I TOTALLY had things to tell you all but then I read all your emails and now
I´ve forgotten. So hopefully I´ll remember.
Things are looking
up! Hermana VanMeter and I are sad because it´s our last week together
most likely. We have no idea who is getting ousted from Iquique next week
so it will be really interesting. Especially since there are so many sisters
coming. The chances of me going to senior companion are WAY TOO
HIGH. I do NOT want to become SC. 1. I can´t speak spanish, and 2. I
still have no idea what I´m doing. I´m 90% sure I´ll get a latin comp
though, which I´m excited about.
This week we were really
blessed. I feel totally guilty after reading Lisa´s email, because her
mission is so hard! We found a lot of really awesome new investigators
this week. We treated it like week one of the month and just searched
searched searched. Some of the investigators are already dead (one of them
was really sad. a lady who is SO prepared for baptism but her father told
us to never come back. actually, we got killed by two old people as we were
teaching their middle aged children. Let your grown children choose! All
the other ones were Catholics or Evangelicals who knew what we were saying was
true but wouldn´t accept it if it meant changing their religion. one lady
called us after we taught us the restoration and said ¨i did what you said and
prayed and I know it was true, but I just prefer being Evangelical. Anyway,
enough with this tangent) but we found one family that we LOVE! They are
from Bolivia and are so, so humble. This was the first time that I have
been humbled on my mission. There are 3 adults and 3 kids that live in an
8 by 10 foot room in a house that is being built around them. They are
wonderful people- they sold their bar in Bolivia because their daughter had been
sick for two years and they knew that selling beer was against God´s
commandments. Right after they sold the bar, their daughter got better but
they had no livelihood so they packed up their things and came to Chile.
Such wonderful people.
We are also teaching a man from
CHINA! He is totally not that interested but it has been such an
interesting experience teaching someone who knows almost nothing about
Christianity. He doesn´t speak spanish all that well so we have to look up
words in the dictionary all the time but it is really interesting. It
would be way cool if he progressed, but it doesn´t look all that likely.
A funny story. Our investigator´s family wanted to see a
baptism and so they said they would come to one on Saturday. We didn´t see
them when they got there and then the investigator called and told us that his
dad and grandpa was there. But they were definitely not. We went and
ran through the church and found them in the giant stake Relief Society
activity! They were sitting in the back row of the chapel filled to the
brim with women. Afterwards, they told us that they walked in and were
directed to the RS actiivity and thought, ¨Man, this church is purely
WOMEN! Ivan can´t join this church- only women are in this church!¨ So
funny. They loved it though- a presentation about how the church started
in Chile.
Something that is really funny is that when we are
knocking doors people will always yell at us ¨there´s no one there!¨ but then
half the time the door opens right then. One of our investigators´s
(mentioned above and also mentioned last week about the pictures) family has
done that to us so many times. We usually just thank them and leave even
if we thing they´re lying because we´re missionaries and we can´t call people
out on things, but sometimes she shows up in the doorway like 2 seconds
later. Anyway, the last time we went there, we came back like 2 minutes
later and peeked over their fence and saw Nelfa (the inv.) sitting there arguing
with her 100 year old mother and sister. We watched them for a second and
then they all stood up and turned a tiny bit. I was POSITIVE the old lady
saw me and feared for my life. I was booking it down the alleyway before I
remembered that she was practically dead and couldn´t catch me. We wasted
like 5 minutes of valuable proseltying time after that because we couldn´t walk-
we were laughing too hard.
And that is just one moment in the life
of a MCA missionary.
Hermana Catron
I´ve forgotten. So hopefully I´ll remember.
Things are looking
up! Hermana VanMeter and I are sad because it´s our last week together
most likely. We have no idea who is getting ousted from Iquique next week
so it will be really interesting. Especially since there are so many sisters
coming. The chances of me going to senior companion are WAY TOO
HIGH. I do NOT want to become SC. 1. I can´t speak spanish, and 2. I
still have no idea what I´m doing. I´m 90% sure I´ll get a latin comp
though, which I´m excited about.
This week we were really
blessed. I feel totally guilty after reading Lisa´s email, because her
mission is so hard! We found a lot of really awesome new investigators
this week. We treated it like week one of the month and just searched
searched searched. Some of the investigators are already dead (one of them
was really sad. a lady who is SO prepared for baptism but her father told
us to never come back. actually, we got killed by two old people as we were
teaching their middle aged children. Let your grown children choose! All
the other ones were Catholics or Evangelicals who knew what we were saying was
true but wouldn´t accept it if it meant changing their religion. one lady
called us after we taught us the restoration and said ¨i did what you said and
prayed and I know it was true, but I just prefer being Evangelical. Anyway,
enough with this tangent) but we found one family that we LOVE! They are
from Bolivia and are so, so humble. This was the first time that I have
been humbled on my mission. There are 3 adults and 3 kids that live in an
8 by 10 foot room in a house that is being built around them. They are
wonderful people- they sold their bar in Bolivia because their daughter had been
sick for two years and they knew that selling beer was against God´s
commandments. Right after they sold the bar, their daughter got better but
they had no livelihood so they packed up their things and came to Chile.
Such wonderful people.
We are also teaching a man from
CHINA! He is totally not that interested but it has been such an
interesting experience teaching someone who knows almost nothing about
Christianity. He doesn´t speak spanish all that well so we have to look up
words in the dictionary all the time but it is really interesting. It
would be way cool if he progressed, but it doesn´t look all that likely.
A funny story. Our investigator´s family wanted to see a
baptism and so they said they would come to one on Saturday. We didn´t see
them when they got there and then the investigator called and told us that his
dad and grandpa was there. But they were definitely not. We went and
ran through the church and found them in the giant stake Relief Society
activity! They were sitting in the back row of the chapel filled to the
brim with women. Afterwards, they told us that they walked in and were
directed to the RS actiivity and thought, ¨Man, this church is purely
WOMEN! Ivan can´t join this church- only women are in this church!¨ So
funny. They loved it though- a presentation about how the church started
in Chile.
Something that is really funny is that when we are
knocking doors people will always yell at us ¨there´s no one there!¨ but then
half the time the door opens right then. One of our investigators´s
(mentioned above and also mentioned last week about the pictures) family has
done that to us so many times. We usually just thank them and leave even
if we thing they´re lying because we´re missionaries and we can´t call people
out on things, but sometimes she shows up in the doorway like 2 seconds
later. Anyway, the last time we went there, we came back like 2 minutes
later and peeked over their fence and saw Nelfa (the inv.) sitting there arguing
with her 100 year old mother and sister. We watched them for a second and
then they all stood up and turned a tiny bit. I was POSITIVE the old lady
saw me and feared for my life. I was booking it down the alleyway before I
remembered that she was practically dead and couldn´t catch me. We wasted
like 5 minutes of valuable proseltying time after that because we couldn´t walk-
we were laughing too hard.
And that is just one moment in the life
of a MCA missionary.
Hermana Catron