Tuesday, September 23, 2014

54 weeks - they walked and walked and walked

*****I emailed him using Siri to talk into my iPad because I was doing seven things at once.  I have only done that a couple of times because siri always mixes up what I am trying to say.  She did better this time but she wrote some of nascsr names phonetically***. :) 



Haha it was alsmost 100% normal with Siri until the very last part about NASCAR haha. Just go back and read the names =p 

Hello everyone!

I'm glad everybody had a good week, that Sierra is loving school! The week was kind of slow for you guys, but sounds like you'll have your hands full! Make sure to send pics of Krissie's wedding and all the family! I can't believe you guys went to a Brad Paisley concert! I want to see him in concert too one day. I'm glad to hear that he is as good of a guy as he seems to be =) there are fewer and fewer of those these days. 

GO COUGARS!!!!!! I hope they have a great year! They probably will because I'm not there, but that's life =p It was the same with the Broncos going to the Super Bowl, the Nats and Dodgers being on fire, and Gordon taking a chance at the cup...that's the life of a missionary. 

Onto our week, honestly it will be a short email this week, but the week was really slow, so there isn't much to type. 

First off, I had probably one of the funniest moments here in the mission happen the other day. Maybe it was just because of the slowness of our week, but I don't think so. We were in the super market across the street from our house, and we only went there to by laundry detergent. When we got to the front of the checkout line, the young lady (who practically knows us by name because of how much we go there) looked us straight in the eye and asked, "Are you going to wash clothes?" I could barely keep myself from laughing out loud when I thought, "Nope, we're going to make lunch. Here's your sign." I made it out of the store, and began to laugh my head off. Elder Calcagnoto asked what it was, and I explained to him about Bill Engvall and what he says about such questions. I'm still not able to keep from smiling when I think about it! 

We had a pretty cool experience with the "Crianças da alegria" (the group of kids who we are always bringing to the church each week) in our activity this past week. They had a bunch of different games with balloons and popcorn and all kinds of fun stuff. We took about 25 of them with us to the activity, usually we only try to take a handful, but they were all ready to go when we arrived in their neighborhood. We decided to take them all and it was quite the adventure. One of the first things we had to do was divide up into teams. There were about 30 kids less than 12 years old, and the irmã made the mistake of letting them pick and then not balancing the teams. About 27 of them all came running to me and Elder Calcagnoto, jumping up and down with excitement and screaming our names. I couldn't help but smile and look to the other Elders who were almost alone. I looked at them and said, "My people," to which we all laughed. I think we ended up losing most of the games, but I was happy. We had to pick team names, and the kids called us the Boring Americans haha because they always here Elder Calcagnoto joke with me about that, then I had them all chanting, "USA USA USA" at the top of their lungs. It was awesome!

We had one more experience that was pretty cool too! We were in the center of the city after our group meeting on the other side of the river yesterday. We had had a good meeting with teh members there, and were taking two folding chairs back to our house because we don't have chairs and will receive our study desks this week. We were walking to our house, when we ran into one of our investigators. It was the mom of Francisco who we baptized a few weeks ago. We have really been working hard with them, and it was a surprise to find her there. The center of the city is about a 30 minute walk from her house, and it was about 7pm. Our city is pretty safe, but she didn't want to walk alone and couldn't believe her luck at running into us. She asked where we were going and we answered close to her house, and offered to walk with her. (the "close" part wasn't exactly true, our house was only about 10 minutes away from where we met her) As we walked, we had an amazing chance to teach her and reassure her that her husband will get baptized some day. He isn't baptized in any church, but always tells her they will get baptized. We have been trying to get him to that point, but it is kind of difficult. He won't go to church, but she loves the Church. She told us how much of a change she has seen in Francisco and how much it means to her. He leads the family prayers, is always ready when it is time to go to church, He listens to his parents now and she is just amazed at that. We explained that the Church really stresses the importance of family, and that the Holy Ghost is helping him to make all of these decisions. We explained that the same can come to her and her family, but baptism really is the gate for that. She seemed pretty happy about that and we are excited to keep working with them! I think the husband will need a little bit of time, but I know that he'll feel the Spirit when we're teaching and one day will be baptized. We ended up walking all the way to their house and then back to ours, about an hour with those stupid chairs haha, but it was all worth it =)

Other than that, the week was pretty much normal. We walked a lot, taught a lot, and walked some more. We have new investigators that already know some of our members, and that really makes our job easier! They already have friends in whom they confide and can talk to. It's going to be a great week!

Tell everyone that I said hi and that I love them!

Love,

Elder Sanderson

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