Con Amor, Hermana Luna: Week 33

July 6--Today was one of those days where it had high highs and low lows. Our district class was good. We joined a new district and I'm pleased with our leader. I feel like I can trust in him and feel the spirit always in his classes. The afternoon was a bummer...all our appointments fell through. The night was great as we visited la Familia Velasquez. After teaching the Plan of Salvation and the Atonement, she said she wants to be baptized! The son too! It felt great to see someone sincerely want to progress. We rushed to a FHE with Los Venegas, Yerko, Ines and Hna Ven's mom. It was funny when we remembered Ines was coming and rushed to 'start over'.

July 7--This week we've (unfortunately) been working on leaving people who aren't progressing, but all is well in Zion... we felt really good about freeing ourselves of the burden and getting more organized and feel like the area is progressing.

I liked teaching a Peruvian in the doorstep today because he's always wondered about us, lives next to the Church and seems to be interested. We visited the viejita N_E_ who's slowly progressed to want to know if Joseph Smith was a prophet. We saw The Restoration. Her great grandson is always super LOUD and not behaving well...but Heavenly Father answered my prayer that he would be quiet during The First Vision!

E_ was oddly quiet and agreeable today. We taught the Book of Mormon and left her one with my testimony plus Alma 7:11-13, Alma 32, and Moroni 10.

Ines made us such a nice Once with Los Venegas. She wants to work with the Primary :D! We just laughed a lot with her.

July 9--We cleaned super fast yesterday to have our cleaning check today but as soon as the Hna's called, I knew they wouldn't be coming. They always change these things :), but it's ok. We were running (yes, literally running) to our English class, and as soon as we showed up, we know nobody would be coming...and they didn't :(. I like that we've taken advantage of these opportunities to contact at the bus stop in front of the church.

On the way from coordination mtg, we ran into Hermano Colfer hiding behind a pole like a hooligan to scare us. He let us know they'd moved in that morning on the street next to ours! So I got really excited. They're the Peruvian family who always want to cook good Peruvian food for us. We'll eat on Thursday with them. They're the only ones besides Hna Linderman who gives us spicy food, so I'm grateful...I miss it! And now my companion likes spicy food too!

Random activity...We counted how many trucks of gas passed us this week... over 100!

Ines keeps making fun of us for accidentally breaking our fast because Elvira lured us with chocolate. t always HAPPENS! A lot of kids had nerves today to come up to us playfully and not only say 'Hello!' but "Hello, my name geez Johnny, my favorite food geez pizza!' It's so cute! I've been giving out these stickers I found in the house to kids and they;re so cute when they receive them. On Tuesday in the temple, Im going to buy stickers of the primary.

July 10--After yesterday, I never wanna offer help with English again :/ A less-active stopped us in the street (in fact, it was after leaving Marco finally) and asked us to help with his cousin's homework. So yah! When we had 30 minutes to spare before Once, we went to go help, but it turns out they just wanted me to DO the homework. After, I thought a lot about what's the right thing to do...what would Jesus do? He wouldn't NOT help, and he wouldn't DO the homework, but he'd teach HOW to do it. So we returned later to help more and said we're gonna TEACH him. But all of a sudden, it got REAL uncomfortable when the homework wasn't just 'Sally goes to the store', but articles about the private parts of humans, STD's, and so forth ;[ I told Hna to put an alarm for 20 min so that we could leave and luckily it sounded and we left... no more of THAT! Afterward, I was just like...in shock!! Que horrible!! I thought it was a joke!

July 12--We've worked really hard with Ines, and she was doing awesome just up until Saturday when her brother and his family came in town. She didn't come to church or answer the phone, and she wasn't at home yesterday for a visit because her OTHER brother came in town. We're not sure what's up, but my nightmare is that they're all forming an alliance against Ines' baptism. This literally ALWAYS happens right before baptism. We're going to try to visit her tonight Please pray that she's alright and will fight the temptation to give up on continuing forward with faith.