we almost got arrested??/?

 Hello! 😉


now that i've got your attention.. jejeje

I didn't feel like writing last week so I'll be concise in my summary of the last two weeks.

Honestly two weeks ago was one of the hardest for me so far. It was a lot of emotional crap but it helped me realize some things about me that I can improve. 

First of all our friend Felipe did not get baptized. I think I'm cursed. If I ever write about someone getting baptized the next week it doesn't happen 🥺 So I guess I won't write any more if it's the week before a baptism. It felt like everything went wrong that could possibly go wrong for Felipe and Satan has not stopped working. Please pray for him, honestly he's one of my favorite people I've ever taught and to see him struggle like this makes me sad.

I really like our district, elder Barton, elder Araya, hermana Troncoso, hermana Perez, and me and Hermana Róndon. We aren't super silly or jokey but there's a genuine friendship and camaraderie to this district and I enjoy it :) we are 50% gringo and 50% latino

This week we've been battling the "chinches" (bedbugs) that traveled in hermana Hawes bag from the United states. fortunately I have not fallen victim to the bloodthirsty critters. The elders Torres (elder Torres and elder de la Torre 😆) have come to our house like 3 times recently and I really like them, I think they're my favorite. They're super busy because they do house maintenance and all the office stuff. Haha I think me and the elders Torres would be good nerd friends. Every time I find a nerd elder I want to talk to him and be his friend but I have anxiety about it..

Friday was a bit of an adventure, we stayed in an apartment for a day while our house was fumigated to kill the chinches, it was nice, there was a couch. We got to see the office elders Torres again 2 times (yay 😀 my friends) and I was a dummy because I left my passport and money in the house. While we were traveling to the apartment, the carabineros (police but with huge guns) stopped all the cars on the road and we were like "oh shoot", put on our masks, said a prayer together in the van. We were so worried because we are in quarentine right now, and to be able to leave, you need a document called a permiso, basically permission from the government to be outside. And if the carabineros catch you without a permiso you could get fined or get arrested. Our mission president told us a few weeks ago that some elders in another mission got arrested and spent a few nights in prison for going out without a permiso. Well, the office elders have one to do maintenance, but we didn't have one because we had already used ours for the week. Elder Torres showed the carabinero the permiso for him and De la Torre and told him we were missionaries, and he let us go without asking for the permisos for anyone else!! so that was our miracle for the day.

((sorry for the clickbait, i couldn't resist))

One of the highlights of the week was a lesson with a guy named Guillermo who every lesson we have tells repeatedly that he is a part of another religion but repects what we do as missionaries. We were teaching about the Plan of Salvation and it actually went really well! We used our solid scriptures in the Bible and at one point he was impressed when we read 1 Peter 3:18-20, 4:6 about Christ preaching in the spirit world and told us he'd never read that before or understood that passage! Feels good man.

We are trying to help our Haitian friends as much as we can in our limited Creole. We've really started to improve our lessons with them. What we do is have video calls with them and when we read scriptures, find it in "Liv Momon an" (book of mormon in Creole) and have them read it and tell us what they learned from it. We are teaching them in Spanish very slowly so they can understand, throwing in a few words in Creole here and there (the only words I really know are "lafwa" (faith), "Bondye" (God), "Jezycri" (Jesus Christ) and "priye" (prayer).. I don't know if I spelled them right. But maybe I'll start studying Creyol so I can help more! Our friends are so tender and I know that they are god's children and they need to hear His gospel!

Also spanish is fine! I can speak Spanish!

I feel so connected to Hermana Rondon and really don't want to change because transfers are this week and she's probably leaving. We've gotten so much closer and I feel like everyone in our house is really good friends. I think I'm starting to open up and that is really making a difference.

I hope this week is fantastic! i'll throw in some various pictures i guess.

Hermana Smalley






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