05/21:
Hey--this is my last email home! And there's plenty to report.
First, a matter of business. I realized that Jon promised to send me a "Dear Jane" letter on my mission, but I haven't received it yet. With just one week to go, Mum, would you mind calling Jon and reminding him? Let him know I'd still like to be dear janed on my mission, if at all possible. His number is (801) 949-2044.
The Hansen's are in Utah for a week, and we cleaned a goodly portion of their house yesterday. All of our appointments for the day cancelled, but we got to have a good visit with Oscar to teach about the priesthood. We started by reviewing why ordinances are important and thus why authority in ordinances would be important. He totally gets it. I LOVE IT! We tracted all that evening and had A LOT of fun. Sister Williams is learning that being a missionary doesn't mean being a robot, and that the more natural and fun your experiences are for you, the more natural and fun they are for the other people, as well. Some old man let us into his turtle-looking house and told us about his artist-son who's done all kinds of well known stuff around town. At another place, they had a bar set up in the garage and everyone was getting drunk. We walked right up and pulled up a stool. It wasn't, of course, the most productive contacts, but I think we made a good impression : )
A couple weeks ago, we were taught how to set baptism appointments in the first lesson. We've been using it, and it works great! Then this week, we got training about how to start teaching so that it has more purpose and direction, and people will feel a little more accountable for following through. That, also, is working amazingly. Now we're being told to use "baptism calendars" to help people keep that going. We haven't gotten a lot of training on it, and I've hit a mental wall. I'm really not sure how to get people to follow through completely. Whenever I think of the first half of this paragraph, I think, "Right. Just at the end of my mission I figure out what I was supposed to be doing all along." Then I think about the second half, and I'm overwhelmed and grateful that soon, it won't even be my responsibility. Mix of emotions.
We had a great lesson Tuesday with Alisa and Jorge who we found last Tuesday. We taught about the apostacy and restoration. Jorge was awesome. They missed church, so when we re-invited them, Jorge said, "Please Mom!!! We BETTER go this time!" He made just the right comments all the way through. If she listens to him, she'll be good to go for the rest of her life. They set a soft baptism date.
We dropped by a contact from months and months ago with whom we've never followed up, and he turned out to be just about golden. We set baptism date with him, too. He started off explaining how he's felt so abandoned by God, but throughout the conversation shared experiences where the Holy Ghost really stepped in. That helped us in our teaching a lot because we could put his own experiences into a structure and show him how it could grow.
We tried to follow up with another contact who evidently gave us a bad address, and instead ran into a gringo family we've run into twice before. They're kind of Bible-loving hippies...not entirely sure how to describe them. Anyway, I feel a huge connection to them, as does Sister Williams. Turns out the Elders did follow up and teach them and it was an ok experience, but we're going to go back and teach them and we have high hopes. The gospel and the church would help them so much! The mother is an artist and has an amazing picture of a church being melted by the sun like wax, and she named it "apostacia". I asked her what she would paint for a piece titled "restoration".
We had district meeting on a dock again. Sister Williams had a major allergy attack. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant called "Savoy Pizza" and I took 20 minutes to tell everyone the history of swing dancing, which began in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. I had them all on the edges of their seats, and throughout the rest of the meal, people kept randomly saying, "I gotta learn to dance." It was very satisfying. Only 11 more days...!
I am struggling with trunkiness. I feel overwhelmed in not knowing what to do to help these people, and had the realization this morning that I'm, once again, trying overstep my bounds. Preach My Gospel says to have confidence in Christ, not confidence in ourselves. I need to give him the room to do His job of conversion, and just do my little job of keeping people thinking about it so He's got the opportunity.
I've had another major breakthrough here at the end. I'm trying to hold back more and more so Sister Williams has a chance to shine and figure out she's really good at this. I'm trying SO HARD to learn how to just CHILL OUT, and I've had a few moments of success. It's strange to stop pushing the world and find out it's still spinning. It's exciting but scary. It feels good to let things take care of themselves (especially when I was having no impact anyway) but then I don't know what to do with myself and fall back into default mode. This, however, is life-changing. I'm grateful the experience has come.
Our friend Liz is in the single's branch and going on a mission in 3 weeks, so she comes out with us as much as possible. After teaching with us on Tuesday, she took us and her missionaries to IHOP where she works, and we taught four of her coworkers an entire lesson. We were there specifically to invite Katie, one of her best friends, to meet with missionaries. We told our server that since Liz was leaving, we were going to make her practice teaching with us, and we needed an audience. Of the four, Katie and another girl both want to learn more. We taught them while on duty at the IHOP! It was great!
