chasing trains.

I hope nobody is offended by this, but it must be shared.

 

Yesterday,  we were having a lesson with Ricardo. He has mentioned that he was lifting weights the other night, so as good little missionaries, trying to make everything apply, we decided to use that for an analogy. We were going along the lines of "just like you need to exercise your body with weights, how can we exercise our spirit?" aka church.read. all the typical answers.

nothing out of the ordinary.

The question was played, "Ricardo, why do you exercise and lift weights?".

without skipping a beat he says, "so I have no problem jumping the border. they'll never catch me"

 

I was crying. mainly because I knew how dead serious he was.

well.....somehow we taught an entire lesson on the atonement being related to jumping the border.

and it's actually one of the best/spiritual lessons i've been in.

 

If I was watching myself, I would be proud.

 

Also, have I told how great my previous stalking skills have come into play on the mission? It's nothing short of marvelous. We were driving down the street going towards G-units house. Except we were really going there with the intent to teach Blanca (Because if we got G-unit and Gabriel they would just talk and talk and talk and no lesson would be taught). As we are on our way, we see Blanca walking home, but about 6ish blocks away. Somehow we had to make it non chelant that we would "just run into her", somehow at her house, at the exact same time as her, withour her dad knowing. Aka we had to be at her house, without being seen by her or her family. Not so easy when you are in a little red car, in a place where not a lot of people have cars. Hence where stalking comes into play.

We take this really weird alternate route, where i'm pretty part of it cars are not normally allowed. We take the back entrance of the trailor park and drive painfully slow. Yes, all the neighbors just looked at us and thought "it's the mormons at it again". We got to a corner where our car was hidden and Hermana Wheatley sticks her head out the window, watching for blanca. As soon as she started coming up the street, I turn the corner, just slow enough we would still catch her, but her dad wouldn't see us first. We finally drove through a crowd of pigeons and passed her, going the opposite way, just before she got home.

We then pretended like it was some miraculous serendipidous event that we just happened to pass by her. She obviously bought it and started freaking out because she was SO happy to see us. She started crying as we had an opening prayer.

Then her dad came out, and the lesson turned into a huge talk about marriage advice. Who would have thought the bible would be the next 17 magazine dating guide? They are already making bets on when Hermana Wheatley will get married. I pulled the "I'm still here for over a year! can't pick on me!"

 

Did I ever tell you about Daniel and how we are helping him with his alcohol addiction? Well a week or two ago we go over, he's drinking whiskey. I'm sick of it, cause he's always drunk. So we put a picture of the temple on the front and a list of people he loves on the back label. I then told him to go dump out his bottle. Which he did. It was actually super cool experience, besides me smelling like whiskey, mcdonals and dogs because of it. He said that was the day he would stop drinking. I think he was doing good, but the other day we drive up. Hermana Wheatley was on the phone and looking for him. I see him around the corner with a can of beer. He saw us, freaked out and dove into bushes. this man is almost 80 years old. I guess that's one way to avoid the missionaries

 

And as if my life couldn't get funnier,

we were with the Elders at Antonio's place doing a pass off lesson. We were all getting into our cars and I look at the door and I see this bright light which looked like a fire. I got super nervous for a second because we've had 2 huge fires in our area this week alone. But then I thought it must be my imagination. He then flings open the door, holding a HOME MADE TORCH in his hand! He ran our with this huge flame and said "THIS IS LIKE THE SPIRIT. LIKE A FIRE BURNING".

 

This is not real life. I must be making this up.

 

But I'm not.

 

And the crazy thing is, amongst all of this, and a bunch of other stories that I haven't even touched on we are teaching like crazy. Knocking on tons of doors, passing out Libros de Mormon like hot cakes. I thought a mission would be all serious, but most of my spiritual experiences have actually been paired with some of the funniest experiences. And we're having a blast. Is that legal? I don't even know. But I do know that this church is special. We not only have the opportunity and authority to have eternal life, but we have the reason to enjoy life here! It's a message of hope and purpose, and I love that. and I'm so lucky to be a part of it.

 

Well that's about it. Incase you couldn't tell, I'm just cracking up right now and can only think of the really funny things. Also, I ate cow stomach lining/intestine soup (actually I'm not entirely sure what it was) yesterday. all the members were amazed that I tried it. But I had to, just to say I did.

 

Enjoy the last few hours of April! I can't believe it's May already. Make sure you party hard for Cinco de Mayo.....cause it's gonna be nuts down here. it already is.

Love You. Can't wait to hear from you. Keep sending awesome stories (like the pink 5K...loved hearing about that) and keep me updated!

 

xoxo

hermana aguas

 

p.s. HEATHER FOSTER I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ARE GETTING MARRIED IN LESS THAN TWO WEEKS!