Doing the work!

Well I got to hold a baby alligator yesterday! Was really cool! Kind of wanted him to bite me, but I resisted the urge.

We had a pretty good week.  Our area is still a little slow, so this might not be as exciting as some other places. But good for me.

Some funny things I have noticed. People automatically think that missionaries know how to lead music, wonder if they have realized I have been writing my name in cursive ;) And they love to have the new missionaries say the prayers. They think it is funny or something. And since they put me on the spot, I don’t remember how to pray in Spanish sometimes.

Being with someone 24/7 is harder than I thought. I never realized how much I like being alone, until I cant. But live and learn. But you do learn many important lessons that will help you later in life. Which I can see is a blessing.

This week has been a trial of faith. One day we were getting ready to leave and I felt that we needed to go tract this part of town. I had no idea why but we weren’t even going to do it but I made us do it. We go there and take the list of the people who have Hispanic sounding last names, and no one answers their door. We are walking back down the street to our car and I notice a sand box exactly like the one I had as a kid (it was a turtle) and I was looking at it. There was a guy shooting hoops, a typical Hoosier, no shirt, beer belly, etc. He was white so we waved hello and kept walking. Then he runs to his fence and tells us to come back. Asks us if we were going door to door, we said yes, and then asked why we didn’t stop at his door. We explained we were really only looking for Spanish speaking people. But then he started telling us all this stuff about his life. Man he has lived a hard life. Been to like 6 different religions, lived on the streets for 10 years, has anger issues.......many more problems. Thought he knew God then realized all the bad stuff that happens in the world and doesn’t know if he believes in him or not. I felt like he needed the gospel so bad! And he was genuinely interested, but we couldn’t stay because his girlfriend showed up and stuff. He was the answer and the blessing of our faith. We were literally done tracting and were about to go somewhere else. We set up a return appointment so we could introduce him to the Elders. Sadly he wasn’t there and he is getting kicked out of his house tomorrow. We have stopped by but no avail. I hope he finds the missionaries wherever he ends up, because he is so ready to receive it!

Another good thing that happened this week is we got one of our investigators to say that she would be baptized if she came to know the church was true! We tried to get her to commit to November first, but she said that it might be too soon, so we asked her to pray about it and tell us a date that she would feel comfortable with. Then we committed her to pray about the Book of Mormon. The lesson was sooooooo cool because the spirit was literally so strong that I could almost touch it! Leaving that lesson I felt on fire, not because I had done a good job, but because the spirit is awesome! I wanted to go up and commit everyone to being baptized! She is one of those investigators who is super prepared, has been searching for the right church for a while, and has a lot of our same beliefs. 

Heavenly Father is merciful, because we were able to teach her in English, and the only reason is, is because if she were to ever bring her husband to church, it would be in the Spanish branch because he is from Mexico. It was nice because I was a little down and then the spirit like smacked me awake! It was awesome! It is interesting how He will comfort you too. Like one small compliment on how good my Spanish is after 2 months goes a long ways in making me feel a little more comfortable, but not go to my head because I can’t understand what they are saying after that. Which is ironic.

Love

Elder Porter

A few extra’s to questions I asked him: 

The language is coming.....slowly. It’s hard when you are surrounded by English. We mostly speak English but I am trying to speak more Spanish. 

Our area is huge! Because we are Spanish. We don’t even go up into Michigan because there aren’t very many Hispanics, and we don’t have the miles for it. 

We will be watching conference at the chapel, and we could choose to watch it in Spanish if we wanted.

I try to exercise every morning and I am getting better at it :) but I don’t like it very much still.

I am building up my stores of cooking supplies; it’s just hard because we can’t buy in bulk cuz we move so much. But I made fettuccini and French toast, and we got fed this week too because of mission conference and stuff. I am trying to be healthy too. But bread is not healthy no matter what, but I do get wheat :)

(Oops – I have ruined him for store bought bread - since I have made our bread for most of his life.)

I reread my Patriarchal blessing this week. Wow it’s crazy how much you get out of it when you are at a different stage in life. I hope I can make the correct decisions to accomplish the "great and holy work" the Lord has for me . . . . I want to do what the Lord wants me to do so bad, and it scares me that I won’t do what I’m supposed to do.  Just a thought.

Love you