Monday was particularly busy. We got out late because I needed to prepare our teaching materials (cups lesson). We set a baptism date with Nati at our second appointment. She said specifically things have been weighing on her, and she's looking for long-term relief, which she things would come from strengthening her spirituality. We then went to a small town and translated for some elders who gave a less-active's son a blessing (he was traumatized when it started hailing the other day and refuses to go outside...last update, no change). We had lunch at the COOLEST small town cafe where the milkshakes are made by hand and the waitress' attitude is its own flavor. As we tried to short-cut across the river, we ended up at a refinery where a security guard stopped us. Sister Williams put on her best British accent to get directions, and even got the guy to back us up so I wouldn't have to hop out of the car and look like a dork : ) (Have I ever mentioned that? When backing up a church vehicle, one missionary has to be outside of it to make sure you don't hit anything.) We did quite a bit of driving in the country to visit random people we never get to, and in the process found a couple new potential investigators, and the most adorable red-haired, blue-eyed girl named Cheyenne. She was childhood and springtime incarnate.
We finally met with Jesus Gomez, whose initial contact last winter led us to Oscar. He's a very religious man and gave us some push-back (I don't think he liked being preached to by two little girls), but much to our surprise, he set a baptism date. A couple days letter we dropped off a miniature letter from God reminding him to read the message the Sisters shared.
We stopped by another potential from last OCTOBER, before Sisters were even in the area, and he had all his friends and family over for his son's 2nd birthday. So we joined the party. We have an appointment next Monday with his family and a friend. It was so much fun to kick back, eat a freezpop and talk about missionary work with a bunch of fun Hispanics. You know...maybe I will miss this.
With the Hansen's gone and a couple cold days (that turned into very hot days), we've had fires in their fireplace at night or during study in the morning. I build some pretty mean fires.
We're trying to learn how to juggle a soccorball--keep kicking it in the air without it hitting the ground. While we've made some progress...I have little hope.
Sunday was absolutely terrible. We had FOUR NEW INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH, which has been a big falling point for us, and the new high councilman spoke. Unfortunately, he insisted on speaking without an interpreter, but he hasn't spoken Spanish in 30 years. He took the entire sacrament meeting and was unbelievably boring and hard to understand. He even started asking questions to the congregation like Sunday School or something. I was horrified, and my horrifiedness didn't wear off all day, and was contagious to Sister Williams, to the point that she just about went home after church. After church, Andy and Adelino, these two guys we've worked with for MONTHS who we love with all our hearts, told us they don't want to be baptized, partly because of doubts and party because of being offended. We had President's Fireside that night which is usually wonderful, and Adelino even came, but then he and Oscar refused to come in. I was afraid Adelino's doubts were starting to poison Oscar like they had Andy. Turns out he was embarrassed about not being dressed well enough, and Oscar stayed to keep him company (what a great fellowshipper...) All of our appointments that afternoon fell through. It was all-around miserable.
The day before it, however, was wonderful. We started the day trying to put the bikes on the car, and it took 45 minutes to figure out the bike rack (we had taken it off to clean it two days earlier). Sister Williams got some good footage of me wearing the rack like a harness, then some footage of me pretending to be stuck when it was finally on the car, then some footage of me being actually stuck in it when it was on the car. Also, she was impressed to call Pompilio that morning (who had dropped us earlier in the week in a digustingly dramatic way) and he had had a dream she would and was super grateful. We found Nati and Angel (who, if you read before, just set a baptism date) when trying to follow up with an old potential, and they just invited us in and said they wanted us to share more. Best of all, we happened upon a parade for West Saint Paul days and, knowing that no one would listen to us if we distracted them from the parade, we jumped in while a high school band was passing and because PART of the parade. We ran and danced and skipped and passed out more than 600 pass along cards. It was the coolest street contacting the world has ever seen! We did that for about an hour straight and were exhausted beyond exhausted. We went to our favorite cafe which was closed but which gave us free cake, then to another cafe where it turns out we know the owner! We his Mass for our dinner break (ironically, Sister Williams complained about how boring it was and then we had our catastrophe some 18 hours later).
And time's up! Love you all! See you at the mission home next Friday! Please pray that I won't be too trunky this week.
