Bishop's wife goes WILD

Sup y'all. This week was WILD. Not like "I'm in Latin America and got trapped in the jungle and had to machete my way out". I wish. But more like "we've had nothing to spice up our days for weeks now, and we had something spicy every day this week", so it was way fun!! But most of our fun things actually are really boring to talk about in an email, so apologies if this is a boring-er one. But also, we just got transfer news and I am going to be second hand training a new missionary, who doesn't speak a word of English. Haha prayers would be much appreciated! Love yall! 

MILAGRITOS:

• We had a womens conference with the mission! Essentially, our mission president likes the hermanas so much that we had a mission conference, but the only elders that were there were helping cook ahaha. So it was awesome. They fed us breakfast and lunch, and stuffed us full of bon a bons (chocolates) after. President is so good to us. I left feeling so loved and hyped up. One of my favorite quotes was Hermana Escobar talking about how some people think our church or the missionaries are crazy. So she said "Son las loca más lindas en el mundo" which Essentially means "you're the most beautiful crazy people in the world". Haha, then she told us to "defend the crazy". Will do hermana, will do.

• We ordered Grido delivery this week. Grido is an ice cream place here. Having it delivered costs like 75 cents. That's what I call a milagro. 

THINGS THAT MADE ME LAUGH:

• One kinda funny but not funny at all thing was that actually isn't funny at all is the Hermana Wilson fractured her foot, and they couldn't get an appointment for a while so we've been taking turns walking down the street with her arm around us, practically carrying her. So not super funny for us, but I'm sure very entertaining for all the cars passing us. 

• We had an nations activity where everyone in the ward was assigned a group and that group had to do a little stand and presentation about a country. Obviously as missionaries we were assigned the good ole US of A, and we spent the whole week planning, but we only made a few decorations for our table because we knew it wasn't going to be a big deal. Then we show up to the church early to the activity to set up our stand, and every other stand is immaculately put together, with flags and activities and homemade food and flashing lights and balloons and video presentations. Yall should have seen the panic on our faces as we walked in with our dinky lil banner and cookies we made. Luckily, we scrambled and put some things together, and it ended up looking half decent, but man. 5 sister missionaries really got put to the test in that half hour of pure and utter chaos. All of us were yelling at each other to find the tape and one companionship to run to the store to buy balloons and we stole nasty tablecloths from the church and called it a day. Pretty proud of us to be honest. 

• The other part of the activity that I LOVED was during the Brazil presentation, the bishops wife was in charge of part of it, and she's pretty quiet, and super sweet, and she turns on some music and starts singing in Portuguese at the top of her lungs, and dancing her lil heart out. It was AWESOME. I have a video but I don't think it'll work to download it so just imagine that one in your heads. 

• A cat got into the chapel. I'll just leave that there and let yall imagine that. 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:

Okay so this isn't a problem I've had to deal with for the last few months, but I HATE slow drivers. I know other people hate fast drivers, so I know I'm part of that problem, but it drives me crazy when people are going 10 under the speed limit. It makes me even more mad than if someone just cuts me off. But when I was younger, my mom would sometimes make up little stories about the other drivers when they cut her off or something, so now (when I'm driving on roads and not walking down the sides of them) I do it all the time. Stuff like "oh maybe they just had the worst day ever and they think they're gonna die if they don't get the #8 meal from chick fil a with 8 chicken nuggets and a frosted lemonade and 3 chick fil a sauces and one polynesian sauce. Or maybe they were just listening to their favorite artists new song and they got a liiiittle bit too into it and didn't pay attention. Or maybe their dog just died, or they broke up with their boyfriend, or didn't get the job they wanted. On and on and on. Every person has a different story. Cause when they have a story, I'm a whole lot less mad, cause they feel more human. And there's reasons for their actions. Have my stories ever been accurate? Probably literally never. But do I love people more because of it? Absolutely. Well, that's exactly how Jesus Christ is. Because He's the one who suffered and sacrificed for you. For EVERYTHING you've done. Literally. Everything everything. He knows your every feeling, every experience, everything. There's not a lot of things I know that don't fit under the "everything" category. And so one day, we are going to be standing before God, being judged. And no matter how great His love for us, or how merciful He is, we still messed up. A lot. And we did dumb things and disappointed Him, and drove slow, and even cut people off. And He will be merciful, and He loves us infinitely, but He didn't go through what we go through. That was a job only Christ could do. So one day, when God says "yeah... that was not your smartest move", before we can even say a word to defend ourselves (or maybe agree with Him), Christ will be there. One arm around us (maybe two) saying to our Father "listen, I KNOW how good that #8 is, and that was a really difficult day" or "that song is actually really amazing" or "when his dog died, that really was not easy for him" or "not getting that job was a hard mental day for her". Because He knows us. Intimately. Personally. Perfectly. And He knows our story. And our thoughts and our loves and our hates and why we do all the things we do. Cause our actions make a whole lot more sense when there's a story behind them. And He knows the stories behind them all. And none of them are made up. 

Anyway, love yall muchísimo!!

- Hermana Allen