June 1 letter

Hello EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!! Happy June 1st!
Oh dear...this week. What can I say about this week? Let's start off with a hilariously funny story shall we? (ahem): So, Hermana Brown and I were knocking doors and these people all have fences around there houses right! Well at least the majority. They don’t always have a bell that you can ring so you have to clap. My companion was trying to clap and the dog behind the fence stuck his head through the fence into her face. He was a friendly dog, and he just wanted to play, but she couldn’t clap. When he did that, I said, “Hermana, distract him and I’ll clap over here.” I started clapping and the dog came over to my side and stuck his head through the fence. I didn’t see him until he stuck his head through the fence and it surprised me. I leaned backwards to avoid his head and little did I know, there was another flipping dog standing right behind me! Can you guess what comes next in the story? Yep, you guessed it, I fell over the flipping dog! My companion started laughing histerically and at that point, the man who lived in the house had come out to find my companion dying of laughter and me trying to get up off of the ground while laughing hysterically as well. We couldn’t even finish the contact dadgummit because we were both laughing so hard. I got myself together enough to present ourselves and tell him we wanted to share our message with him. He didn’t let us in, but let’s be honest, I wouldn’t have let us in either if we were laughing like drunk people. It was sooooo funny, but so ridiculous because we couldn’t finish the contact with composure. =( What are you gonna do? This week started off with a talent show with the branch. It was an awesome turn out and we were really surprised at how many people were there. Hermana Brown, our ward mission leader, his girlfriend and I all did the “In the jungle the mighty jungle” song. We laid on our backs on a table and drew faces on our chins and sang. Some of you may know how this works. It was ridiculous, but of course I had fun! =)Thank you Linsey for the letter and pictures! You looked absolutely gorgeous that night! You must have been the talk of the dance! One of the hermanas I live with said, “Tell your little sister her boyfriend is hot and to ask him if he has an older brother.” She goes back home to California next week. Anyway, I just wanted to say that Carly and I have the same haircut and Audrey looked soooo beautiful in the picture of the three of you. I was very much surprised when I flipped to the picture of the girls and saw that Carly’s haircut was my haircut and I kinda went...huh...lookin good honey, lookin good. =) Happy anniversary Brenton and Sarah on Saturday the 6th! WOOHOO! One year! That’s awesome! I love you guys! =D Tuesday was quite possibly the worst/best day of the week. Hermana Brown and I both had the feeling that we needed to go visit one of the inactive members, Blanca Lopez. I believe I have mentioned her before. Anyway, we asked her how she was doing with the word of wisdom. She told us that she smokes to keep from eating. I just looked at her and thought...is that some crazy Argentine diet?! It was so dumb. We again got on the subject of going to church. Hello, we’re missionaries, that’s what we talk about 24/7. Anyway, she started talking about and giving us absolutely every excuse in the book and it was getting really heated because she wasn’t listening to us. She told us that nobody knows how she feels, nobody knows what it’s like to feel alone and we said, “yes, Blanca, there is one person who knows how you feel. Jesus Christ.” Then she said the most atrocious thing that I have ever heard come out of any mouth. She said, “Jesus Christ wasn’t alone. He still had His family and His disciples.”...Oh no she DIDN’T! I could not believe my ears. I said, “Blanca, that’s enough! I can’t listen to anymore. God withdrew his spirit from Jesus Christ, do you know why?”—“Why?”—“For you! So that you would never have to feel alone!” Aparently she didn’t know this, but that didn’t stop her. She kept arguing so we had to leave. I have never felt the spirit leave so quickly as it did in that moment. I hate that. So many times we can feel the spirit so strong and then something like that happens and it’s really REALLY hard to get it back.We decided we needed to sit down, sing a song and pray before we tried to do contacting again. When I was praying personally I thought, Heavenly Father, please help us bounce back from this experience. Bless us with thy spirit so that we can have a good day anyway. To our astonishment, the appointment we had set up for 3 o’clock did not fall through and we got into a house and taught a really amazing family of 3. Adrian (the father), Joana (the mother), and Cintia (the daughter, 18) The mom said she was kind of tired of churches and didn’t ever want to go to one. When we taught about the restoration and the proper authority from God, we asked her if she would be baptized when she knew it was true. She said yes! WOOHOO!!! They all committed to reading and praying! It was awesome! That night, we taught the man who came to church a week ago, Hugo, remember? Anyway, the appointment was awesome and he’s such a cool guy! We taught about the restoration and about how he can bless his family when he has the priesthood, which turned out to be perfect because we talked about the priesthood in the gospel priniciples class yesterday. Anyway, we asked him as well if he would be baptized when he knew that this was true. He also said yes! Woohoo! You don’t even know. This guy is so capo. He really wants to change his life and he’s so so SO humble.We did some more contacting after that. Hermana Brown and I have had the goal this week to get 17 contacts for each of us. 34 people every day. It was so hard. This area is not like centro. You do not have a million people walking through the streets every day so door knocking and talking to everyone and their dog is absolutely necessary. And they definitely do NOT always answer their doors.When the night was winding down, we were walking to wait for a collectivo and we hear 3 gunshots. Don’t worry, we were a block away from where they were. When we rounded the corner, we saw 5 or 6 teenage boys running across the street looking very much like they had been the cause of the gunshots. Everyone was outside the kioskos and businesses looking to see what had happened. We were very excited to get home this night. Tuesday was in every way very very stressful and we were so tired.We taught Joana again on Friday alone and we committed her to coming to church. She told us she hadn’t prayed about the message because she didn’t know how. We invited her to pray right then and ask. When she began to pray, she started to cry. She apologized to Heavenly Father for not praying more, but she didn’t know how. We asked her how she felt when we taught her and she said she could feel something in her chest. We told her that that was Heavenly Father telling her that we have something that he wants her to have. We set up another appointment and said we would come by Sunday morning at 9:15 to get her for church. When we went by her house, however to get her and walk together, she was working. She had misunderstood us when we said we would pass by at 9:15. She said sorry so many times because she should have known it was for the morning and not the evening because the evening is 21:00. Anyway, we taught her on Sunday afternoon again with her daughter and it went so well. They’re really progressing and Hermana Brown and I love teaching them!We taught Hugo again last night and he is just awesome. He is such a deep thinker and he is a really nice man. He has a really good heart and he seemed so much happier at church yesterday. When we taught him we committed him to be baptized on June 13!!! Woohoo!!! He was concerned that he wouldn’t be ready on time, but I told him that it was a goal and we would keep teaching him and that he needed to continue reading the Book of Mormon and praying and if by the time his baptism comes, he’s not ready, we’ll change the date. He agreed and we set up another appointment. Ah...the life of a missionary. =)We got into a house every day this week except Monday, Friday and Sunday. That brought us to 8 new investigators for the week and a lot of people to visit and teach. We’re way pumped to see what we can do this next week. We’re a little bit worried because there are no sister missionaries coming in until October so there will be a lot of areas closing and we’re thinking they might close ours. Heaven forbid. We’re really praying they don’t. Anyway, that’s all for now from Argentina. Well, not really, there’s always more, but I’ve got places to go, people to see. You know the drill! Have an amazing week everyone! LOOOOVE you!
Hermana Shumway