On Wednesday Hna. Lopez and I went to Ramos for the transfer meeting. After much suspense and gossiping about who would be companions with who, the slide show with the changes finally started. Hna. Lopez is now with Hna. Lewis (we hope we can go on divisions someday so we can be Lewis and Clark) in Billinghurst, a brand new area for sisters. There were elders there before, but there weren´t very many baptisms, so Pres. Benton decided to bring in a completely new companionship of sisters instead of changing just one missionary out at a time. We call that a whitewash. My new companion is Hna. Scott. She is really nice. (Interesting fact: she sung on Canadian Idol. You should see if you can find her on youtube) I tried really hard not to cry as we waited for a remis (taxi) to take us back to Lujan, but I finally couldn´t help it anymore. Fortunately, Hna. Scott was very sympathetic and encouraging about my nerves about directing the area. I felt better almost right away.
The new traslado is going well so far. Directing the area isn´t as hard as I thought it would be. I was kind of getting tired of that walking around in a cloud not paying attention thing I do sometimes when someone else is in charge--having to direct the area has helped me snap out of it (I just wish I could have snapped out of it more before Hna. Lopez left! I would have been a better companion.) . I have more responsibility now to know what is going on, but not so much that it is overwhelming, especially because Hna. Scott is still Senior comp and she´s done divisions here several times and knows lots of the members already. We´ve been frustrated this week because most of our numbers are much lower than usual for this area (between the zone and district activity and packing for transfers nothing got done the first part of the week, and then we had weekly planning on Thursday and district meeting on Friday, so there just hasn´t been enough time to work), but our most important numbers are still high, so it´s ok. We had 7 investigators in sacrament meeting and one baptism this weekend! And even though our other numbers are low, we´ve been working really hard and finding lots of great people, which is definitely more important! Now that I´ve realized I was more ready than I thought to direct the area, I feel a lot better about my skills as a missionary. I´ve been feeling happier than usual because I know I´m doing my best and I´m going to keep learning and getting better!
The highlight of the week was when Karen got baptized. She is a 9 year old girl who started coming to church with her Grandma. Her Grandma died a couple years ago, but she kept coming to church with her older sister, who got baptized sometime in the last year or so. Our district president, Tato Peralta, baptized her. She is very serious and intelligent for a girl her age. I think she must have been nervous, because she hardly smiled the whole baptism, just kept this serious look on her face the whole time. Maybe that just means she really understood how important baptism is. She´s a really neat little kid. It was a really special baptism because the Peralta family really loves Karen and her sister, Antonela. They organized the whole thing so we hardly had to do anything. When Hna. Peralta gave the welcoming speach to Karen she had tears in her eyes and told Karen that the Primary would always be there to help her and teach her every week. She also told Karen how happy her grandmother would be that she is getting baptized. I´ll try to send you some of the pictures I took.
The unhighlight of the week was getting food poisoning, if that´s really what I have. On Saturday afternoon I started feeling a little queasy, then got aches and chills. It was bad, but I kept working as best I could. I went to bed early on Saturday and woke up on Sunday feeling better-ish. I didn´t have aches or chills anymore, but I still felt queasy. During the district conference I kept falling asleep (que verguenza!) and by the time we got to our lunch appointment I was feeling pretty nauseous. Hna. Norma Peralta (Tato´s mom) gave me a plate of potato salad and milanesa. I wanted to try to eat, but I just couldn´t. When I explained I was sick, Hna. Peralta went into Mother with a sick child mode. She gave me toast and jam instead, then ordered me to go sleep on the sofa while everyone else ate. I slept for nearly two hours while Hna Scott chatted with the Peralta family. When I woke up Hna Peralta took us back to the pension. By this time I was feeling a lot better, so I ate some crackers to keep my strength up and we went out to teach a lesson. We had to come back within an hour because I was feeling gross again, but half an hour later we prayed I would feel better and then left again because we had an important teaching appointment. I guess the prayer worked because I felt reasonably well and was able to teach until we came back to the pension again that night. Last night I threw up (sorry for the TMI), but since then I´ve been feeling almost completely better. My stomach just hurts a little and still feels slightly queasy. I almost can´t notice I´m sick some of the time. And this morning we bought some medicine with a long name that Hna. Benton (mission president´s wife) recommended, so hopefully that will clear up the last of my symptoms. The funny thing is that whenever the members find out I´m sick they start giving me advice and handing me medicine. I took some of it, but I think now I´m going to stick with what Hna. Benton said to take. And people keep telling me to eat cheese. Isn´t that bad for indigestion? We don´t have any anyway. Don´t worry about me, I´m almost better and the members/Hermana Benton/Hna Scott are taking good care of me.
I´ve run over my email time again, but two more pieces of good news: On Friday I sacked a fech (Missionary spanglish for sacar una fecha, i.e. set a date for baptism) with our investigator Teresa. She this really neat single mom who with 5 kids who´s husband died just over a year ago. She really liked the plan of salvation pamphlet (we use the pamphlets a lot here. I´m beginning to think of them as an addition to the stanard works) and was totally cool with having a baptismal date. She needed very little persuading. And that means all her kids can get baptized too! I´m really excited for them and proud of me for being brave enough to set the date with her!
Mario and Celeste, this couple Hna. Lopez and I found while contacting surprised us by coming to church for the first time last Sunday-- we didn´t think they were that interested. Then Hna. Scott and I visited them on Saturday and Celeste told us that even though she and Mario argued all the way to church (we heard them shouting from outside their house once-- they have REAL arguments), they calmed down and started holding hands as soon as they entered the church. I was thrilled of course and asked her if they had prayed yet to know the church is true. Celeste was almost annoyed-- she said they already know it´s true! She told us that while listening to the sacrament talks both she and her husband felt very clearly that they had found the right church. Isn´t that awesome?! We just need to help them get married and keep coming to church, and then they can get baptized, and hopefully their two oldest kids too!
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