Of Lakes, Slides, and Teaching Primary

The Lakes of General Villegas

HOLAAA familia y amigos!

 This week was great! The first half was dominated by some heavy rain showers but that didn't stop us from going out and preaching the good word of God. It cleared up and was beautiful for a few days then to continue the Pday curse of less than ideal weather, it returned to grey skies and forecasted rain. We are just hoping that it is not another consecutive stream of rain because many homes were flooded in poorer areas of town and the streets turn into lakes with 0% chance of crossing unless you are up for a swim.

 On one of our way rainy days we were out in the corner of the street in the morning, having just gone to all of the people we had planned to visit and to have not been let into one door. So naturally we were a bit discouraged and reevalutaing where we should go, and to put the cherry on top, this dog decides to stop right in front of us in the mud, when there are clearly so many other places it could have gone, but stops right in front of us and kicks the mud up on us, getting Hermana Whitworth's face. Initially we were surprised and quite irritated by the rudeness of the dog, but that quickly turned into laughter. Luckily minutes, after we were let into the home of a nice family in our group. The mom, along with her two young daughters (3 and 7) had very recently began to come back to church. We watched a Book of Mormon cartoon with them which was exactly what they, as well as we, needed haha.

  We got to do more service this week! We painted the slide of an elementary school with a less active member. The paint was just about the equivalent of sticky dried up nail polish but it turned out to look pretty good at the end, as long as you didn't look too close.

 Hermana Whitworth and I are now the primary teachers, teaching all the children, here in our little group in Villegas. It sounds like a fun job but let me tell you the kids here are quite the handful, very new to the whole reverence concept. And the language barrier is a stuggle when you have 10 kids talking at the same time. Hermana and I had a hard time understanding them at times as well which resulted in something like this...

 "What can we do to Choose the right?"
 "We can fight with our brothers and sisters.."
"Very good!"

 We were just assuming that they would give us a reasonable response.
 When it was clearly evident they were not listening and on a million thought streams, we busted out the pages we brought that they could color with the letters HLJ(haz lo justo= choose the right). That occupied them for the rest of the time. Our patience was tested to say the least haha but we are learning important things that will surely help us in the future.

 This week we had a whole lot of lessons and found new investigators who are receptive and follow through with committments! We were able to share the Restoration video with Shamila and her son Alan (11) and what really stood out to us was the attention that Alan was paying to the video. He afterwards stated that he really liked it, and that he was going to pray to know if it was true. We also were able to help him with studying english and he got a great score on his exam ;) He is a smart kid and basically knew everything before we helped him so we can't really take much credit. They are such a sweet family who truly looks out for one another. They have one son with down syndrome and he is so precious, always blowing us kisses. They always welcome us warmly into their home and love to hear what we have to share.

 I love all of the daily experiences that we have that fill us with joy. I love being able to testify of my Savior Jesus Christ. I love the knowledge that I have that the church of Jesus Christ was restored, and that God lives today. He is so conscious of us and He wants nothing more than for us to feel of his love and support. Though at times we may get discouraged, whether it be waiting in the chapel for at least one of the many people we invited to show up, or for someone to open the door, or for someone to read the Book of Mormon. Still there is  evidence that all what we are saying is true. We are constantly humbled and are told to have faith and to take things step by step, trusting in the will of God and His time.  We practice patience in the things that may be out of our reach. We are told, "but that ye have patience, and bear with afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions." That sounds pretty nice...but it requires effort. It requires us to have faith and put in practice what we are learning and not procrastinating the day of our repentance. There has never been a better time than now.

 Love you all have a wonderful week!

 Hermana Mathis