SWEATING, WALKING, JUMPING OUT OF WINDOWS, WOULD-BE ROBBER...ALL IN A WEEK'S WORK
November 1, 2017
So this week lots of sweating and walking finally paid off! Actually, we did a TON of walking! Since it was the end of the month we were running low on money and since we still don't have bikes, we've been taking lots of public transport. We had to go across the zone this Saturday for a Church Open House and ended up having to walk for about an hour and a half there and then back! However, it was worth it because we helped bring a lot of people to the activity.
This week, we got quite a bit done! Silvia came to church for the third time and finally stayed for Gospel Principles! She liked it a lot and we've been teaching her twice a week for about 3 weeks now. She's doing great! And even better, she's been telling others about her baptismal date for December 9th! When they start doing that you usually know they're going all the way!!! We had a lesson with her the other day and she just needs to quit smoking but she doesn't smoke a ton- just 2 cigs a day and she says she really wants to quit.
We also found some investigators, like 8, but 3 are really cool! One was a Haitian girl, Flor, who's around 25 years old and speaks very little Spanish. She was a reference from another missionary. We went by and she was pretty happy to see us. We came in and shared about the Book of Mormon (or in her case, Le Liv De Mormon) and we were able to use the intro to help her understand it well. This Sunday we're coming back with a missionary that has learned Creole on the mission. We'll see how it goes!
We also got another reference from a chapel open house we helped out with a week back. We were helping by the baptismal font, dressed in white and explaining baptism and confirmation. Her name is Valentina and she went through the tour and seemed super cool when she passed by our part. Afterward, we received the reference and we stopped by. She (16) and her young sister (13) greeted us and were super friendly. They invite us in, but we had to decline because it was just them and their mom at home so we taught outside. We taught them about the Book of Mormon because it was right before we had to go but it went super well. They had a ton of questions about different subjects because they have a friend who's Mormon from another ward. They're also both Adventists (aventistas?) and go alone to church every week! Amanda (the sister) asked about baptisms for the dead and I explained super fast and she asked, "Well, does it mention that in the Bible?" and I'm all like "Boy does it!"
It was a great meeting and they invited us to come back in two days (today).
So this week, things kind of bloomed in our sector and we're hoping to capitalize on this momentum. Transfers are coming soon and I'm really hoping I don't get transferred (If I fo I'll probably punch a wall or something). In the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of stories of things that happened to us this week.
The office elders came by and needed to do a training video about smoke detectors for an upcoming zone conference and it just required clips of us doing standard and boring things like opening windows and I said, "Hey, we have two mattresses outside. How about I set them up and I jump out this window?" And they said, "Sounds like a great idea!" So, we did and it somehow made it into the video.
It was pretty safe.
Halloween night, we were checking on some references on the way to an FHE (Family home evening). Well, the reference was in the heart of ghetto-ville and I was like, "We'll probs be fine." And then I was thought, "We're probably getting robbed." There were lots of peeps in the streets. This flaite (Chilean slang for sketchy, shady young street thugs) begins walking up to us with his hand under his shirt and I'm like, "For reals?" But, we just had books with us so I was chill about getting robbed. So then he comes up to us with his hand under his shirt, pulls it out super fast and there's nothing there and he laughs and we laugh and we chat for a little bit and then leave.
I'm sick of walking so much but in light of all these blessings I guess we're chill....
Hope you all have a great week!
-Elder Sierra
