The power has actually been going out almost daily here. It's awful cuz there’s no schedule, like "every Monday at 7" or something like that, it's whenever for like 10 minutes to an hour at a time. We're learning patience, always learning patience :)
Speaking of patience! General Conference! Let me just contarles una historia. It’s like 9:50 Saturday morning and we're walking around the corner to the capilla when we see 8 elders sitting in the shade across the building. Turns out, no one has keys. No one is in the building. Where’s the bishop? So we gringos were all freaking out cuz this is conference and we don’t sweat this much in our life and deal with speaking a different language and suffering through a different culture and this heat for 6 months to NOT be able to listen to the prophet speak! So we're freaking out haha. But! the Zone Leaders (ZL's) booked it to a member's house to get the keys and yes my friends, only the missionaries were there to watch the morning session other than one of our members who brought his friends! But then they left after a bit. "I bet the members have tv’s where they can watch it at home and that’s why they didn’t go to the church", you might say. Too bad only 2 members have the BYU channel. It was truly heartbreaking. We were able to watch it in English though in our little gringo room :) with air conditioning I might add!! The power did go out at least 2 or 3 times every session and it felt like the world was ending every time. But it was such a nice, perfect experience to listen to the prophet and the apostles and everyone speak and to hear it in English. Even when literally almost no one in 2 wards comes to watch conference, I just have to remind myself that the church is true! Just like I said a few weeks ago! Haha because it still works! I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk because I want to increase my gratitude as well as deepen the sincerity of it too. And I liked how he said there are really no endings, just eternal beginnings. Best thought ever! More like best truth ever!
I forgot to tell you all that I had mondongo a few weeks ago! It's cow stomach but it looks like some sea creature. I can't believe I ate it. I was so scared to eat it and the worst part? The family didn't have a dog I could just slip the meat to! But I just kept telling myself that there was "pastel después" and I managed to eat it. Crazy stuff! But crazier than that - I didn’t get sick! So yes, I have had mondongo and I don’t plan on eating it again. The soup part was good, the squishy meat that looked like a sea urchin? No thank you. There was this clear jelly looking thing and I asked my comp what it was and she just looked at me and was like "mejor don’t eat it" so I didn’t :)
We taught English classes two weeks ago! That was neat to feel in charge for a little bit, even if some of the girls that were there were completely flirty with one of the elders. When you start hearing "de que color son sus ojos en ingles" you know something is going down haha. But it's cool to teach English classes or at least help out a bit. It reminded me of when Jeffrey would talk about teaching English classes in Japan!
So I’ve had a bit of a bummer of a weekend but conference helped me
through. Challenges come and they only make us stronger. If we didn't have
challenges we wouldn’t get anywhere. We wouldn’t grow.I read in 1 Nephi 17:41 and Alma 33:19-21 this week and I found it really interesting. Because of the simpleness of the thing, the people didn’t listen. Sometimes it seems too simple to have faith in Jesus Christ, to repent and to follow Him, but it's because it doesn’t have to be complicated, we just make it more complicated because we're human.
Well we're out of here but I hope everyone loved conference as much as I did!. I can't believe I have 8 months in the mission! It's just crazy but I love it :)
Love,
Hermana Despain
