Sept. 30, 2013
Hola! Hola!
I am glad to hear everyone had a
good week and that you had a good birthday Mom. After I got off the computer
last week I realized that I had forgotten to wish you a happy birthday and I
felt bad, but I thought about you on Thursday and asked Heavenly Father to send
you my love and birthday wishes, so I hope you felt it :)
One thing I would love in a
Christmas package is the Nashville tribute band CD called, ¨The Work.¨ Most
especially the song called, ¨The hardest thing I´ve ever loved to do¨ I can´t
think of anything else right now off the top of my head but I will ask about
tricks for getting a package here safely and let you know more next week.
Haha, sorry about the ¨having
experiences I can´t tell you about yet¨ part of my letter last week. Don´t
worry, I´m safe! We just get a lot of attention. My new area is a lot poorer
than my old area and we have a lot of the cerros (hills). Basically that means
that we go hiking every single day, but that’s ok. I am getting some serious
calf muscles! The people here are very receptive and friendly and a lot will
listen to us, the problem is getting them to progress. But most people we talk
to are very nice and I think I have only talked to one man who doesn´t believe
in God. Everyone is very, very religious... and very very Catholic. :) Also,
something I was warned about, and have come to know for myself as well, is that
everyone here believes that the only way to receive revelation is through
dreams. An elder in the office was talking to us my second week here and asked
if we´d heard about any ¨dreams¨ yet. I said no and he said, ¨Oh. You will.¨
And its true. I have had several investigators ask me to interpret a dream they
had, and many others tell me that if they receive an answer from God in their
dreams, then they will know that the Book of Mormon is true, or that they
should get baptized, etc... We get to explain about the Spirit and how it works
a whole lot! :)
I did get to watch the Relief
Society broadcast this week! In Spanish of course, but same thing :) I was
thinking throughout the whole thing, ¨I bet Mom and Kylee are watching this
right now, too!¨ It was so good. I was so excited to listen to President
Monson. And I am so excited for Conference this weekend! We get to watch
it at the Stake Center (in Spanish of course) and I can´t wait.
We had a good week! A little bit
stressful, but good. We had a baptism this weekend for J. and basically
everything that could´ve gone wrong, did. We couldn´t get hold of our ward
mission leader all week, everyone who was supposed to be on the program
cancelled, and the font wouldn´t fill up with water. So we had to move to a
different Chapel, do the program ourselves, and call the ward mission leader in
my old ward to get the baptismal clothes, but we were able to baptize him and
thats the most important part. It also meant I had the ¨opportunity¨ to
improvise a talk about baptism in Spanish and give it in front of everyone.
That was only a little bit terrifying. But I think it went pretty ok! Hna
Shriver and I also sang a musical number and J. sang with us and it was
really sweet. (have I mentioned before that he´s ten?) The three of us sang
Teach me to Walk in the Light and his aunt (who was recently baptized as well
and is his legal guardian) told us afterwards that it’s her new favorite hymn.
J. doesn´t talk much and it was a little bit difficult to teach him and
get him to open up to us, but in his prayer we had with him before his baptism
he said, ¨Thank you for the Hermanas Misioneras, who have helped me and become
like a family to me¨ It was probably one of the sweetest things I´ve ever
heard. I may have even teared up a little bit :) So, even though everything
leading up to the baptism was stressful, it was all worth it :)
I can´t think of anything else super
exciting that happened this week, just a normal week in the life of a
missionary. :)
I hope everyone has a wonderful week
at home! I love you all!!
Hermana Shelton
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