Well I'm sure you guys have been anxiously awaiting hearing how this week went with my new comp. and everything. I'll just start out by saying that it went a lot better than we thought it might after getting the news last Tuesday!
So Hermana Hales and I have our own area now- our trainers each gave us one stake out of their areas for us to work in. The only investigator that I got to keep from the old area is the Toledo family, but she hasn't answered her door or her phone in weeks so we don't really know where to go with that one. We also got the Avila family, which is a part-member family that we've been really close with since we first got here. They have three girls (20, 18, and 15) and a boy (17), and all of the girls recently got baptized within the last couple years. They feed us dinners a lot and we usually have a lot of fun with them. The parents (who only speak Spanish) haven't been very interested in the past, especially not the dad, and the brother has a lot of questions and isn't really wanting to change or anything right now. Herm. Marcum and I did have a good conversation with the brother, Eddie, one night a couple weeks ago about faith and prayer though, so Hermana Hales and I are just going to let him know that he can ask us whatever questions he wants and just try to be his friends. The mom luckily really likes us and her daughters think she might be more ready now so we were actually able to set up a time tomorrow to share a message with her- we're pretty excited!
The only other potential that we got was this guy named Melvin (22 ish) and his parents, who speak Spanish but aren't really that open to our message. Hermana Hales & Kreutzer met them a couple weeks ago and Melvin is quite the character. He's very witty and sarcastic but he's also a hypochondriac. He believes in God but he doesn't really go to any specific church and he's interested in finding the truth so he's letting us teach him. We had one lesson with him this week and it went pretty well- we just established expectations and taught him how to pray. We were supposed to have one with him yesterday too and teach him the Resto but he didn't answer, so we're going to go back tonight and hopefully he'll be there.
Other than that though we've pretty much just been exploring our area and knocking all day everyday this week. We don't have a car so we get to walk everywhere which I really like, except some days it randomly has been super cold and windy when we weren't expecting it so we've had a couple days where we struggled with the weather. It's definitely been hard to be "training ourselves" because we still feel like we don't know what we're doing but we've been surprised at the success we have had with door approaches. We haven't found very many Spanish speakers at all, but the few we have found we were able to get to know a bit and then set up appointments with them to come back and share a message. They haven't actually answered the door when we come back, but we're just happy that we're able to do that much at this point.
The most frustrating part about this week though has been the amount of inactive members that we run in to everyday. It feels like 80% of the people we meet while knocking is an inactive who hasn't been to church in a while for whatever reason. It gets exhausting to have to try to remind these people of all of the blessings that come from attending church such as being able to renew their covenants and to try to help them see the big picture again because they usually just say that they'll think about it and maybe they'll go back some day. It's just a little bit depressing because we can see and feel that they're not really happy, and that unlike the majority of people in the world they actually have all of the keys to happiness right in front of them with the gospel but they refuse to take advantage of it.
Anyways we still have hope for the area and have definitely been enjoying our time as companions. It's been so relaxing to be with Herm Che because we're already such good friends that I don't have to try and force things like I kind of did with my old companion. After this week I'm not really worried about the whole possibility of hating each other after this transfer because we work surprisingly well together and are able to pretty quickly resolve any little problems that come up. It's going to be a tough transfer as far as the area goes but I'm excited that I get to go through it with her.
So we also got two new sisters this week. It's been kind of crazy living in a house with 6 girls, mostly because (until yesterday) we've only had one working shower. Yeah. But the new sisters are awesome! Herm Kreutzer's new comp is Herm. Conrad from Spokane, Washington, and Herm. Marcum's new comp. is Herm. Gaines from San Fransisco. They both have a lot of energy and are really excited to be here. On Saturday I actually got to go out tracting with both of them by myself because our companions had to go to a baptism in Logan for a lady who had been investigating the church for 6 whole years. I had a car and we drove around to some references in each of our areas and then did some knocking too. I was impressed by how good they were after only being out a few days! Hermana Gaines is hilarious when doing door approaches, and it's hard to describe why, but just to give some background info on her she's pretty much a scientific genius (she's only 20 but she could've graduated from BYU this year with her degree in Physics- she and some other physics students were working on disproving Einstein's theory of relativity just before she left) but along with her genius-ness she has a personality comparable to Tiffany Coon's, meaning she literally always has a smile on her face and just really loves talking to people. She's pretty much in love with knocking and just wanted to tell everyone that God loves them. Hermana Conrad, who's more laid back and calm, and I were so entertained the whole day by her never-ending energy.
We didn't find a lot of hispanics while doing that but we did come across one of the coolest ladies I've ever met named Sausan, who was very Muslim. She told us she didn't really have time to talk because she had to take a test online and her internet was down so she was freaking out, but she told us she wanted to get us something before we left because she really respected us for what we were doing as missionaries. So she went and got us these delicious wafer bar things from the middle-east somewhere and water bottles, and she started talking to us about she loved that we were putting God first in our lives. Then she asked us where we were from and we told her Washington, California, and Arizona, and to our surprise she starting tearing up. Apparently she is having a hard time figuring out where to move and those three states are the three that she's been debating between, so she told us that she felt like God sent us to her. We talked to her for a while after that and she was so sweet, she cried a couple more times throughout the convo and her little daughter Sariah also came out and gave us each one of her stuffed animals. It was awesome.
Anyways apparently I'm almost out of time. I'm so sorry about the Nellie thing. I hope you guys are doing ok and that you're not too sad. I'm trying not to think about it right now but I'm sure it'll hit me tonight, but I know I can get through it with the comfort of the Holy Ghost and Christ just like you guys can. I haven't gotten the package that you sent me yet, but I bet it will come soon- thanks so much for doing that! You guys are the best, I love you. Wish Herm Che and I luck this week. Hopefully we'll be able to track-down some more Spanish speakers!
<3, HermCrawf
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