Feliz Nuevo Ano a Todos!!!
AyAyAy! Cada vez que empiezo mis correos en espanol mi mente cambia a espanol y trato de escribir toda el mensaje en espanol. :P
Ok, now the Spanish is all out and I can move on in English so that the majority of you understand without Google translate. :)
This week has been a weird week for us, starting with Tuesday
on New Years Eve. First we had Mission Leadership Council which is an
all day meeting with President, the Assistants, and all the Zone Leaders
and Sister Training Leaders. (AKA mind blown by all the amazing things
you learn!) Then after we leave there at 5 or so we normally have a
normal missionary day, but not this week. As normal people you go to
parties and stay up late on new years eve, but as missionaries we not
only go to bed at 10:30 (or earlier if we can swing it) like normal, but we also have to be home by 7 pm
to avoid the drunk drivers/walkers/partiers. Apparently that's the one
holiday when proselyting is not "an excellent time for finding and
teaching". (per the missionary handbook) ;) We took the time to update
our phone contacts, and do manicures/pedicures.
Friday
we had Zone Training Meeting, and that was amazing. It was a little bit
awkward for the role play though. Hna Barnes and I were teaching, and
the situation we came up with was for us to try to contact a group of
teenage boys. I hate contacting teenage boys (for some reason I just
feel inordinately awkward...) so even just roleplaying it was awkward.
Especially since we were practicing with Elders who are really just
teenage boys in disguise! We got through it though, and I think that it
at least helped the other missionaries know that we're not perfect and
often feel awkward/don't know what to do but if we keep working at it
then it will get better. (Our re-practice went much better than the
first try.)
After ZTM Hna Barnes and I started an exchange with Hna
Clifton and Hna Rodriguez. This time I went with Hna Rodriguez to her
area, and it was SO much fun!
We did quite a bit of contacting, a little
bit of teaching, and talked a lot. The best part was that we talked
almost completely in Spanish (minus the words I didn't know) for about 6
hours straight!
Saturday
after the exchange was just a weird day. We taught two lessons to two
of our investigators, but by the end of the day neither of them was an
'investigator' any more. The first one was an investigator who is
Jewish, but he said we could come back and teach so we did. It turns out
that he actually "got baptized Mormon" (his words not mine) about 20
years ago! We're going to go back a few more times and see if he's
actually interested in coming back to church or not. The second one was
with an old man who was an investigator a while ago. We picked him back
up, but weren't sure if he was understanding everything we were teaching
him. We hoped that it was just some kind of language barrier, but we
brought a member with us on Saturday,
and she said that it definitely wasn't a language barrier (phew, I'm
glad my Spanish isn't actually worse than I thought). We were sad to not
be able to teach him anymore, but at least we know that at least right
now he just doesn't need it.
Sunday was a good fast Sunday,
and we found out that our Hermanas are all AMAZING!!! 3 of our
companionships met or beat the standard of excellence for finding new
investigators (8), and one of them almost doubled it!!! 15 new
investigators in one week!!! It was so amazing, and it really made us
feel like we've actually done something to help them with the training
that we've done on exchanges. Now we just have to figure out how to help
all those investigators want to come to church, keep the commandments,
and be baptized... It's all a process, but I feel like we've got a good
start.
As for the new year. I still haven't been able to
decide on any concrete goals for the entire year, but I have decided to
try to make sure that I set goals all year round. :) I've learned so
much about goal setting and achieving as a missionary, and I want to
continue to apply that throughout my life. Unfortunately the rest of my
life doesn't have a nice specific manual like Preach My Gospel to make
the goal setting easier. Luckily I have a lot longer than 18 months to
try to figure out how to do it though. I hope that each of you have been
able to take the time and at least think about what you want from this
coming year. I hope that you will all commit to trying to do what God
would have you do. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints is the church of God on the earth today. I know that the Book of
Mormon is true and is a guide for our everyday lives. I know that
because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ everything will be all right in
the end. I love you!
Love,
Hna Marin Hardy
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