May 25 Letter

Hello everyone!
Well this week had its ups and downs, but Hermana Brown and I definitely came out on top! Tuesday we had our district meeting and it went soooooo well! Our district read an amazing story about an LDS man boarding a plane. He tells the story of seeing a missionary flying to Utah with his parents to report to the MTC and described the image he saw in this young man. Then he sits down and sees that he’s sitting next to a missionary that was obviously going home. The resemblance between the two missionaries was only one thing: their hair cut. He goes on in a lot of detail about how tired this missionary looked (seeing as how they hadn’t even taken off yet and he was fast asleep), of how you could tell in everything about his body that he had definitely given his all to the Lord for two years. It was such a good story and a super good motivation for me. My district leader is going to give me a copy of it and I’ll make a copy of it and send it to you. After the meeting we head out to work again. It’s amazing how Satan works…amazing and so stinking ridiculous. We were so pumped to go out and work after our meeting but every single person we talked to was a bum. A lady even told me that prophets don’t exist. You can imagine the fighting words that were going through my head at this point. With people like her, however, all you can do is invite them to pray with a smile and move on to look for the ones that really are waiting for you. When we were just about to give in to discouragement, we met one of the women we contacted in the street two weeks ago. Her name is Eugenia. She’s 18, has a 3 year-old son and looks like she’s in her 30’s. Pobrecita. We were so excited to see her because she was so cool the first time we met her. We asked her if she had a little time right then to talk to her. She said yes and we sat down and began to teach her a few things. She told us that the morning she met us on the street, she had been praying to Heavenly Father to give her some comfort and help her because she was so depressed and didn’t want to go on with life anymore. After she met us, she felt so happy that she went home and thanked Heavenly Father for sending us to her. It was so awesome. She loved the message we shared and she basically set up the next appointment. It was soooo awesome! We also agreed to meet at that same spot in the street to go to church together on Sunday! Woohoo!!! Many times you must go through the desert to get to the Promised Land. Wednesday after we ate lunch my companion got SUPER sick. Poor girl. She was so pale and she said she felt like she was going to throw up pretty much the whole day. We went home a little early. The next day she wasn’t feeling any better, but we had an appointment with an old investigator so we went out and worked the whole morning until the appointment. We arrived at Ana Maria’s house (the old investigator) and she kindly let us in after getting rid of the blood thirsty dogs that were barking at us from her windows. When we sat down, I asked her if she knew that God’s church was on the earth, would she join it? She said yes, but how can we know which is the right one? We taught her lesson one and extended the baptismal commitment. She didn’t really give us a yes or a no. She said, “I’ve already been baptized.” Then I did a VERY short review of the apostasy and we told her if she really wants to know what church is true, she needs to read the Book of Mormon and pray SPECIFICALLY to know if it’s true. Many people when we extend the invitation to pray say, “I always pray.” Yes, that’s true, but you don’t pray to ask if your church is true or if our church is true, so you’re basically walking in the middle of the dark. They can never answer us if we ask them directly if they have prayed to ask if their church is true, neither can they answer if they’re people who have talked to the missionaries before and we ask them if they prayed to know if it’s really God’s church. Ridiculous. After our lunch appointment on Thursday, Hermana Brown thought she was going to die. She looked like it too. I thought she would throw up right then and there after we walked out of the house. She tried to walk it off, but she said, “I’m so sorry, Hermana, I don’t know what’s wrong, but I can’t walk, I’m so dizzy.” We went back home and she rested and I studied my scriptures. Friday we planned in the morning, Hermana Brown was feeling a little better at this point, still not 100%, but she didn’t really know what to do with herself so after our planning session we ate and left to work. On our way to our appointment with Eugenia, we met with two crazy people who came up to us and started asking questions. One of them, a man from Peru, told us that he, too, knows the word of God. He started telling us the story of Joseph that was sold into Egypt by his brothers and was like, “see? I, too, know the word of God and look how God has blessed me…” He takes out this huge wad of cash from his pocket and I’m just sitting there thinking, “you better pray real hard that God blesses you again so you don’t get robbed from being that stupid pulling out all your money in this neighborhood pal.” Friday wasn’t the best day, but it was our 7 months mark so we decided to eat ice cream. Yum yum yum. =) We had an appointment with Eugenia Friday, but she never came to the spot where we agreed to meet. She didn’t come to church on Sunday either. However, we had an old investigator come to church that was taught by the missionaries 3 years ago. Funny because one of them that taught him now lives here in Independencia. She introduced us to him and said he’s basically a dry member. We have an appointment with him tomorrow and we’re going to put a baptismal date with him! WOOHOO!!! It’s interesting that the theme ever since I’ve been in this area every sacrament meeting has been missionary work. You’d think the ward needed to change or something…this ward is really really difficult. My companion told me that before I got here, they were with one of the families asking for references and the parents said the Lord told them he didn’t want investigators in this ward. The said family still has this opinion and I just want to say, HELLO! If that were true, my companion and I wouldn’t be here! It’s been tough, but we have a meeting later this afternoon with the leaders in the branch and we’re going to get something organized because something has GOT to change. Thanks family for all your love and support and the wonderful friends I have. I can’t tell you how comforting it is to think about when we have hard days. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have and the things I have felt while being in the mission field. These experiences cannot be had anywhere else. Anybody can serve a mission if they have the desire to do it. If you keep the habits you develop, you will have the best life ever. I know I’m not home yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m telling the truth. =) I hope all is well! Have a great week!
All my love,Hermana Shumway