The changes meeting was amazing as always. Its always the best to be able to see everyone from past zones or people that left your area or past companions. I was so, so excited days before, it was so much fun :) Then it's like the worst right after changes after you’re going back to your area because its like "oh, back to reality...". But Semana Santa was rough. Everyone was down at the river. There was fish being sold everywhere. We had citas fall through for the first few time because normally no one does anything here so they’re all at home. There were a few deaths too, but that’s pretty normal. Lots of drunks and lots of people just messing around being high, so that always makes things fun...and the gym was closed all week haha. But luckily that’s all over with and everyone will go back to their lives again. Oh! Something else they do here is a bunch of delinquents will go around with creepy masks on and they dress up in trashy nasty clothes and they walk around with huge sticks and basically beg for money from people. But it's super creepy. I think in the states I'd be like "that’s weird" but here? It's downright scary. Talk about disturbing the peace...Church was actually really good this past week. We actually had Relief Society and we split into groups and we actually felt the Spirit. We all learned and surprisingly stayed on topic so that was really good! I was impressed.
There was a drunk guy with a machete in a street this week. nothing like that to freak you out a little bit as an innocent sister missionary.
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| This is not cow tongue by the way... |
Sunday morning we tried calling Hermana A. but she wouldn't pick up so after some debating we hiked up Bella Vista to go get her. We were sweating within like two seconds. But it's true, you pretty much start sweating right after you take a shower...fun stuff. When we got to her house she was making tortillas. I swear I'm learning so much patience. She had been making tortillas since 4 that morning and we were like Hermana, it's time to go to Church. Can we help you? Just one hour...but no....no matter what we did. We were late for Church anyway so we'll work extra hard with her this week because like we explained to her, baptism isn’t complete without confirmation....Talk about frustrating, dealing with people's agency. But it's super great when it works out the way its supposed to and people use their agency for their good and accept fechas for baptism! My comp is really sincere in her lessons so that’s really good. I had her desafiar (challenge) the people and it went really well! I was proud :) So we have 4 with fecha (a baptismal date :) and an asistencia (attendance) in church of 141! Things are going well despite the smelly fish during Semana Santa :)
Something that definitely helps me though is when I get big hugs from like the lady we eat lunch with on Fridays and Sundays. She has been through some hard times and lost her baby a little bit ago so we hadn’t gone to eat there for a while, but the last time we did, she practically ran to hug me and was like "oh hermana...." Man it just broke my heart and warmed it at the same time and I knew she needed that hug. She hugged me so tightly and I think it helped us both. There are these little girls that are part of a family that we've been visiting and they always come running and hug and just don’t let go :) Even when it's hot outside and you think it’d be sort of annoying, you just learn to not care about the heat in those moments and just hold them a little longer.
I hope everyone had a great Easter and that we all remember the Savior after Easter, because we can't just remember him twice a year, but the whole year! Give someone an extra hug this week, cuz they probably need it! :)
love,
Hermana Despain
