Que Lo Que Tranquila!

The kids in the canal is the Primary activity that they asked us to help with. And all 30 of them in one truck. And then us on top of that. 

Our mountain adventure this morning. Cooking empanadas on top of the highest mountain we could find. Unfortunately, there were flying biting ants that attacked us. Hermana Conrady is trying to protect her head with a bag because they would land on her hair. 

 What I did this week:

washed my hair with a hose this morning,

hiked the tallest mountain we could see (not that tall)

taught the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Ya know, the usual.

This week we saw a quite large miracle. I've always wondered about a part of my setting apart blessing that talks about finding joy in teaching the plan of salvation to families. I hadn't really ever seen the cumplimiento [fulfillment] (I'm sorry, I really can't think of the word in English) of that promise and I wondered why it was there. Heavens, my very favorite to teach is the Restoration. Hands down. 

But this week....it happened. We are teaching Bella, a single mother of 3. The youngest is 1 and has a mental disability, but it's hard to tell how bad yet. We started talking about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and families, you know, your basic first two points. But we switched gears when she said that she'd heard that after this life, we'll have different families we've never met before. Politely, but clearly, I told her that that was definitely not the plan that God has in mind for us. Families are meant to last forever. I promised her that she could always be the mother of her sons. Something changed in her face and she said, "eso si me gusta,"  "I like that." We went on and the next day came back and explained the resurrection and the opportunity to live with our families forever. She really wanted that. We'd already invited her to be baptized and she asked if that was what she needed to do to achieve this. We said yep. She asked if she needed to go to church. We said yep. She promised she would. The sad part of the story is we passed by and she said she couldn't because her hair was bad. (I'll have to explain the Dominican hair process and why that's an actual excuse here some other time).

We taught the parents of a 16-year-old girl, Claudia we've been teaching. It was super great and they were very receptive. 

We're seeing results from the work we're doing with members to get references. We go and teach them the restoration and then ask them to tell us the first 15 people that come to their head that aren't members. Then we ask them for five that they think would listen to the missionaries. Then we commit them to ask them by the time we come back the next week. 

I forgot to mention we got a "bomba" [water pump], so now we sometimes have running water!

I have been so much less stressed this week than I always have been for the last 18 months. I don't know why but I'm not as nervous or stressed. It's been lovely. Although, like always, Sunday was an awful trial. 

You all get a pat on the back for being the least trunky family in the universe. It really has made a world of difference to me that you haven't talked about it, and I am so very grateful.

Why do we wait so long to fully realize how great being a missionary really is?

Is it hard? yes, pero vale la pena? claro que si. [But it is worth the pain, clearly.]

Love, Hermana Peck