"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" 1/19/2011

Hola familia!

 

      Well its been another good week! It's snowed a lot but its been pretty good. Yesterday we had a zone meeting which is always cool. They talked a lot about how they want to improve the mission attitude and talked a lot about the mission goals. I thought it was really good because I've noticed a lot of missionaries here have the attitude that it's a hard mission and when you have that attitude its kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So hopefully this really gets everyone excited and motivated again.

 

      It's fun to talk with Hermana Rojas about Greece. I'm learning so many interesting things. One of which is that the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" is actually pretty typical of people in Greece (though of course a bit over exaggerated). She says that her family gatherings are always loud and they have roasted pig and everything. It's also funny because sometimes she likes to explain how certain words we use come from Greek words. She also defends that Windex is very good for cleaning.

 

      One day this week it was really cool because we decided to knock this one street and the first house let us in to hear more. That like never happens. Then we kept knocking that street and the 5th and last house we went to let us in also. We left after that but later we went to some apartments and the first door let us in also! It was pretty crazy.

 

      My e-mail is going to be a little bit shorter today because we are going to take the Metro into the city today! We heard that the Science and Industry museum is free on Wednesdays this month so we are going to take advantage of that. I'm exciting and I'm going to try to remember to take some good pictures so I can send them. Well I hope everything continues to go well back home! Thanks for all your support ! Love you all!

 

~Hermana West

Pictures - October through December

"she taught us some self-defense moves" 1/12/2011

Hi everyone!

 

      This week has been another good one though we've had some discouraging days with nothing really to do. Every appointment we set from knocking doors didn't show up (pretty typical) and we are having the hardest time getting people to come to church. We always have people telling us they are going to come, we remind them, and they still don't come. We are having a lot of success going through the area book and visiting old investigators. Some will probably end up being dropped again because of their lack of religious motivation in general (also common) but there are a few who really seemed happy to see missionaries again. One is the sister of a member in our ward and her family (Nereyda and Isidoro). Her husband is a little less open to us but when we were teaching her you could really see in her eyes how much she loved it.

      We've had two more lessons with Juan and Lala (the one who likes to preach to us) and he has opened up a little bit saying that he thinks that God could reveal something like the Book of Mormon in these days. We taught them lesson one and the spirit was so strong but then he closed up again and started talking about how he thinks prophecy ended when Christ came and then a huge tangent about Adam and Eve and how he thinks Satan is the tree of knowledge of good and evil or something. It made us really sad because we know he had to have felt something while we were teaching but then he just chose to close up. If he still isn't reading and praying when we stop by next time we'll probably end up dropping him.

      We set a baptismal date with Marisol yesterday! For the 28th of February. She seemed so happy and excited during our lesson and afterwards (though a little bit nervous I think). One of the biggest challenges now will be getting her to come to church because she babysits her sister's babies (triplets) on Sundays plus her own kids. We're going to talk to some of the sisters in the ward to see if they can help out. I don't know if its the same everywhere in the mission but here people have to come to church 3 times in a row before they can get baptized.

      Every couple weeks we visit a woman in her 60's named Matilde (from Chile). She's a widow and super lonely because her kids don't really care about her anymore. She's not very open to changing so we count it as service. She gets so happy when we stop by. She's a very interesting woman and a little bit scary some times. She kind of has the attitude that everyone is out to get her, and, because of this no doubt, she is very in to self-defense. She has knifes in random corners of her house and she tells us that she is still a perfect shot with a gun. She always tells us never to take anything from anyone and if anyone ever gives us any trouble to let her know (though I don't know if I will...haha). A few days ago we stopped by and she taught us some self-defense moves which she demonstrated on my terrified companion. It was hilarious.

 

other random comments about this week;

 

More and more I'm deciding that I do not like driving in the snow. Especially down hills on side streets. But don't worry I have skills.

 

Yesterday I had two dinners. My stomach was really uncomfortable afterwards.

 

We found 9 new investigators this week!

 

I saw a Bald Eagle this morning.

 

I got the package you sent earlier this week! thanks! I'm really enjoying the snacks and candy. It was great to hear about how everythings going this week I hope everything continues to go well!

 

 

Love you all!

 

Hermana Kristen West