her the link to read online. The next time we chatted she read all of mormoni 7 and loved it. Then we chatted about the gospel and told her to read 2 nefi 31. We are going to try to send the missionaries the next time we chat with her. It's a way cool system and it turns out that it really works!
We served at the temple that afternoon and had an iteresting experience with a very negative woman who came. She was really rude to us when there wasn't parking. She was coming to do a session. She apologized later and then told us about all of her problems. She had a horribly negative attitude. Hna Lewis read her a nice quote and when she finished she told her that was the WORST possible things he could have read her. It was amazing though - whens he came out of the temple she was like a new person! I had been thinking that there was nothing that could help her see the light, but I was wrong. She talked to us after and felt so peaceful about all of her problems and that they would be solved. It was pretty amazing to see.
For lunch the brenchleys (a senior couple) had just come out of a session so they took us to lunch in the cafeteria, which was fun. Later on a man named Jesse came to the temple. He is an elvis impersonator (don't worry I have a photo). He talked to us for about an hour and performed several songs. It was great news that I had borrowed Hna Stevens digital recorder and turned it on behind my back. He was so funny. He's a member and he lives right by the temple. I had heard about him the first week of my mission, but this was the first time I met him.
Saturday morning we served at the battalion, so I missed part of conference to take a tour. What I saw was excellent through! We got off shift in time to watch all of the afternoon session. I loved elder Christofferson's talk about repentance and elder Perry's talk about member missionary work. AFter that we had an appointment with Elizabeth (the referral we contacted earlier). We had a great lesson with her and her daughter, Alma. She is a jehovah's witness, but it is willing to accept the book of mormon. She watched all of conference and liked it a lot, so that was excellent. After we taught, Alma gave us dinner and we got to know her. SHe is a way cool lady. Her daughter is adorable and reminded me of emily (though no one is as adorable as Emily). After that we tried to see a lot of people who weren't home. THen we dropped by the Rosales family and found them outside with her pit bull named brad pitt. It was a somber group and it turns out that the dog had just bitten a kid in the face, so the animal people were coming to pick him up. We ended up meeting her neice and nephew though who are less active members that just moved here, so that was good news.
Sunday morning we were at the battalion again. I caught the end of the talk about the book of mormon with the 2 dots. FANTASTIC! I loved it so much. I can't wait to read the whole thing. We watched the afternoon session with the branch and Juan came! He said his favorite talk was the guy from Japan. That seemed to be the case for most people in the branch because they are converts and felt the same way.
We had dinner at Jeneane's house after that with Juan and some other members. Then we tried to see people, but no one was home. I called Daniel and Cleo to see if they went to conference because they hadn't gone to church since I left I knew and Pres Clayton told me I should call them to try to help. Daniel said he went, and at first I didn't believe him, so I quizzed him about some talks until I believed him. Then he told me that he hadn't been going to church becuase he had to work on sunday. He said that he remembered that he had made a promise to God, so he went to his boss and asked for sundays off. His boss said he could pick between church and his job, so he picked church. I nearly cried when I heard that. He said that they are going to go back to church and that hopefully they will come to Hna De La Cruz's wedding next year. Great news!
Monday morning we had Zone Leader Council, which was way good. Pres. Clayton got us all fired up to step up the mission because baptisms dropped a lot in september compared to our goals. He talked about how a hot air balloon works and hwo you have to get rid of the baggage to move higher, so that is what we are trying to do as a mission.
We visited Ivan that afternoon and he showed us pictures from the trip to SLC and conference. It looks like they all had a blast. The elders quorum president took several recent converts and his son to see conference. Then we went to find a former named Yolanda. She lives in a trailer park and we didn't have the trailer number, so we asked the first people we saw if they knew yolanda and then did! So we found her. She is a SUPER old and SUPER skinny lady. She is fluent in english and spanish and kept calling us "honey" and "mija". She seemed interested in learning more and liked the idea of church in spanish, so we are going to go back next week.
After that we visited Hna Maltiz and I brought my violin to play her several hymns. She loved it. She goes back to venezuela tomorrow, so it was our farewell lesson with her. She is less active, so we told her to prepare for the temple and next year when she came back we would go together.
After that we met up with the sisters in spring valley to go teach Ivan (the one I taught before in barrio 20). Hna Lewis didn't know the area boundaries when I came and so we recently discovered that Ivan is like 2 blocks outside of our area, so we handed him off to the other sisters. We had a great lesson with him though all 4 of us. He seems a lot more prepared this time. I told him at the end to call me when he was going to get baptized and he said he would. Then he said "thanks for not giving up on me!" - sure enough, I have known him since about January I think, so hopefully he can get his life in order and get baptized before I leave, but if not I"m sure he will eventually.
Well, that's about it for this week! I hope you all are doing well and don't have any more natural disasters or anything.
love,
Hna livingston
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