Monday, October 19, 2015

Weird Week--week 16

This week was straight weird.
I was actually bitten by a dog this week. He was a shrimp though and it didn’t even hurt. But hey, a bite is a bite.
We contacted this guy in the street. As we approached him we saw he was limp walking, which means he had a deformity or was drunk or both. I thought he was drunk. When we shook his hand he looked at us, and his face looked kind of torn up and bloody a bit. He was like "I’m going to my house. I just got hit by a truck." Then he left us there speechless.
We also saw domestic violence in the street. A guy and a lady were fighting. The lady was hitting him and screaming and he was trying to make her go to his house. There was a little girl with them and she was just screaming and crying. The lady came up to us and kept telling me "ayudáme, ayudáme." At least I knew that phrase from Dora the Explorer. I had NO idea what to do so I just said a silent prayer. The ywere arguing their cases in front of us. They were all up in our grills, and we just stood there. They left when the saw that we had no idea what to do. We called the carabineros [police] after.
We talked with a Jewish man. His parents left Germany when persecution got bad in WW2. We also talked with a Muslim from Algeria. He speaks Spanish, French, Arabic, and English perfectly. He was super cool. 32 years old. Way chill.
Last p-day, we made completos [Chilean hot dogs].
Completos

I’m now exercising 30 minutes every day. Hermana Obeso told us we should all do that. I’m rushing so hard in the mornings.
There is a little girl in a park that we pass by often. We stopped to make phone calls and she came up to us to talk. She is 6 years old, and looks just like my little sister Rebecca, except Chilean. We talked. She rode her bike away. I cried a bit because she was Just like Rebecca. Such a tender mercy. No, I’m not homesick, no sarcasm there.
An antiguo investigador [former investigator] let us in to talk. Her name in our phone contacts is "gato lady", but I didn’t know why. I now know. There were 9 cats, but only 17 eyes. One was like a cyclops. During our lesson they were climbing all over me and scratching me. It was hard to focus. But as we focused, we felt the Spirit and we invited her to baptism. She didn’t accept, but she wants to learn more before she says yes. I felt the Spirit testify to her. She understood profetas [prophets] really well and she commented on how excited and happy I was as I shared.
As I have put more focus on studying for questions our investigators might have, I feel the Spirit so much stronger in my study, especially with Moroni 9 and that whole context of that chapter. And then vs. 25 and 26 hit me so hard, and I was crying.
Lee told us that even though he has a critical mind, he is convinced that it was prayer that helped him be happy with his situation here in Chile.
We are now eating lunches with members. The members here are golden and so faithful.
We are teaching Ricardo and Lorenza. We taught them the plan of salvation and shared Alma 7: 11-13. They loved it. I kept thinking throughout the day that we needed to visit them even though they weren’t in our plans. I now know it was the Spirit.
God loves us. He hears our prayers. Even when it doesn’t feel that way. I know that is true.

Elder West

Somebody's pet rock (in espanol)