This week has felt super long!!! But it has been good...as always :)
Lets just start on Monday: We had our regular preparation day....plus a bunch of extra craziness. But I finally got my hair cut after 6 months :)
Average day of planning:
We were in charge of FHE. We played Agua en su Cara. It is a super fun game were everyone sits in a circle. One person picks a category and a topic and then you go around the circle and each person say s something under that topic. If you guess it right then the person who is it throws a cup of water in your face. It went super well and was really fun. Then we played water balloon volleyball! The Branch is awesome!
Tuesday: We went and visited Adriana. She was really sick so we weren't there long. Then we went and had a lesson with Roger. He is a little slower so it is taking us a while to teach him. He also cancels a lot of appointments which is really sad :(
Then we went and saw Diego. He is so cool!!! We had a really good lesson with him and we also got a lesson on telescopic elevators....
This is Diego and his tattoo of Christ. :)
Then we went and saw Pasqual and Angela. He gave us tortas and ice cream. He has the best tortas in all the world!!!
Wednesday: Wednesday was slow but we made a lot of phone calls. We have "700" less active in our branch so we are working really hard to get all that information cleaned up. It takes a lot of time. We had dinner with the Fox family and the Massie's came. It was super good as always. We had jalupes (you know the Fritos with chili and all the works).
Thursday: We found a person who should be in the branch but hasn't come. We went to visit him and turns out he is blind and only speaks Spanish. It was one of the coolest lessons on my mission. He is from Honduras and was in an accident 5 years ago that left him blind. He came to the US 2 months ago and is a professional soccer player for a blind league. He has won a ton of championships. And in 2016 is going to play in Canada. He is so awesome! I have never been so impressed by someone. He lives in south central which is like GHETTO and crazy. He lives alone in an upstairs room. He has the Book of Mormon in Spanish braille and he was reading it for us. He is so awesome and may start coming to our branch. Then we had two dinners. One with a guy named Joseph. He is a theater major and was in Parks and Recreations(TV show). The other one was with Vera the less active we are working with. She was sick as well. Everyone is sick around here. After ward we went to visit some other should-be-coming people and we ended up jumping out of the car to talk to a random stranger. It was pretty creepy on our part but he gave us his number and when we called him back he told us we could come over and teach him. Sometimes being creepy pays off.
Friday: We went to find another one of those should be coming to the branch people. We drove all the way to LA and then everything was locked so we couldn't get in and then her phone wasn't working. But luckily a man came and opened the door. We went and visited her and she is awesome!! Her sister is not a member so we are going to start teaching her! Then we saw Diego again. He was going to bring his brother to church but they got in a car accident on Saturday. But everything is ok. For dinner we had Brazilian hot dogs. Basically you take the bun-put mayo-then tomato sauce with onions-then your hot dog- then sweet corn-then ketchup-then mashed potatoes-and then crushed Doritos. Sounds nasty....tastes delicious!!
Saturday: Today we did service!! There is a girl in our branch whose grandparents died recently. We were moving all the stuff out of their house.It was super fun and I made a comment about bringing my muscles and now I'll never live it down.....
After we went and had cold stone. It was so yummy. That night we had lessons with Hiro, Ani, the Riveras, and Nelly. It was so good to see all of them after a week of hardly any appointments.
Sunday: Fast Sunday! It was so good. Our high councilman brought his two non-member nephews to church. If you just looked at them you would run the other way. Tattoos and weird facial hair and gaged ears. But they were so nice! They are going to let us come and teach them. After church we had linger longer. We had home made mac and cheese. It was so good! After that we went home and made phone calls to try and set up some appointments.
Then we went and had alphabet soup and quesadillas with the Cueves family.
That pretty much sums up the week. Sorry for all the boring details.
But something a little more spiritual that I read this morning. Alma 10. Here Amulek is sharing his story. He talks about how he is very rich and well known and he always turned away from God. He even claims that God didn't exist, but then he says, actually I knew He existed but I chose to push him away and deny that he was real so I could keep my lifestyle without feeling guilty. He goes on to say how his whole life changed. As I read this I thought about how at time we deny the things we know to be true so that we can justify our actions. What kind of excuses do we make for ourselves? How many times do we stop to think about the the blessings and miracles we have seen in our lives? Anyways just some food for thought for this week :)
I hope you are all doing well and are enjoying your summer! I love you all and am grateful for all of your examples!
Love,
Hermana Montgomery
