Back to the Motherland: Angels and Blessings (November 17, 2014)

Hola familia y amigos!

IT SNOWWWWED THIS WEEK! And it was a week of serious miracles.

It started snowing Thursday morning and then didn't stop until Friday night. I would say we got almost a foot of snow. It was up to the top of my boots! So we bundled up and headed out. The work doesn't stop! Thursday night we headed out and drove to our appointments. It took more time to get there because I drove realllllly slowly. When we were driving to our dinner appointment, we were driving on this back road that hadn't been driven on yet. It was soooo beautiful. I realized that I love watching the snow, when I can watch it from a nice warm place. Preferably with a sweater and hot chocolate involved.

So Friday morning it was still snowing and we had district meeting. We drove there and then got a call asking us not to drive. It was from the office. :( Sooo we drove home and found rides for the rest of the day. But, before we left the meeting, we had a snowball fight with our district. It was probably the most fun snowball fight I've ever had. We stayed warm even though we were covered in snow. Almost everyone got a snowball smack-dab in the face at one point or another. And then I decided to made a legit snow angel. I never had in my life and it was time. I was already covered in snow, so might as well! It was so worth it.

So because we were asked not to drive, we ended up doing a lot of tracting this week. Usually tracting is a last resort, because it's not always the most effective. BUT, this week, it ended up being pretty good. We were blessed and had very interesting experiences. Maybe it was because we sacrificed and walked in the snow that we were blessed. I also realized that my boots aren't as invincible as I thought. Water started to soak through just a bit. But that's a different matter.

When tracting, we met a few people who were really willing to talk to us and said we could come back. We met some people who had realllly wrong ideas about the church. We tried to answer their questions and doubts. We just do what we can. We met a man who was from Russia and he had a ton of questions. His name was Igor. Very Russian. We also met a man who was definitely on some sort of drug... He invited us to come smoke weed with him. hahaha We just stood there, shocked for a second, then he burst up laughing and said he was just kidding. I don't think he actually was. We gave him a Book of Mormon. hah

We also had a really awesome day yesterday. We gave talks in an English ward about the Atonement. No better way to bring the spirit. Then we visited a lady we're teaching and she told us she knew she needed to get baptized. She's from Honduras and loves feeding us. She gave us strawberry hot chocolate and banana-peanut butter toast. Then we went to our ward. I said the opening prayer. And we got a call from a member who needed a ride to church, so we were out in the hall for awhile, calling people and trying to find someone. And then we called a man who could, so we went in and sat down in the chapel, just in time to get up and sing a musical number, "Con el Salvador al lado," or in English, "If the Savior stood beside me." When we finally sat down and settled in, we realized that there were 4 people we're teaching who came! We had visited them last night and encouraged them to go to church and really emphasized the importance of it, but they told us they wouldn't be able to this week because they had work. So we didn't expect them to be there. But they were. And they had a good experience. It was a serious miracle and blessing! We were pumped up for the rest of the day. It was one of those moments where Heavenly Father answered my prayer. It was a good day.

Hope you all have a warm, wonderful week!

Con amor,

Hermana Shirley

Before