ILLEGAL SERVICE??

This week was CRAZY!! First off MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I hope yall had such a good Christmas, and appreciated the snow over in Utah, since it was like 65 degrees on Christmas here for literally no reason. But yeah SO MUCH happened this week so I guess I'll get right into it! 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH: 

• We got called last minute by some other missionaries to ask if we could do service, so of course we said yes. They gave us all the instructions to get there so off we went. And all the instructions lead us to a seriously BOUGIE hotel, so we're just kinda standing in the lobby looking lost when a lady who's wearing what looks like a military outfit but like the wrong colors and a random logo on it comes up and asks us if we're here to sort clothes and we say yes so she takes us up this elevator to one of the hotel rooms, and this is just a perfectly normal (pretty giant) hotel room but it is COVERED in clothes. Straight up looks like a tornado of clothes went off in this hotel room. So she then leads us to another, even bigger hotel room, which is also just covered in piles and piles of clothes. There's kids clothes in the bathroom, shoes spread all over what I think was the living room, ladies clothes piled up to ceiling on the bed, in addition to clothes racks with clothes on hangers just like. Everywhere. So in that room this not military lady just goes, "okay so most of this room is sorted but the ladies clothes still need to be. Also there's a bunch of bags in the bathtub we haven't gone through yet if you have time" and then she leaves. And man, I've never been more confused in my life. There was one other volunteer we talked to, and she genuinely looked just as confused as us, so we just kinda started sorting the clothes into pants and shirts and stuff, and barely made a DENT in that pile by the time we had to leave. But while we were there, people kept coming in, just looking at all the clothes and occasionally picking one up and taking it with them, and none of them spoke English. It was the most chaotic service of my life. No one ever explained anything, and I'm pretty sure that was some sort of underground drug deal. Don't ask me how, but it makes more sense than people hauling pounds and pounds and pounds of clothes to a super bougie hotel room, sorting through them, and then all of a sudden people are showing up to said hotel room and know they can just take the clothes. So essentially that was a whole adventure, but I'm glad we could do some service? Or help some underground illegal organization. Whatever we did, it was a party. 

• In a list of things I've found out about my companions this week. One of them didn't know her mom's name till she was in junior high. One of them wants her headstone to be pink and sparkly. One of them eats rice and marinara sauce. Like, all the time. One of them won't eat food if it's made by someone with big hands. One of them refuses to eat cheese or bacon. Like, on a concerning level of hatred. 

• Apparently a few years ago, our mission presidents wife gave a talk about boiling frogs (ya know the concept where if you put a frog in boiling water it'll jump out but if you slowly turn the heat up it'll stay in) and how that relates to disobedient missionaries and elders and sisters falling in love, and now a mission wide term is frog. It's a synonym for crush. People will straight up walk up to you and go "hey who do you have a frog on" and like. Everyone is just chill with it. It's the weirdest thing in the world but I think it's hilarious. In case anyone is wondering I do not have a frog but everyone else in this mission seems to have one. 

MILAGRITOS:

• To be honest, I was kind of dreading this week, because I knew we wouldn't be teaching any lessons, because literally every young single adult in our ward is back at home in Utah. Like. All of them. BUT we actually had a pretty busy week just FULL of miracles!!

• We had two HUGE miracles, by the names of Nev and Joseph. Nev called us on Wednesday when we were at the hotel sorting clothes, so we didn't answer, but we called him back that night (since we're supposed to call every number who calls us back, just in case something like this exact scenario happens). And he answered and said he wanted to talk to us and had a few questions but he was super busy at the moment so could we call back the next morning. And so we did, either expecting to get bashed, or for him to not answer, or for a miracle to occur. And I guess I should have just trusted in the Lord and known that a miracle would happen. Because woah. He answered and told us that he grew up in a different church but it was the most boring thing in the whole entire world, and he had been searching for a different religion for a while now, and he randomly came across our religion, and looked into it, and in his words "it's so insane that its believable" and he had questions about tithing and eternal life and the word of wisdom, and wanted to know how to become a member and how fast you could do it, and if you had to pass a test about your knowledge of the scriptures to do it. His biggest concern was that we weren't allowed to eat meat. And we told him we could and he was like oh phew I was worried. This man is out here totally fine with paying tithing and following every commandment but all he wanted to do was eat meat, so yay that we can eat meat. So essentially he asked for "reading materials" and then offered to pay our gas money if we would drop them off and we were like dude no what do you realize how pumped we are to do this? Anyway so then we found out he was 31 (the ysa limit is 30) and I've never been so mad in my life but we are going to send him to some other missionaries. But dang, Nev is the most elect human I've ever met. And I've never met him. So even though we can't teach him, PRAYERS FOR NEV!! 

• Second, Joseph called us. We answered and he acted like we should know who he was, and we didn't, so we acted like we knew who he was. And he wanted to do a Bible study with us and wanted to know why we became missionaries and what we like about our religion and wanted to have a whole discussion about the church, so we did, and now we have a Bible study set up with Joseph on Wednesday. So PRAYERS FOR JOSEPH!! mostly that we figure out who he is haha. 

• WE PUT OUR FRIEND ON DATE!!! (and since missionary slang is straight up binary code sometimes, it means our friend wants to be baptized and we have a date for it to happen) so that's SO COOL!! He is dead set on getting baptized on his birthday, and no one will convince him otherwise, which would be all fine and dandy except his birthday is in April. So I'll probably be long gone, but JAIRO IS GETTING BAPTIZED!!! (And maybe send prayers that he can get baptized sooner or something. Maybe pray that he finds out soon that he's adopted and his birthday is actually January 15th or something. Unless that's bad then don't pray for that I guess) 

• We had a member in our ward bring a friend to church and this man is literally elect and a half. His name is Devin and he met with us on Sunday and he said he's read 1st and 2nd Nephi 3 times so he can understand it more than just reading it once. He's insane it's so cool. So we are going to be meeting with him some more, so PRAYERS FOR DEVIN!!! He told us he'd pray to know if the Book of Mormon and our message was true, "because why not?" And then said "well, after that you'll either be seeing a lot more of me, or you'll never see me again" and we said sounds good Devin! So please send all the prayers that we will be seeing a lot more of him, cause he is really amazing and deserves the joy of this gospel. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: 

This week I made a goal to read the whole Book of Mormon in Spanish. Yes I've been putting it off cause it's very hard. And yes I'm only in 1 Nephi 13 after a week of diligently reading. HOWEVER through this, and through so many other experiences this week, there were a few very distinct moments where I was just in awe at how much God loves His children. Every single one of them. The ones who speak spanish and the ones who speak English and the ones who are deaf and the ones who are lonely and the ones who are loving life and the ones who don't love Him back and the ones who love Him with all their hearts. He loves His children. Why else would there be a Book of Mormon in spanish and in a million other languages? Why else would I get to be in a district full of missionaries who speak 5 different languages? Why else would the Lord give us so many different ways to show our love for Him? I am just so in awe at His love for us, and I LOVE getting to show that and share that every single day. GOD LOVES HIS CHILDREN!! 

Love you all! Have a great New Year's! Take a moment to appreciate that you can stay up till midnight!!

Love, Hermana Allen