Turkey, Scum and Pythons....

Buenos Dias Familia, 

Happy Thanksgiving! How was everyone's week? I had quite the
Thanksgiving. First we woke up and went to the ward turkey bowl. Our
teams technique quickly became 'get the ball to Sister Sears' because
no one wants to two- hand touch a sister missionary. Hahah. My very
first time ever playing football.
We had two meal appointments that day. First we went to the
Atkinson's. They are the best. Sister Atkinson is a lot like me. The
meal was sooo good, everything was so pretty. Their daughter Ellie is
so cute. She is adopted, you can see the two temples above the dinner
table. The first where the Atkinson's were sealed and the second where
Ellie was sealed to them. She has quite the story. Just such a great
family. Sister Atkinson went all out, it was just us two and them
three, but she made sooo much food, and six pies.

 

And then..... To our next dinner appointment. We went to Becky and Mark, Jeremy's house. Mark is the cook of the house, and we had our second Thanksgiving meal. Not like the first, but so good! I love them! We ate then spent the rest of the evening playing scum. Mark was in the 'Scum' chair all night.


Lastly, we went to Mammaw's house. I haven't told you much about Mammaw, but she's basically my Pennsylvania grandma. She is a recent convert of about four months, and the sweetest thing. Unfortunately her daughter died five years ago, and her husband three. She was not invited to her living family's thanksgiving because of family issues, so she was going to spend it alone "with a hungry man TV dinner and football." She said she didn't mind it that way, but her tears said otherwise. We surprised her with a thanksgiving dinner donated by the Atkinson's, and spent the rest of the night with her. We go over every week and teach her about the gospel, and she teaches us about life.

I'm going to jump around a lot but Saturday morning was Tom Reid's "Tom Trot," or ALS walk. We couldn't support monetarily, but we wanted to be there to walk for them. It was a 5k, and he came the whole way in his chair. The Reid's are a special family. Each time we go over we feed him, and I leave feeling so grateful for the smallest things, like the ability to scratch my own nose.

Tuesday with the Kerns was the best visit yet with them. They are both from England and their home is packed full of beautiful China and crystal everything. They used to live in a "manner," basically a castle in England. We helped brother Kerns dust the display cases. As you know I've been looking for ways to interact with June more meaningfully. It's too hard just to see her sit in her chair silently. All I could think to do was sing to her.... So I did! I sang her a Spanish Christmas hymn. And I have never seen her so happy! For the first time, she looked up and smiled and spoke to me, and clapped when I finished. The rest of the night as we went to dinner she was all smiles. Tuesday's are always a highlight for me.

Saturday night FUE UN GRAN BENDICIÓN. Hermana Delma Yolanda Rosas Flores came out to teach with us! We received THIRTY FIVE referrals for Spanish families this week! We are so excited to get to contact all of them! It was so perfect having her there, she immediately broke the ice with everyone we met. And before we knew it, she and the people would be going off in Spanish way too fast for two greenie white girls to understand all about Mexico and this and that, it was awesome. One of the families we met that night was too cute. Rodrigo's family. They have two boys, 16-18, and two girls, 2 and 17. Such a fun family. We are going back to see them this week.
Hermana Flores will be coming out with us every week now, and nothing makes me happier. In the few hours we were with her in the car and walking around, I talked to her as much as possible. I feel like I learned more Spanish in those two hours than in the past six months of personal language study. There's just no supplement for speaking with native speakers. But in return for her help we will be doing her family history with her every week as well. It will be hard to do because lol the records will be in Mexico. But she has been waiting many years to do the work for her husband and be sealed to him.
Hermana Flores was just another testament of how important a member missionary work is. Like her, every member can connect with the people in a way that the missionaries can't. It may not be the language, but there is something that each member has that someone needs that the missionary can't offer.

This week two members who we have been working with forever to get back came to church! One was brother Malone. I've taught him every week since I've been here and could never find out what was keeping him from coming. So I finally decided to flat out ask him. And his answer.. His pants! All along he had no pants to wear. So... Being eager missionaries we promised him a pants miracle, that we could find some before Sunday. Brother Malone is a very small man. We found some pants and sister smith stayed up way too late Saturday night hemming them. She had to take like. Whole foot off the bottom, hahah. But, we delivered them Sunday morning and for the first time he came! Sometimes all you've gotta do is ask.
Sister Sutherland is another we've been working with forever. I did the same with her, and she just said she's too tired to wake up in the morning. So we called her Sunday morning and woke her up. Hahaha. And she came! It pays not to dance around the subject sometimes. It was a perfect day for them to come, I spoke in sacrament meeting. About missionary work. Surprise surprise.

Sunday during third hour we passed around paper and had everyone write a card or note for Faye. Though most of them haven't ever met Faye, she will now be getting a box of 100+ cards from the ward. The ones that came back from primary were my favorite.(: Sadly we still haven't heard from her. She still has no way to contact us. All we can do is pray hard. I suppose if it is meant to happen she will be able to be baptized.

There's my week! I wish I could include all our experiences but this novel's gotta end sometime.

Gracias por todo.
Te amo muchisimo. Besos,
Hermana Sears💜