Familia y amigos!
This was an amazing week! I got my new companion on Tuesday. Her name is Hermana Ekonomo Montoya. She just goes by Hermana Ekonomo. When I introduce her to people, they always ask where her name came from. Our ward mission leader is already starting to joke that she's from Japan. But she's actually from Honduras. 4 years ago she moved to the U.S., to Salt Lake City. Growing up in Honduras, she went to a English/Spanish school, so she already knew English when she came to Utah. Sooo she's completely fluent in both. And she's super awesome. She is willing to work hard and learn. And we teach really well together.
This week, our ward had an activity. It was celebrating independence day in Latin American countries. There was lots of food from all over and cultural things. There were also performances and people sang and danced traditional things or just fun things. It was a really fun night.
On Hermana Ekonomo's first day, we went out and had a chunk of time, so we decided to go tracting. We knocked on this one door and a lady named Nicole answered the door. We started talking to her and eventually she told us she was a member. Ohhhh. Then her mother in law, Jane, comes out and started talking to us too. After a while, she asked us what church we were from. Nicole says "they're Mormons" and then Jane tells us that she had been waiting for missionaries to come by. That she wanted to be taught and to be baptized. She had been taught before, but she moved and didn't know how to get ahold of anyone to find the missionaries or when to go to church. That was really cool because we walked up and saw they were English, but we felt like we needed to stay and talk to them. Then we found out why! That had never happened to me on my mission and I was kinda overwhelmed with happiness.
Another cool thing that happened this week was we were driving to dinner on Friday and we stopped on the road to wait for PEACOCKS cross the road. A little baby peacock following its' mom. I kinda freaked out a little.
Another animal experience we had was with some dogs. So far on my mission, I haven't really been afraid of dogs. I'm nice to them, they're nice to me. It works out. But this week, we got to an appointment early, so we decided to walk around a little and knock on some doors. So we were walking along and we heard a dog barking and kinda growling. We didn't think much of it but then we noticed it wasn't locked up at all. It was just free in the front yard of a house down the street. So we stop for a bit to see what would happen. Then the dog starts running toward us... Still barking and growling. We turned around and the dog just goes back to its' house. But then we think, what if this is happening because we are supposed to go to that house? That's probably someone who really needs the gospel. So we start walking back towards the house. We're probably 50 feet away and the dog is realllly barking and freaking out. So we thought of what we should do. We decided to pray. So we prayed to be kept safe and to be able to get to this house. Then we went. We just started walking toward the door. The dog was there, in the driveway, barking after he noticed us. THEN, it starts coming towards us and Hermana Ekonomo made a whistling sound. The dog stopped and started backing up. She kept whistling and it kept backing up towards the backyard, away from us and the front door. Woahhhh. So we calmly walk to the front door and knock. Then, after a bit of waiting for the people, the dog comes back and there's another big dog. Both growling and staring us down. The people never answered and we felt like we had better go. SOO we slowly walked away from the door and across the lawn, the opposite way of the dogs. We got away safely and were so grateful to be safe! Who knows why we felt like we should go there, but even if there weren't people there, it was a really cool experience for us and we KNEW that we had been protected. Heavenly Father answers prayers. That's for SURE!
I know that Heavenly Father loves us and answers prayers. It's not always how we think or what we want the answer to be, but He DOES answer. Sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes it's instant. But it's always what we need to be able to learn and grow.
I hope you all have an amazing week and I love you!
Hermana Shirley
Hermana Ekonomo, on her first day!
"Ahhhh peacocks! A peacock baby!! Get my camera, get my camera! It's in my purse, hurrrrry!"
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