Hey everyone! what is going on in the states. Here, it is hot. Really hot. I love having some ac in our house at night so it is not too hot. but wait. This week our area lost power twice at night! It was seriously so awesome. I love waking up in a pool of sweat. I have a clock and a temp thing and it was 90 degrees in our house. So clearly we had to open the windows to get some breeze. No luck there! The sun could have still been out in the middle of the night and there was no breeze. Yeah, I had to take a cold shower and try to get some sleep but it was seriously not fun haha.
So my mom wanted to hear about some reactions we get when we approach new people. I guess I havent really talked about that so Ill give you some of their reactions.
Conversation 1 (obviously, all in spanish)
*clap clap clap* (knocking, but we clap at the fence)
Hola, how are you doing today?
Que dice? What say you?
Hi can we shake your hand and introduce ourselves?
I am Catolica.
Oh ok, well we are missionaries and we are hear to share..
Another day! (as she turns to walk back inside)
Ok, gracias!
Conversation 2
*a group sitting outside*
Hey, hows it going today?
Hi.
Hey we are walking around in the heat today looking to share the word of God with everyone we can talk to! Have you guys seen or talked to missionaries before?
Yeah, yesterday they came by.
Oh really, with shirts and ties like us?
Yeah, but we are catholic.
then we proceed to explain what we do, ask questions, try to get them to talk about their relationship with God and see if we can find a need they have.
Most of the time, the reject us and we walk away saying. Hmmm. this is our area, and there are not any missionaries close to us or this area. And I know for a fact they didnt talk to us yesterday. And we laugh because it is a pretty common response they give us to try and get us to go away.
Conversation 3
*clapping on houses again*
Hey hows it going today? Its super hot today no?
Hi, yeah its super hot! What are you guys doing walking in the heat and sun at this time? Do you have anything to protect your face?
(Pause. This is where I say yes and show them my umbrella. Yes, I used to make fun of grandmas that used umbrellas to walk around during the summer. And now I am the grandpa that uses an umbrella to walk around in the sun bc suncreen does not stick to my face.)
Do you guys want cold water? Please come and sit down!
When people invite us to sit down it is awesome. Doesn't happen a lot but its great when it does.
We get a lot of different responses. There are actually a lot of times where people try to act like they cant hear us, or the walk out side, see us, and turn around. Its pretty funny to watch the people get up from the shade and quickly walk inside as we are coming down the street.
On New Years day, we clapped at a house and a kid came out. We asked to talk to his parents, so he ran and got his mom. She walked out, groaned, and walked back inside. So, we took one of our pass along cards and wrote "happy new years" and left it on her gate. That was pretty funny.
We always ask to share in the moment we are there, bc we know a next time will be hard to get. BUt if they say they are busy, we ask to come by another time. This is the most common response to the question.
"Im almost never here. I mean, Im hear right now, but I work a lot and Im never here."
"is there a moment at night or a day you are home?"
"I work super late every day. I dont get home until around 6 or im here Sundays."
"Oh perfect, we are working until 9 every day, we could come by in the night this week?"
"Oh well some times i work later, i dont have a schedule!" or "puede ser (yeah maybe..basically is the translation or what they mean)
But dont get me wrong these responses always make me laugh, but we definitely have people that accept us! Right now, we are bering blessed so much! The last 3 or 4 weeks we have had 3 or 4 investigators in church, and we have a baptism this Saturday! And have baptisms scheduled with people that are actually progressing and attending church for a couple weeks in a row and I am super stoked for that. Nothing brings joy like watching someone progress spiritually in something such as baptism! One thing I have learned here is that everyone has their agency. We cannot control anyones actions, but we can control ours. We can control our feelings and our reactions to things other people do our say to us. We can choose to be happy and not let that stuff affect us, and I have seen a difference in that! Nobody can make us feel angry, only ourselves can choose to be angry at something someone says. Dont get me wrong, at first I didnt believe this. There are times when people say stuff that we are going to lose some patience or be angry, and feel we cant control that. But if you try to just shrug it off and be happy, you will feel sooooo much happier!
These past two weeks we had 2 services. One, we helped a family mow their lawn and we actually used a lawn mower. It actually made me miss mowing the lawn. Weird bc I hated doing that every saturday at home...
The other one, we helped clean up mangos. Mangos taste good. Quick question. Do mangos exist in the states? Honestly not sure. Anyways, they taste good but i would never want a tree. They drop soooooo many fruits every day you cant keep up. And they are dangerous. They hurt when the fall and hit you. So we helped a family in our ward clean them up, and an old grandma walked by and asked how much we charge? We told her it was a service so she asked us to come by and clean her porch. So we did, with the help of 2 kids in our ward that are so cool, and Alfredo, who just turned 12 told her. "They will only clean your yard if you come to church with us!" (They live just 2 houses down from here) haha it was awesome. But shes super catholic but it was a fun service anyways!
I love you all! Hope you enjoyed hearing about some responses we get😁
Elder Zaugg
PIC.
Sorry, I am slacking on the pictures and only have one this week. I made some gluten free pancakes with buttermilk syrup and it was sooooooo good. haha
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miles 64.8
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