Week eleven as a missionary

Heyooo!! Sister Allen here. Yo this week was so good!!! We had loads of miracles, and a few disappointments, but overall, man, God is so good. And missions are awesome cause you get to see that God is good ESPECIALLY in the disappointments. Welp, let's get right to it. 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• Me and Sister Weight decided that the motto for Maryland needs to be "potentially catastrophic". Like a sticker that says "MARYLAND: potentially catastrophic" ya know? Whether they are driving, or walking, or talking to people, or simply the fact that half the state is currently flooded. It's just. Catastrophic. Mostly their driving. 

• We had EXCHANGES!!! woo woo!! Exchanges are when you ditch your companion for a few hours and the Sister Training Leaders split up too, and we mix and match, so I got to hang out with Sister Stokes and Sister Valenzuela for a lot of the day on Wednesday. Man, I better not leave for Uruguay before I get to be companions with Sister Stokes. (I would also love to be comps with Sister Valenzuela but she's leaving next transfer so in order for me to be her comp, she'd have to stay extra time and I don't wish that for her but I love her just as much). Geez, these girls are a party and a half. We got to BLAST Spanish music in the car (aka Espanich or Espannieol) and partied hard. And we went to chick-fil-a and I introduced them to strawberry frozen lemonade which is a dangerous game cause now we're all obsessed. We taught two lessons, one to a little girl from Venezuela, and we were teaching her English. She was THE cutest, and entirely unwilling to learn English. She's nine and her name is Genisis and I love her. I barely said anything the whole time cause Stokes and Valenzuela are fluent Spanish speakers so that's enough to get a small child to laugh at you when you attempt to speak, but she asked me to say the prayer so it's a good thing that's the I know how to do that (shoutout to Hermano Martinez).

• Then we went to our next lesson, with a lady named Sol. She was super nice, didn't speak a word of English, and we planned a pretty dope lesson, and then we sat down and she talked for the whole half hour about her medical problems. Which would have been fine, except my brain was working overtime to understand and I do not speak medical Spanish. So what I understood was that she had tumors in her lips and then she almost died and now she has covid. (Catch me trying to figure out how I can subtly put four more masks on when she said that) Turns out, she got lip fillers, it's messed with her lips and made her super tired, and the doctors thought it was covid so they tested her and she didn't have it. In my defense though, I dont know the word lip fillers in Spanish. And she looked all scared when we came in and put a mask on. And she said covid a lot of times. So really, I think I was right in my translation. I'm glad she doesn't have lip tumors though, that would be awkward. Anyways so we didn't teach a lesson but Sol got a rant session which I think all of us need so good work Sol. Free therapy from the missionaries!! So far the missionaries are sharers of eternal salvation, free language teachers, and free therapists. Everyone should be friends with the missionaries let's be honest. You get benefits. Also, I was sitting on her couch with a Dora blanket on it. And I somehow ended up sitting right on Dora's face. A place I didn’t want to be.

• Y'all I got a crab sticker. Every person in Maryland has a crab sticker. It's a crab, with the Maryland flag on it. And probably 75% of cars here have it on their bumper. No joke. It's intense. So I now have one on my water bottle and I feel like a part of something. 

• Our friend Scott! Scott isn't a "we're teaching him" Kinda friend. He's just a friend. But Scott is at St. Camillus every week when we're there, and he is super intrigued by our church. Apparently he's reading a book about Jacob Hamblin, one of the early saints in the church who did some really awesome things, and he asked if we knew who he was. Me and Sis. Weight said we had heard of him but didn't quite know who he was, so then Scott proceeds to go on a 20 minute spiel (this word is pronounced like shpeel. Maybe I'm the only one in the world who didn't know how to spell this particular synonym for rant, but Sister Weight's dictionary app just taught me something new. Everyone be amazed at this knowledge. Or just judge me and don't let me know every person in this world knew that) Anyway so he went on a shpeel about our church history and the pioneers and Joseph Smith and such. And it was too funny, he was telling us all this and didn't give us two seconds to let him know that just because we didn't know who Jacob Hamblin was, we did in fact know that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and how the saints WALKED (!!!) all the way to Utah. As funny as it was, it was actually cool to see how impressed he was, and how amazing he thought the saints were for believing in Christ and His gospel so much that they went to such great lengths to keep that knowledge.

