Dear Mom and Dad,
* last week we ate lunch with an adorable elderly couple, Hna. and Hno. Fiorito. Hno. Fiorito recently went blind because of his diabetes, but now that he can´t read he has discovered (atraves de su hija) the mp3 files of old conference talks and loves listening to them. Hna. Fiorito has about as much meat on her as a bird and is full of energy. While we enjoyed their very healthy and delicious food (fish tart and stuffed squash)hey told us lots of great stories about how they found the church, how the met, etc. My favorite part of lunch was when Hno. Fiorito asked me if I was related to J. Reuben Clark. I said yes and he said, "he was a great leader, very intelligent. We still talk about him." Then when Hna. Fiorito came back in from the kitchen, Hno. Fiorito wasted no time in telling her I was related to JRC and she was equally impressed. I felt very proud of my ancestor!
* We are still teaching Reina and Esmeralda. They are doing great! Esmeralda came to mutual on Wednesday and wants to come again! Both of them came to general conference on Saturday and seemed to like it. We are going to try to set a baptismal date with them this week! I don´t remember if I told you or not that they live in a villa (vee-sha, not vil-uh) next to the train tracks. A villa is a bunch of very poor houses built all stuck together. Their is usually a long, narrow passageway in between all the doors of the houses, making the villa sort of maze-like. Reina´s house is actually at the entrance to the villa, sort of tacked on to the side, so we don´t have to walk down any passageways to get in. Her house is very rustic in the real sense of the term, but very clean, cheerful, and cozy. It has a blue door and flowers in front. I love going to teach them because there is so much love in their house! Reina really cares about her granddaughter and wants her to have a good life, which I think is why she is so open to the message. She wasn´t ready to get baptized with the elders years ago, when it was just about her own life and salvation, but now that she is thinking about Esmeralda´s future, she is listening for both of them.
* something funny: Sending laundry to the laundrymat is supposedly rather expensive here and I haven´t made the effort to figure out a number to call or exactly how much it would be, so for now we wash our clothes by hand. This saves us quite a lot of money (or so I imagine, not having actually checked), but brings some challenges. I put my garments in a bucket with detergent to soak and then, as an afterthought, threw in my socks, several of which were black (not from being dirty, but because they came that way). Bad idea. When I rinsed my garments and hung them up to dry I found that several pairs had dark colored stains that looked just like. . .tie-dye. Yup. Tie-dyed my garments. If I´m not careful, I´ll probably end up doing something even more apostate, like wearing them inside out.
* Our investigator, Elvira, who came to church for the first time last week, set her own baptismal date! She just started talking about baptism all by herself during our lesson on Thursday (well, I admit we had brought it up before, but not that particular day). I suggested a date, but she said she would be out of town that weekend. So she took out her calendar and picked her own baptismal date! She is getting baptized on April 23! I really love Elvira! She is a really sweet, 60 something grandma who watches her 4 year old granddaughter all day. She was raised Catholic and was taught to pray to Jesus, but she always felt like that was forgetting Heavenly Father. So when we taught her that she should pray to Heavenly Father in the name of Jesus Christ, she loved it! Now she prays to Heavenly Father and it makes so much sense to her and makes her happy. She also loves reading the Book of Mormon and how clearly it explains things. She felt almost right away that it was true just because it made so much sense to her.
* On Thursday we had interviews with President Benton. I was kind of worried because our zone leaders were pressuring us to find someone to baptize in a zone wide baptismal service on general conference sunday and we didn´t have anyone yet. They told us during district meeting not to give up and told us stories about missionaries who got permission to baptize people who had only been to church once. This bothered me because off course I really wanted to baptize someone, but I didn´t want to baptized anyone who wasn´t ready. I thought about the examples in the scriptures where people just hear a prophet speak and get baptized right then and there, but that didn´t really resolve my doubts. So I asked President Benton about it in my interview. He said that a lot of the time, being ready for baptism doesn´t take as long as we think it will, but that there are also many times when we baptize people who aren´t ready. He told me to give people the time they need and not to worry about baptizing anyone that weekend. That advice felt good and I was so relieved! We didn´t baptized anyone on Sunday, but I felt content thinking about the baptisms we´ll have next transfer with people who are really prepared to do it.
* Finally, General Conference was FANTASTIC! I loved it. We had to go to the stake center in Ramos Mejía to watch it. I listened to the morning sessions in Spanish with our investigators and the afternoon sessions in English. On Saturday Elvira, Reina, and Esmeralda came and on Sunday an old investigator that we had dropped miraculously accepted our invitation to come to the baptism that morning and the conference. His name is Mario and he is indigenous, I´m not sure what tribe. He has some really interesting indigenous beliefs, but we stopped teaching him because it seemed like he liked talking about what he thought more than really thinking about our message. But he really liked the baptism and the conference and now he wants to read more in the Book of Mormon and learn more about the church. I really like him and I´m excited to give him another chance.
* Emphases from conference that I noticed: marriage is a partnership of equals (this was repeated by 3 different people I think) and caring for the poor and needy. My favorite talks were Elder Bednar´s about gradual revelation from the Spirit and Elder Scott´s where he talked about his deceased wife-- it was so touching! One of the things I learned that stands out for me was what Elder Samuelson (BYU president) said: "Being too hard on yourself is just as bad as being overly casual about the gospel." Darn. I guess I´ll have to work on that.
Well, time is almost up. I keep meaning to send photos but I guess that will have to wait another week. I meant to send Ben a list of ideas to prepare for the mission too (President Benton´s idea from my interview), but I guess that will also have to wait.
I enclose for your pleasure the following delightful email Katie sent me (she is allowed to email me, but I can´t email back-- frustrating!).
I just have to tell you before I forget that today, a Catholic nun told me that I was going to be a really good missionary. this, of course, thrilled the snot out of me and like validated my whole life.
I love you. And if I were a nun, I would tell you the same thing -- you are a great missionary, sister clark!
love, sister watkins
That is so Katie. It made me smile.
Well, I hope you are all well and that you have a great week. Keep writing!
Love,
Ellis
No comments:
Post a Comment