This Week

March 24th, 2014

This is me and the senior couple sister in the mission office, sister Taylor. she's my soul sister--we have the same birthday week, we take the same vitamins (juice plus), we started and will finish our missions almost at the same time, and EVERY time I need her to be at the mission home, she is there. Love her so much. 

So here's some funny things that happened this week, and also some really cool ones. 

Mom. You and Snezana would be so proud. I feel like I'm living Brad Wilcox's Allegory of the Piano Lessons and glorifying those first 8 years of piano lessons when you just dragged me there and made me practice and withheld privileges and all that jazz. To that I just say THANK YOU. Thank you for making me develop those talents and giving me them to put to good use. 

AHORA. 

Saturday night one of the elders in the mission sent us a text and asked if I would accompany him in a duet for a Spanish recent convert fireside. We thought about it and realized that we don't teach ANYONE who would REASONABLY want to go to a Spanish fireside, which meant that we couldn't go. (Our mission has a rule that you have to bring an investigator with you to the firesides so that we're still doing missionary work). We thought about translation, etc, but nothing worked out. So then the idea came to mind to bring a Spanish Visitors' Center investigator that Sister Chipana has been teaching over the phone in the Visitors' Center. We got the member's phone number and agreed to try. 

UNNECESSARY. 

Because we show up to our shift at the VC Sunday afternoon and lo and behold, our FANTASTIC ward mission leader and his GORGEOUS wife (si, usted es, hermana, no miento) have found and fellowshipped this family on the grounds of the temple and invited them in for a tour. This family is AMAZING. The husband has a mormon friend who taught him about the church and they are SO receptive! When we taught them about the Book of Mormon, they asked us, "So how much does it cost? We'll pay right now to have one." We're like, "Don't worry, we'll get it to you for free." So then we had the Ward Mission Leader and his wife invite them to com to the fireside and they accepted and they CAME! So we brought two investigators to the fireside; they met the mission president, and loved it! 

And the elder and I did our duet (piano/violin, obviously I played piano) and the cool thing was that the spirit was really there because we were able to play it quite well together. I had only practiced it 4 times and was basically sightreading. We only practiced twice together before we played. Miracles. 

Today we went to Wells Fargo bank and I had to laugh because one of the bankers came up to me and tried to convert me to Wells Fargo from Chase. It made me laugh; I just kindly rebuffed him like Jews or Muslims who come to the VC usually rebuff us, but then he told me, "Your accent is very interesting; I can't place it. Where are you from?" I told him, "America, but I speak Spanish so that's probably it." and then we proceeded to talk about pupusas and Spanish and I ended up contacting him and inviting him to come up to the VC. All without changing my banking over to Wells Fargo. Funny. :) 

Also we taught a Korean kid this week and he also was ret to go buy a Book of Mormon. Good thing the church gives those away for free. 

I registered for BYU today and it was super stressful and now it's super over. Not killing myself, just taking 5 classes, one of them ends in October, and I only have one class on Fridays. All is well. 

Love you, thanks for your love, talk to you next week. 

Esther--thanks for the postcard! It made my day! You are an angel of God!

Pictures. 1. Me and one of the senior sisters who threw a going away party and invited us on Sunday. She is so sweet, and I will miss her! 

2. there's a bacon way and a bacon court in my area. 

mmm...bacon. 

3. a persian woman we tried to teach gave us a ton of chocolate. like a ton. she literally tipped a bowl into my purse. 

but it was good. I didn't eat it all, don't worry.