This week, like every other week, was pretty intense. You never have time to breathe!
Monday - beautiful P-Day where we had a lesson with a new investigator and his friend, Joel and Megan and put Rey and Elver on date! It was so awesome, he had called earlier that morning and asked us to bring Joel who is our returned less active. So Joel came and before we had even gotten there, Joel had taught Rey the Restoration! So when we got there, we just went over more in depth, Megan even read some of the scriptures in Spanish (she doesn't speak it at all, but can understand a little bit), and it was such an awesome experience!
We had Megan drop us off at the trailer park where Joel lives and we ended up talking for the next hour about all of missionary stuff because she's leaving on the 28th for the MTC!!! It was a lot of fun to see her, trying to get all ready to leave, and remember that one day a long long long time ago it seems that was me. I'm not sure what we're going to do once she leaves! She is the most willing person in the entire world to come out with us at a moments notice!
Tuesday - Volunteered at the 7th day Goodwill of sorts except it's all free. I like to go through the ties and find ones for the elders. It's easier than trying to come up with transfer journal entries and I've never seen a guy so happy to receive a piece of cloth in my life. They LOVE ties. Hna Hernandez and I have been trying to get enough for them for Christmas. I think the ladies at the 7th Day church think we're boy crazy and don't quite understand that we're essentially getting the ties for our brothers but we find some pretty awesome ties and so we call it good. We talked to a lot of people today. I have a confession - I really struggle talking to Americans. So I have decided. There are two reasons I can think of as to why Lord sent me to an area where I have to do both English and Spanish work.
1.) Because I need to learn how to share the gospel in English.
2.) He's using my fear of English to start a Spanish group here. The first day I got to the area I was told that Spanish work is pretty dead. Over the course of the 4 months I've been here, we've found more that 50 people willing to at least let us in and talk to us that SPEAKA DA SPANISH.
Personally, I think it's #2.
That being said we had a lesson with an English investigator and realized quickly that nothing we said would change what he thought, mostly because he was drunk beyond reasoning.
Wednesday was transfers and we thought that we weren't going to be affected. Then we were told that we were needed as Hna Shewell's companions for the day because she wouldn't be getting her real companion until nearly 4 o'clock. So we headed over to Hood River at 6:45 where we helped load up the missionaries that were leaving. The rest of the day we were in a tripan! We stopped by Megan to inspect her wardrobe (she managed to be stuck with three of the most un-fashion-savvy missionaries there are) before visiting some less actives and investigators. Close to 4 we felt like we should go visit Estrella and on the way there we saw that Darlisa had gotten home and was shoveling the driveway! We stopped (of course) and helped her. She then invited us in and we talked for a little while. As we did so, we got updates on the caravan of new missionaries and realized that we weren't going to be able to make it to our dinner appointment at 5 because that was when we were supposed to be in Hood River to make the switch. So Darlisa whipped up some tamales (I mean microwaved) and sent us out the door. It was neat to see how the Lord knew what was coming and set it up so that we not only got to spend some time with Darlisa whose sister just died but get fed and to Hood River on time!
We had another lesson and Elver wasn't there so after going in, we decided to go knock on his door because he was their neighbor. As we left, Rey told us, "No se vayan a caer!" or in other words don't fall! Well, Hna Hernandez almost immediately steps onto a frozen step and lands on her tail and we die laughing. I turn around and realize that Rey was watching and he was cracking up along with Joel. It was awesome. We had a really cool lesson with him about the Book of Mormon that night and promised him that as he does his best to read the Book of Mormon, he will learn how to read little bit by little bit.
Thursday - We decided to tract Lyle because I don't think missionaries ever have! We quickly found out why though.
After knocking on one trailer (with Simon in tow), we had spent about 5 minutes talking to this really sweet girl with a son with Down Syndrome. They were darling and weren't shutting the door on us as we continued to talk to them. We hear a yell in Spanish shortly thereafter, "What do they want? No! Ask them what on earth they want!!" Then this small hispanic lady comes to the door. "Who are you and what do you want? Don't you know you aren't supposed to talk to strangers? And you are STRANGERS."
"We're missionaries and that's actually what we do all day. We just wanted to share a neat Christmas video about Christ and service."
"Yeah well I am 100% Catholic. My dad is Jesus and Mary is my mom and I will never change!! What, are you embarrassed? (directed at the grandson) Well I'm not."
We bid farewell and left pretty quick.
We have dinner in Lyle this week. And this time we won't be strangers :)
It's actually something to think about. When Christ comes knocking on our door, is He a stranger? Or do we recognize Him and let Him in? Especially this Christmas season, I hope we all take a little more time to recognize His hand when it is knocking on the door to our hearts.
Lots of other stuff happened including church in Hood River but there isn't time for all of that.
Love you all and strive to share the gospel whenever you can!
Luke 6:20-23
--
Sister Jaycie Baird
Washington Yakima Mission
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