The craziness started Monday, when we were studying as a district - suddenly, Elders Gerken, Evans, Martinez and Martinez came in with toilet paper masks. Elder Martinez started reading in Alma, the part about Captain Moroni. When he got to the part where Captain Moroni tore his cloak, Elder Gerken ripped his shirt off! (It's ok, it was an old white one that he had put on over top of his white shirts). It was hilarious - buttons flying everywhere. Then they wrote on it, and put it on a stick, and we all signed it and wrote down what we were fighting for - why we came on a mission. We made our own title of liberty. It was pretty awesome and got us pumped to go work!
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| The Elders playing captain Moroni. |
Then Wednesday, Hna Monarrez (the sister training leader) came on divisions with me. She and I worked in my area while Hna Luque went with Hna Shingleton to the other area. It was a good time - we found 2 new investigators, and had 10 lessons! I learned some good stuff and had some fun!
Then Thursday we had a crazy adventure. I don't know if you remember, but we used to have some big curtainless windows in our house - Hna Luque and I kind of got tired of all the people who walked past seeing us in the kitchen, so we taped up some big ugly curtains. Then Thursday, we were leaving, and when Hna Luque shut the door, the curtain got shut in the door. Then I locked the door. But then... we couldn't get the key out, and we also couldn't open the door. The doors here don't have door knobs, it's just a key slot on the outside and a little latch you can pull on the inside. But because the curtain got shut in the door, the lock got jammed and we couldn't open it or get the key out... We tried for like 10 min with all our strength to open the door. Finally, I remembered that we had forgotten to lock the outside window. So we got it open and Hna Luque climbed through. All the windows here have bars on them to prevent thieves, but she is so skinny she was able to fit through. That was pretty funny - me lifting Hna Luque up to the window and her trying to climb through - all while the usual group of teenagers are skateboarding on the street beside us and laughing at us. So she finally got in the house, and was able to open the door from the inside - but we still couldn't get the key out. The lock was jammed and we would've had to take the whole mechanism off, and we tried to do that, but our butter knives were too fat so they couldn´t get the screws off - and somewhere in us trying to do this, Hna Luque shut the door again - while we were both outside! Once again we were locked out of the house! And Hna Luque had locked the window after she climbed through it, so we were completely stuck! She went to the window and tried to force it open, and I was working on very carefully trying to pop out one of the glass panels out of the door. They were just siliconed on, so it was easy, I just didn't want it to fall and break. I ended up only getting half of it off when I accidentally cut my finger on the glass - sliced the pad off my right hand pointer finger. It was bleeding a lot, so I ran across the street to beg a napkin from the small store there. Meanwhile, Hna Luque was able to force the window open, and crawl through again. Then we just left - we were late for an appointment by that point, so we just left the key in the door and took off. Later that night, our Elder's Quorum President came and helped us get the door lock mechanism off and unjammed the lock. Luque had to climb in the window again to let us in lol. But everything's good now!
Then on Friday I lost my agenda! That was really sad - our whole lives are in those agendas :( lol. And I had some information written down that Luque didn't, like the addresses of several people we had contacted in the street, and several phone numbers of investigators, etc. So sadly we lost some potential people - we'll just have to try to find them in the street again. And I lost my watch. The clasp was broken so it fell off my hand every 10 min, but this time I didn't notice it fall. I feel lost! I don't know when our appointments are, and I don't know what time it is anymore!
El Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. That was a fun time. November 1 is apparently when the spirits of dead children come to visit, so this day all the kids get dressed up and leave to trick or treat - only they go the stores, not the houses. And they all have their faces painted like skulls or zombies or dead people. And Nov 2 is apparently when the spirits of the dead adults come to visit... there were a few adults dressed up, but there wasn't really anything that happened this day. It was Nov 1st when all the weird stuff happened - lots of teenagers/young adults in the street were also dressed up, and they walked around trying to scare people - they would come running up to us saying things like ''I'm going to kill you! I'm going to suck your blood!'' Then they would try to grab us and scare us. I really didn't like it. We didn't contact many people that day because we were walking really fast through the streets trying to avoid them. Thankfully, we were in the church from about 7- 8 for a baptism and weren't in the street during all the craziness. But when we left the church, a guy dressed as the devil and holding a lantern followed us for several blocks trying to freak us out. Not a fun day... But we got to see a baptism of the elders that was really nice, so that made things better.
And Sunday! Sunday was great - Edgar and Jorge came to church. Before, Jorge didn't even want to talk to us, then out of the blue he came to church and asked us to come visit him again this week! We're hoping for the best! And Edgar came and was super excited. He's been working so hard to stop smoking - he says he know without a doubt that it's true. At one point he was sitting by himself in sacrament meeting - and then the Stake President who is in our ward walked in. And instead of going to sit on the stand or by his wife, he went and sat by Edgar! That was so great and made Hna Luque and I really happy - It was a great example that lots of members noticed, and we're hoping it will help them be more willing to go and sit by investigators.
And now for the miracles! Sunday around 4, we went to the temple visitor's center! We went with Edgar, Adolfo, and Adolfo's daughter Charo (21) and his sons Abraham (16) and Issac (6). All 7 of us fit in a taxi to get there - Hna Luque on my lap lol. It was tight but we made it! They don't really enforce seatbelts here...
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| All of us in the visitor's center. |
And we had such a wonderful time at the temple! Adolfo loved it, and loved being there with his kids. Charo came to church once - Adolfo brought her his first Sunday. But then she never wanted to talk to us. But she also loved the temple, and the fact that families can be forever, and was fascinated when we told her we have a prophet and 12 apostles. She's our age, so we chatted and joked the whole evening, and are good friends now, and she's agreed to meet with us on her next day off - Saturday. Abraham has been worrying us lately - he wasn't there for our last 2 appointments, and didn't come to church, but he also loved the temple and agreed to meet with us again. And Issac is a cutie that had a lot of fun too. And Edgar absolutely loved it. He said that when we entered the room with the statue of Christ, he felt like Christ was beckoning him - calling him to come unto Him. And later we watched a video about families - and he doesn't have a family right now - they don't want anything to do with him. But he said the video gave him hope that one day he can regain all that he had lost. He loved it, and said in one year he's going to come back, but to enter the temple this time. If everything works out, he should be getting baptized on Sunday.
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| Edgar, Abraham, Adolfo, Chaco and Issac |
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| Me, Charo, Adolfo, Abraham at the temple |
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| Hna Luque and I at the statue of Christ. |
It's been a strange week, but a really good one too. I love being here and learning so much and feeling the spirit so much. Hna Luque is amazing and I love her. Next week are cambios - I'm torn. I would love another cycle with Hna Luque, but at the same time I've been in this area for quite awhile now... but whatever the Lord wants is good with me!
I love you all tons - be good, say your prayers, and please pray for Edgar so that he doesn't fall this week before his baptism.
You're all amazing - good jobs girls with your volleyball! You make me proud!
-Hna Taylor
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| Some really cute puppies! |
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