MILAGRITOS: 

•  lol so this week was full of little mini disappointments (like the 3 new friends we got last week didn't respond to us so we didn't have those lessons (except we didnt get kidnapped so it's definitely probably a blessing they didn't answer)) but it was full of miracles, mostly directly for me, which was really cool. 

• So after exchanges with two lessons of me almost not saying a word, I was very stressed that I was losing all my Spanish knowledge. So then the Lord sent me the Quito family. We were trying to knock some member's doors and see if anyone was home, literally no one was, and it was getting kinda frustrating, but at the last door (it's always the last door huh?) We knocked and this cute lady answered the door. Now, since we're in a YSA, I knew pretty quick she was too old to be the person we were looking for, but she started with Hola! Como esta? And so I got simultaneously terrified and also almost giddy with excitement (cause I'm gonna be honest with y'all, that morning when we were planning what to do, I may or may not have made sure that every name on our list looked Latino, in hopes I could speak a little bit of Spanish. Welp, the Lord answers prayers I guess) So she let's us in (first house I've ever been in besides my apartment woot woot) and turns out she's the mom of the member we were looking for. So her husband is there too and starts speaking Spanish to me so I pretty quickly explain that I barely speak spanish and my companion doesn't speak any at all, and so they have us sit down and continue to speak rapid fire Spanish at us. And honestly, the Lord was there. Cause I understood it. Not every word, not even every sentence. But we stayed at their house for about an hour, just talking back and forth, with me occasionally translating for Sister Weight. It. Was. Awesome. We had a whole discussion on where we we grew up and where they were from, and our families, and all sorts of stuff, and then I asked if we could share a message with them, so shared a bit about my favorite scripture, and then explained why I loved it. And they were so sweet, shared their favorite scriptures, she shared her conversion story (which was awesome) and I translated Sister Weight's favorite scripture and why. Then I told them we had to leave cause at that point we were halfway through our dinner time, and they said "oh for sure for sure. Now do you want juice?" (Obviously in spanish) And so we had juice and talked for 20 more minutes. And she told us we were so pretty and we looked like barbies. So essentially she wins. Although I think I have to have smaller feet to be a barbie. Now we're best friends and we're invited back to eat Peruvian food. And I'm not gonna be the one to tell her we're not allowed to meet with members for dinner. Cause I'd break rules for Peruvian food. (Sorry president) The best part, is they started talking about the daughter (the one we were supposed to meet with originally) and they said she doesn't have a lot of friends in church but she does have a friend named Sol. So imagine my surprise when I don't know a single Spanish speaking person in this whole state, except for Sol, and the only friend she has is Sol. Whattttt??? And it only gets crazier. Afterward, I called the STLs and I was like YOOO YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT I JUST SPOKE FOR AN HOUR IN SPANISH AND TAUGHT A WHOLE LESSON and they all cheered (and I'm sure didn't believe me cause when I was with them I said like two words haha) and so I told them all about it, and then they asked who it was, and I told them and they all freaked out. Turns out they're in their area and the wife goes to church every Sunday, but the husband has been struggling a bit recently and hasn't gone to church in a while. And the Hermanas had been trying to get over to their house, but it hadn't happened. So essentially it was awesome that we (not so) randomly showed up, and he was participating and so excited to share his favorite scripture and talk about faith and such. Ahh GOD IS REAL!! And let's be honest, when I got back into the car after we left the lesson, I almost cried cause it was simultaneously the coolest thing to ever happen to me, and also the fact that I was literally exhausted. My brain kinda quit working for the rest of the day. Worth it. Anyway I feel like its an understatement to simply call that a milagrito, that was was 38292 whole milagros.  

But pretty much, God is real. And he loves YOU! And Spanish is awesome. One scripture I've loved studying has been 2 Nephi 31. In between verses 3 and 21 is the doctrine of Christ. How fascinating that all of the doctrine of Christ is pretty obviously in the Bible, but scattered around, and so Nephi outlines it for us. He says he delights in plainness, and then proceeds to say Listen up! This is the Doctrine of Christ! Okay now here's all the things that will bless your eternity and why. Okay that was the doctrine if Christ. We are seriously loved so much by God for Him to give us the Book of Mormon. It seems to take what's in the Bible, adds some arm and scalp chopping, and then states so clearly what God wants of us and what we will get in return. GO READ THE BOOK OF MORMON!! It's pretty flippin awesome. LOVE YOU ALL! 

- Hermana Allen