August 24, 2015
Mi familia!
I hope you all have a fantastic week! Island life is beautiful and I'm so glad I have the chance to share it with a real islander too! This week I started to learn French for my compie. It. Is. Hard. Ugh. Ha, we've been reading the Book of Mormon on the Guagua (bus) when there's nobody to talk to and I feel like who ever made up the spelling in French was completely whacked out. My companion taught me "Just don't pronounce half the word." I started doing that. It actually worked! Boy you really know mission calls are inspired when you learn Spanish instead of French!
The other day my comp was explaining some boats they have on her island and I was like "Oo! Oo! Are they like the kind of boats on Johnny Lingo?!" She was confused so I started explaining Johnny Lingo to her and she's like " Ohhhh! Kolipoki!" Bahahahahaha!!! Yep Kolipoki :) You know you're an from the Pacific Islands when....
Onto spiritual matters: I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but I have gained such a testimony of visiting teaching on my mission and on Tuesday I had the opportunity to see visiting teaching done right. We were invited to the birthday party of one of our less actives and her nonmember mother. Annnd the visiting teachers we there. Not only were they there to share a message with this family for her birthday, but the love they held for this dear sister was palatable. This sister knew that her visiting teachers loved her and they loved and cared for her nonmember mother as well. What a great example those two woman are for me!
We ate lunch with "M." (our wonderful investigator), "C." (a recent convert), and "M." (a member) at the house of Hno "C." yesterday and later we visited "M." in her home and we asked her "M.", do you want to be baptized?" I was generally wondering. We've been teaching her forever now and she's one of those people who just looove learning and I just wanted to know how she was feeling about it, heaven know we talk about it often enough, and she's shot us down often enough, and with the lunch yesterday a lot of the conversation had been focused on earnest seekers of truth. And she shot back "Well, I'm the process of that aren't I?" Haha! I love Spaniards! Then she asked us "When do you have those baptismal services anyways?" "Well actually we're having one on the 12th....;)" "Oh! that's way too early! I've only been learning with you guys 7 weeks!" Ha. I love her. She is so meticulous about her life and she truly wants to know exactly what she's getting into. I wish she would see what we see. She is honestly the most prepared person I have ever met. She is striving constantly to better her life. When we walked into her house last night. She had a huge book case filled with self improvement and learning books. She is so earnest and I love her for that. She'll be baptized I know she will, even if she's too meticulous to set a date right now.
Our other wonderful friend, "E.", accepted a date to be baptized this week! I'm so excited for him. He is the epitome of childlike faith. He has pure good desires to follow Christ and when we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ this week he responded without hesitation to our invitation to be baptized. "Lo haré." (I will do it!) Ah! Chills!
We also had a pretty powerful lesson with "P.", our Cuban friend. Law of Chastity time. :) You see "P." learned his English from songs. And they weren't church hymns either. It's actually kinda frustrating to hear the things he says sometimes. So when teaching we put a pretty powerful emphasis on keeping our words chaste. And he tried to make a joke out of it. It. wasn't. funny. In fact the lyrics he responded with to a statement we had him read in the pamphlet may have been the most disgusting things I've heard my whole mission. Maybe it's cause they were in English so I actually understood. But he looked at me with a kind of ¨Ooo what's the teacher gonna do now look´ that you would see of the face of 13 year old pubescent boy instead of a 65-ish year old man. I was.....righteously indignant? The room was silent as I proceeded to chastise/testify. "P.". You are a son of God. We are here to teach you that. It doesn't matter that you are just repeating songs. They are vulgar and you know it. So it's time for you to act like the person your Heavenly Father knows you are." I can testify that we truly are set apart to call people to repentance. If those had been any other circumstances and I had not been saying the things I said with the Spirit it could have been some very hard things to hear. But something in that (the Spirit) touched "P.". It was after that that he apologized and committed to live the Law of Chastity, all the Law of Chastity, thoughts, words, and actions.
Whew! Ok! If you made through all of that congrats! Haha! I love you all! I hope you have a wonderful week and go about doing much good! Remember who you are and live up to your divine destiny!
Besitos, Hna Finch
Ps. Be like Luis a drunk guy we met on the street this week! While trying to hit on us we asked "Are you a person of belief?" No answer, just coming dangerously close to our faces. "Soooo...are you?" Luis: "Siempre siento Dios en mi corazón." "I always feel God in my heart." Ha! Loves!
I don´t think I mentioned it, but president changed our schedule, now it looks like this.
7:30 arise, exercise
8:00 get ready
8:30 breakfast
9:00 personal study
10:00 study language 30 min
10:30, proselytize
2:00 lunch
2:30 study language 30 min
3:00 companion study
4:00 proselyte
10-10:30 return home, 30 planning session and prepare for next day
11:30 sleep
My comp's flower skills. Yellow with yellow.
Couscous with Fatima and her daughter! So cute and so yummy!
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