Love,
Sister Hoffman
First, a matter of business. I realized that Jon promised to send me a "Dear Jane" letter on my mission, but I haven't received it yet. With just one week to go, Mum, would you mind calling Jon and reminding him? Let him know I'd still like to be dear janed on my mission, if at all possible. His number is (801) 949-2044.
The Hansen's are in Utah for a week, and we cleaned a goodly portion of their house yesterday. All of our appointments for the day cancelled, but we got to have a good visit with Oscar to teach about the priesthood. We started by reviewing why ordinances are important and thus why authority in ordinances would be important. He totally gets it. I LOVE IT! We tracted all that evening and had A LOT of fun. Sister Williams is learning that being a missionary doesn't mean being a robot, and that the more natural and fun your experiences are for you, the more natural and fun they are for the other people, as well. Some old man let us into his turtle-looking house and told us about his artist-son who's done all kinds of well known stuff around town. At another place, they had a bar set up in the garage and everyone was getting drunk. We walked right up and pulled up a stool. It wasn't, of course, the most productive contacts, but I think we made a good impression : )
A couple weeks ago, we were taught how to set baptism appointments in the first lesson. We've been using it, and it works great! Then this week, we got training about how to start teaching so that it has more purpose and direction, and people will feel a little more accountable for following through. That, also, is working amazingly. Now we're being told to use "baptism calendars" to help people keep that going. We haven't gotten a lot of training on it, and I've hit a mental wall. I'm really not sure how to get people to follow through completely. Whenever I think of the first half of this paragraph, I think, "Right. Just at the end of my mission I figure out what I was supposed to be doing all along." Then I think about the second half, and I'm overwhelmed and grateful that soon, it won't even be my responsibility. Mix of emotions.
We had a great lesson Tuesday with Alisa and Jorge who we found last Tuesday. We taught about the apostacy and restoration. Jorge was awesome. They missed church, so when we re-invited them, Jorge said, "Please Mom!!! We BETTER go this time!" He made just the right comments all the way through. If she listens to him, she'll be good to go for the rest of her life. They set a soft baptism date.
We dropped by a contact from months and months ago with whom we've never followed up, and he turned out to be just about golden. We set baptism date with him, too. He started off explaining how he's felt so abandoned by God, but throughout the conversation shared experiences where the Holy Ghost really stepped in. That helped us in our teaching a lot because we could put his own experiences into a structure and show him how it could grow.
We tried to follow up with another contact who evidently gave us a bad address, and instead ran into a gringo family we've run into twice before. They're kind of Bible-loving hippies...not entirely sure how to describe them. Anyway, I feel a huge connection to them, as does Sister Williams. Turns out the Elders did follow up and teach them and it was an ok experience, but we're going to go back and teach them and we have high hopes. The gospel and the church would help them so much! The mother is an artist and has an amazing picture of a church being melted by the sun like wax, and she named it "apostacia". I asked her what she would paint for a piece titled "restoration".
We had district meeting on a dock again. Sister Williams had a major allergy attack. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant called "Savoy Pizza" and I took 20 minutes to tell everyone the history of swing dancing, which began in the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. I had them all on the edges of their seats, and throughout the rest of the meal, people kept randomly saying, "I gotta learn to dance." It was very satisfying. Only 11 more days...!
I am struggling with trunkiness. I feel overwhelmed in not knowing what to do to help these people, and had the realization this morning that I'm, once again, trying overstep my bounds. Preach My Gospel says to have confidence in Christ, not confidence in ourselves. I need to give him the room to do His job of conversion, and just do my little job of keeping people thinking about it so He's got the opportunity.
I've had another major breakthrough here at the end. I'm trying to hold back more and more so Sister Williams has a chance to shine and figure out she's really good at this. I'm trying SO HARD to learn how to just CHILL OUT, and I've had a few moments of success. It's strange to stop pushing the world and find out it's still spinning. It's exciting but scary. It feels good to let things take care of themselves (especially when I was having no impact anyway) but then I don't know what to do with myself and fall back into default mode. This, however, is life-changing. I'm grateful the experience has come.
Our friend Liz is in the single's branch and going on a mission in 3 weeks, so she comes out with us as much as possible. After teaching with us on Tuesday, she took us and her missionaries to IHOP where she works, and we taught four of her coworkers an entire lesson. We were there specifically to invite Katie, one of her best friends, to meet with missionaries. We told our server that since Liz was leaving, we were going to make her practice teaching with us, and we needed an audience. Of the four, Katie and another girl both want to learn more. We taught them while on duty at the IHOP! It was great!
