Hello Everyone!
So I feel like I have a lot to tell you and not a lot of time so I will try to get everything in. Saturday we went street contacting again and it was such a different experience. We visited the Lima North mission and they put us in a part of the city called Canto Chico. Okay Im not going to lie we had a pretty rough time in this place. We were supposed to get put with latina companions who could speak spanish but they left me and Hna. Hawkins as companions which is great becaue I love her but she doesnt speak a ton of spanish. Our focus for the day was visiting less active members and they put us with a member from the ward who was supposed to be our guide because this area was really confusing. The member they put us with was a little old lady that was probably 4 feet tall and they bad news is that she had no idea where we were going! We spent a good portion of the day really lost in this place! We talked to a few people but it was really frustrating because they spoke like 10 million miles and hour and I couldnt follow it. I would be like " okay, okay, okay.......nope I lost you!" Hna. Hawkins doesnt speak a lot of spanish so even though I couldnt understand what they were saying, I was still the one who had to respond to all of their questions and try and communicate. Haha I said alot of "Jesus loves you, the book of mormon is true, come to church." I do have a couple favorite stories from the day. So we finally found this non members house that we were looking for. A women came out and she had her 12 year old son by her and we were like, "hi, we are the missionaries!" she sighs and shakes her head and was like "ya, I know who you are." I started asking her how she was doing and everything and then I asked her when she was baptized, here is how our conversation went
Me: So when were you baptized?
Her: Um... About 13 years ago
Me: Oh wow 13 years that is a long time. When was the last time you went to church?
Her: 13 years ago....
I like almost died! She hadnt been to church since the Elders baptized her 13 years ago. I think my jaw dropped for a second. I asked her why she wasnt able to come to church and her legitimate answer was that Sunday was her laundry day...... ya I didnt really have a response. I quickly bore my testimony and asked her to come to church and she kept saying " no se preocupa, no se preocupe" dont worry, dont worry..... well when you havent been to church in 13 years, Im gonna start worrying! Our next guy that was interesting to talk to was really nice but he had a pretty firm belief that there was no true church on the earth and that since he believed in Jesus he was fine. He said that religion is an institute of opinions and everyone is entitled to their own. I tried to explain to him in the best spanish that I could muster and I gave him a pamphlet and in the end he was somewhat interested in what we had to say. I just kept asking him why Jesus would leave us on this earth and not give us a church or a religion to belong to and he couldnt answer my question so I think it piqued his interest. At the end of our conversation he said " You know I always see the missionaries walking down this street knocking on doors and sometimes I listen to them and sometimes I dont but today Im glad I did" I dont really know what that means but it was kind of cool. We talked to a couple more people but the less active members were super inactive and didnt show any interest in coming to church. Plus that fact that we were totally lost and they had only given us like Law of Chastity pamphlets....not a great thing to start a lesson with! We were like a novelty in this town. The two Americans walking down the street. People were taking pictures of us and pointing at my hair and we had creepy people whistling at us and it was just not super fun. We were waiting in line at a bus stop and this little girls was sitting on her dads shoulders and she leaned down and picked up a lock of my hair and was like "Look Daddy!" haha it was kind of funny because she had never seen blonde hair before. Not the best day ever but it was a good experience!
So this next story was really funny to us but you may not find as funny as we did. Our district was sitting in our classroom on the floor in a circle the night we went proselyting having testimony meeting. All of a sudden the Zone Leaders walk and they looked more serious than I had ever seen them ( our district is super good friends with everyone in their district so we know them pretty well) They asked us to get in our seats and pull out our scriptures. Elder Haacke goes " So some stuff happened today while we were proselyting and President is not happy. Some of your names were mentioned and he is coming in to talk to you. You need to sit and your seats and read your scriptures and just think about why you came out here." They left and we all freaked out! We were like O my gosh what did we do! E. Workinger even started praying! I started reading my scriptures and thinking about ANY bad thing I had even come close to doing in the CCM or any rule that I might have broken somehow! So after of few minutes of agony the other leaders walked in and E. Cowley starts talking and he said " So Im sure you heard we have had a lot of missionaries went home this week ( we have had 5 people go home!) and President is really angry. Im really freaked out because Elder Johnson ( his companion) is meeting with President right now. Please get out your white handbook so we can read the mission rules." Both of them looked like they had just been crying and E. Cowley was shaking. All of the sudden someone runs into the door and their entire district bursts into our classroom singing "we wish you a merry christmas" and holding the christmas tree! We have a tradition in the CCM of passing down the christmas tree to the next future best district. So their district won the tree two weeks ago and they had voted our district as the next future best district! It was seriously the best. I have never been so scared in my life. Some of our Elders were so freaked out that for some reason they were going to get sent home and we were all so confused about why president was so mad! It was a wonderful night. I love being at the CCM here because it is so small so we are friends with all of the North American districts and we all know each other so well. It was really sad to have their group leave this morning..... definitely gonna miss them! I cant believe I leave the CCM in two weeks! I feel so unprepared but oh well. Well that is about all I have for you this week. Nothing super exciting happened but I do love it here and love the friends that I have made and everything that I am learning every day. Thanks for all of your love and support, talk to you next week!
Love,
Hermana Allphin
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