This past week was filled with glorious new experiences with my Spaniard. Since her English is a tad worse than my Spanish we spend most of the day figuring out clever ways to understand each other. I'm also teaching her the ways of American culture like the joys of a Frosty, hamburgers, pizza and shortening unnecessary words like totally to totes. Yesterday I took her to the beach and I couldn't slap the smile off her cute Spanish face. I asked her what the difference between our American beaches and her Spanish beaches are...the translation I took was her's are dirtier and everyone speaks Spanish. I am also making sure to show her the real mission life, like getting doors shut on our faces, bribing children with stickers so they'll get their parents to come talk to us and talking to crazies on the street. She loves every moment of it. I explained that in America, we just have to laugh at everything, it prevents us from going crazy like the totally wasted mustache woman we just passed stroking her cat and talking to herself. I think she got it. I took her to her first Pulga (flea market as you might recall) and I literally pushed her out into the walkway and gave her the thumbs up. She doesn't even need me, she's already a pro. While she was preaching the good word, I was eyeing the merchandise nearby. Next to our spot, gleaming in the sun, I saw this mysterious pile composed of the most beautiful purple color I've ever seen in my life. It was calling my name, but what on earth was it? I must find out so naturally, I sent an Elder over to check it out. My heart was filled with anticipation - I felt like I was on antique roadshow and I just discovered a royal cloak from Europe worth millions! As he leaned down to pick it up the owner shouted $10! The Elder yelled back, "I'll give you $5, Hna Hall, pay the man!" "But what is it?" "I don't know but, I know you want it." It's true, I did. I paid the man and went on our way. Now...my typed words can not do this story justice, but let's just say I fell in the classic trap of greed. What I had just purchased, from the flea market, was a royal purple, VELVET, king size blanket with matching pom-pom fringe on the ends. Yes, fringe. It weighs 20 pounds, is most likely covered with actual fleas and was carted all the way back to my apartment by Elders telling the entire mission that Sister Hall bought a monster from the flea market for $5. However, now that I own such a beauty all I can think about is how on earth am I going to be able to tack this on the wall...the purple monster has truly found it's home.
We had 5 baptisms this weekend. Ahem, I don't mean to brag, but I can't help it. They were amazing. One poor lady had to be dunked three times, she just couldn't keep her arm down, poor thing. I thought after the first she wasn't going to do it again and then after the second failure, I thought I was going to have to jump over the glass and hold her down before she ran out of the building screaming...but she did it. Phew. To balance out all of the baptisms, we decided to drop all of our non-progression investigators which means we are left pounding to the pavement looking for former investigators and any new prospects the Lord puts in our path. I pretend like I'm intentionally giving my trainee a taste of the real mission life, she seems to love it so I won't mention the part about me being a little freaked out to not have anyone set to teach. I know all my English speaking missionary friends hate me right now, but I was given a beautiful gift to be in the Spanish program...they ALWAYS want to learn about Jesus. They LOVE Jesus. It's the water part they don't love.
This week in Yerba Buena, I learned how to make pupusas which are the best things I've ever put in my mouth that I made with my hands and I helped my Spaniard make tortilla de patatas which is basically a Spanish quiche. It was divine. She promised she'd teach me how to make paella and I told her I'd teach her how to make American food...at McDonalds. We are so lazy.
Now, for the temporal and spiritual lesson I learned yesterday at the beach. We all had a mighty fine blast and knew that we would want to properly document the trip so we all took all of our cameras and while we played we left them there, in their bags on a blanket. After our joyous romps on the beach we headed back to the bus to review our day via image. Thanks to the wind and other unavoidable circumstances...aka Elders...all of our cameras suffered death by sand. All. Those tiny grains of sand found their way into every crevice of our delicate electronics and just destroyed them. (yes, I am fully aware that I am gaining a reputation of having my camera in places cameras should never be, but the beach will never be as horrific as a Turkish toilet.) As I lamented the loss of another camera on the bus ride back I thought about the sand in our lives (I don't want to say crevices because that sounds really crass). Those little sins, those little bad habits...they just sneak right into our lives. They hide themselves and as they do they slowly break us down until we can no longer move. Of course we can be proactive and try to protect ourselves from the sand and wind, but we are human and sand is very tiny. We continually need to shake ourselves and sometimes get a big puff of compressed air to clean out all that junk. Thank heavens for the ability we have been given by Jesus Christ to review and cleanse ourselves daily. Take advantage of it. Use it. Get that sand out, it's so flippin messy and it's really expensive to fix when it goes too far.
xoxo,
Hermana Hall
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