Monday was particularly busy. We got out late because I needed to prepare our teaching materials (cups lesson). We set a baptism date with Nati at our second appointment. She said specifically things have been weighing on her, and she's looking for long-term relief, which she things would come from strengthening her spirituality. We then went to a small town and translated for some elders who gave a less-active's son a blessing (he was traumatized when it started hailing the other day and refuses to go outside...last update, no change). We had lunch at the COOLEST small town cafe where the milkshakes are made by hand and the waitress' attitude is its own flavor. As we tried to short-cut across the river, we ended up at a refinery where a security guard stopped us. Sister Williams put on her best British accent to get directions, and even got the guy to back us up so I wouldn't have to hop out of the car and look like a dork : ) (Have I ever mentioned that? When backing up a church vehicle, one missionary has to be outside of it to make sure you don't hit anything.) We did quite a bit of driving in the country to visit random people we never get to, and in the process found a couple new potential investigators, and the most adorable red-haired, blue-eyed girl named Cheyenne. She was childhood and springtime incarnate.
We finally met with Jesus Gomez, whose initial contact last winter led us to Oscar. He's a very religious man and gave us some push-back (I don't think he liked being preached to by two little girls), but much to our surprise, he set a baptism date. A couple days letter we dropped off a miniature letter from God reminding him to read the message the Sisters shared.
We stopped by another potential from last OCTOBER, before Sisters were even in the area, and he had all his friends and family over for his son's 2nd birthday. So we joined the party. We have an appointment next Monday with his family and a friend. It was so much fun to kick back, eat a freezpop and talk about missionary work with a bunch of fun Hispanics. You know...maybe I will miss this.
With the Hansen's gone and a couple cold days (that turned into very hot days), we've had fires in their fireplace at night or during study in the morning. I build some pretty mean fires.
We're trying to learn how to juggle a soccorball--keep kicking it in the air without it hitting the ground. While we've made some progress...I have little hope.
Sunday was absolutely terrible. We had FOUR NEW INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH, which has been a big falling point for us, and the new high councilman spoke. Unfortunately, he insisted on speaking without an interpreter, but he hasn't spoken Spanish in 30 years. He took the entire sacrament meeting and was unbelievably boring and hard to understand. He even started asking questions to the congregation like Sunday School or something. I was horrified, and my horrifiedness didn't wear off all day, and was contagious to Sister Williams, to the point that she just about went home after church. After church, Andy and Adelino, these two guys we've worked with for MONTHS who we love with all our hearts, told us they don't want to be baptized, partly because of doubts and party because of being offended. We had President's Fireside that night which is usually wonderful, and Adelino even came, but then he and Oscar refused to come in. I was afraid Adelino's doubts were starting to poison Oscar like they had Andy. Turns out he was embarrassed about not being dressed well enough, and Oscar stayed to keep him company (what a great fellowshipper...) All of our appointments that afternoon fell through. It was all-around miserable.
The day before it, however, was wonderful. We started the day trying to put the bikes on the car, and it took 45 minutes to figure out the bike rack (we had taken it off to clean it two days earlier). Sister Williams got some good footage of me wearing the rack like a harness, then some footage of me pretending to be stuck when it was finally on the car, then some footage of me being actually stuck in it when it was on the car. Also, she was impressed to call Pompilio that morning (who had dropped us earlier in the week in a digustingly dramatic way) and he had had a dream she would and was super grateful. We found Nati and Angel (who, if you read before, just set a baptism date) when trying to follow up with an old potential, and they just invited us in and said they wanted us to share more. Best of all, we happened upon a parade for West Saint Paul days and, knowing that no one would listen to us if we distracted them from the parade, we jumped in while a high school band was passing and because PART of the parade. We ran and danced and skipped and passed out more than 600 pass along cards. It was the coolest street contacting the world has ever seen! We did that for about an hour straight and were exhausted beyond exhausted. We went to our favorite cafe which was closed but which gave us free cake, then to another cafe where it turns out we know the owner! We his Mass for our dinner break (ironically, Sister Williams complained about how boring it was and then we had our catastrophe some 18 hours later).
And time's up! Love you all! See you at the mission home next Friday! Please pray that I won't be too trunky this week.
Love,
Sister Hoffman