July 24, 2013

Match an Elder

Holy cow it's my half way point! oh man!

Well this last week has been so fast! I feel like p-day wasnt that far away! The days are pretty long, but since every day is relatively the same the weeks mesh together and I never know what day it really is!

So right now we have 4 teachers, wich means we have 4 investigators. (typically you only have 2 but one of our districts left and we didnt get a new one.. so now we have 4) The tricky thing is really taking it seriously and thinking of them as an investigator and not your teacher. Tuesday we were teaching Hermano Beyers, and I think it was our 3rd lesson with him. Before this set of lessons he was a different investigator, Juan, who we taught 5 lessons to. Then he got baptized and Hermano Beyers became a new investigator, Raul. We are also teaching a Roberto, Sylvia, and Ophelia. We teach everyday and sometimes twice and it's really hard to keep what we have taught straight, especially since they are our teachers and sometimes we talk about what we thought/what we will do next time with them. It's hard to keep straight what we actualy taught! This tuesday we taught Raul. Before me and my compainion go into a lesson we always stop outside the door and pray. This particualar lesson it was my turn to pray. As I was praying I said (in spanish which just adds to my not knowing what i'm saying): ".... and please belss Juan.. I mean Roberto... I mean whoever we are teaching!" (This is not the first time I have called him the wrong name. One of my praying for him but saying the wrong name incidences was even during a lesson.) and ya know how it's really hard to not bust up laughing in a prayer? well me and my companinon were not successful. So here we are in the hallway laughing SO hard, and trying to be quiet. The elders that were waiting outside the bathroom were giving us the STRANGEST looks. I am sure they thought we were crazy! Pretty soon we were laughing so hard we were crying. I think it was a solid 5 minutes of us laughing. Finally we pulled ourselves together and knocked on the door. Raul (or Hermano Beyers) opens the door and we take one look at him and loose it again. I mean really loose it. We were once again laughing super hard and he's just staring at us like we are crazy. Which we probably are... So then we say 'lets do this again' and shut the door. We compose ourselves and re-knock on the door. When he answered you could tell he was just waiting for us to start laughing. We go in and sit down and just start laughing. I have no Idea why but we could not get a hold of ourselves, and he is laughing with us. So after another couple minutes we get controll of ourselves and teach the lesson. After a rocky start it actually turned out to be a really great lesson! I think we just needed to laugh...

 Of course the devotionals this week were fantastic! We talked a lot about pioneers and their work. It was really cool! I sorta forgot about that holliday and it took me a while to piece together why all the talks were centered on pioneer work... It's so awesome to sit and reflect on their sacrifice. I don't know who said it, but one of the women in either the Martin or Willy handcart companies said 'it will all be worth it if my children keep the faith' before she died. That is so amazing to me! The sacrifices that have been made for us are huge! I hope that I am living every day to be worthy of their sacrifices. And not just the pioneers' sacrifice, but all those who have gone before me allowing me the oportunity to have the Gospel in my life. Especially the sacrifice of my Savior. I think sometimes we talk about the pioneers at this time of year, but this year I have really been thinking about christ's sacrifice that made their sacrifice worth it.

So my alarm clock is... bipolar. It sometimes goes off.. and othertimes (like when today when i wanted it to wake me up from my nap...) It goes off and hour after it was set for. So obviously we don't use it. SOOO instead we use my companions. Hers is super high tech and you can change the sound of it. the only problem is they are all pretty relaxing. there is no beeping or normal alarm clock sound! What do I wake up to every morning? I wake up to the sound of ocean waves, seagulls, and bells. Yep, i am being serious. It sounds like this nice beach scene. Sometimes it take me a while to figure out what the noise is before I realize it is the alarm waking us up.

Keep praying for my visa! All the otheer hermanas in our zone that leave on monday don't have theirs and we don't get reassignments until the friday before we leave. (little stressful!) However, did you know the reassignment process is just like a normal call? it's totally by revalation, which is really cool. So even if i don't go straight to argentina i know i will still have a fantastic experience.

The scripture of the week is John 14:18 ( v 26 &/or 27 is great too) This one is Christ talking to his diciples before he completed the atonement and then died. It is so simple and yet profound. 'I will not leave you comfortless. I WILL come to you' (emphasis added) I love this. I have such a huge testimony that Christ will not leave us comfortless. He will come to us. Sometimes it take a lot of trial of our faith (ether 12:6) and begging before God (Mosiah 4:19-20) but I know that he will come to you. If you have not heard the story of the footprints in the sand, I would highly recomend reading it. I have the last part of the story printed on a ring I wear, and I know that Christ does carry us. If we choose to see him in our life, we will. Even when we do not ask He is there carrying us. I know God loves us. Christ loves us. and they both desperately want us to succeed. All we have to do is put forth the effort to come unto Christ. (Irying's talk Come unto Me from last conference is phenomenal on this). I love Christ and his Gospel with all of my heart.

Keep Him always with you and I know that he will bless you!

Love, Hermana Sirrine

P.S.The pics are me and danai's weekly pictures, and we had a day where we picked an elder and matched. this is elder Bamgartner (our district leader) and you can't tell super well... but his tie matched my skirt and part of my tie perfectly!

PPS Mom, next week i will send a list of a few things that I need, seeing as this week you are on an adventure!! :)