Cancelled Lessons, Drug Dealers, and Rhubarb Pie

 

It's been a crazy week and I don't have much time to write this email, but here we go!

We had a pass-off lesson for Zach with the STL's! We talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and it went REALLY well! I was so glad that the Sisters could see how amazing Zach is and that they were excited to teach him! He agreed to a return appointment with them, so Hermana Behymer and I felt pretty successful! We're sad we won't get to keep teaching him, but we're excited for Zach to keep learning and growing, and we know that the STL's will do a great job! Hopefully someday, we'll get a message from them saying he's on-date for baptism!

We had lessons this week with Jose Luis and Jose Rivera (we also have Jose Reyes in our Branch, so that's totally not confusing whatsoever) and we invited Brynli Bleak, a member of our Branch, to come to the lessons with us, but both of them didn't show up! We were so sad, because we had been really excited about these lessons and both of these guys seemed like they really wanted to learn, and also, we felt like we had wasted Brynli's time (she just recently got back from her mission in Chile, so she was very understanding, but we still felt bad). Hopefully we'll be able to reschedule those appointments and actually be able to teach them again!

On Friday, we went to visit some previously-taught people in our Area Book, including a guy that Hermana Becker and I had met named Luis. We had only met him once, but he had taken a Book of Mormon and said we could come back and teach him and his girlfriend, so we were really excited!...and then we kept going back and knocking on his door, with no answer...when we went this last time and stood on Luis' doorstep, a guy from across the street yelled "no one lives there anymore" and I said 'oh...we met a guy named Luis who was here a couple weeks ago...he doesn't live here anymore?" and the guy said "they left...too much police activity" and we probably looked confused, so he added "DRUGS!" and we were like "ohhhhh...ok...have a good day." So yeah, pretty sure Luis is a drug dealer or something...

On Saturday, we went and pulled weeds as a District for a lady that our District Leaders know - she was so sweet and had Hermana Behymer and me pick some rhubarb to make rhubarb pie (she also gave us a recipe) so I guess we'll be making some rhubarb pie sometime today!

Sunday was the 4th of July! We went to church and there were about 7 people total...AND it was Fast and Testimony meeting, which meant that everyone had to get up and bear their testimony...including Brother Hazelett, who doesn't speak Spanish. It was a really good testimony meeting though!

We had to be in our apartment by 6pm since it was a holiday, so we did lots of Facebook that night and, long story short, a guy from Venezuela wants me to sponsor him and his family to come to America (even though I told him I have no money) and another guy was hitting on me and saying that he was like Moses and "maybe you are my Holy Land"...so yeah, that was interesting.

"...we did pour out our souls in prayer to God, that he would strengthen us and deliver us out of the hands of our enemies...yea, and it came to pass that the Lord our God did visit us with assurances that He would deliver us, insomuch that he did speak peace to our souls, and did grant unto us great faith, and did cause us that we should hope for our deliverance in Him."  --Alma 58:10-11

I thought it was cool that I came across this verse during my Personal Study on the 4th of July: When we put our trust in God and are fighting for the right reasons (freedom, family, religion, etc.), the Lord promises to deliver us - sometimes, it might not be the way we're expecting or when we want it to happen, but He WILL deliver us, in His perfect timing.

Love you all and have a great week!!!

 

Happy Independence Day!

Good thing we read the signs....