Querida Familia,
Also, Hermana Sprunt keeps singing songs, apparently from some famous movie named "Frozen."
It must be true! I'm that kind of missionary. This
week I will hit my year mark. Everyone I've met in the Henrico branch
asks how long I've been out. When I tell them I've been out a year, they
shake their heads at me and say I'm basically on my way home.
I've
also had multiple people ask me if I'm Hispanic, so I think that's a
good sign. We called the Branch President one of our first nights to
meet him over the phone, and he asked me what nationality I was. I said I
was American, and he said I sounded Hispanic. Then I said, "REALLY???"
Then he said I no longer sounded Hispanic;) Jajaja.
Anyway,
I'm kind of having a mission crisis because I'm not sure how I feel
about going home. I miss BYU football and all, but I don't know if I can
part with these people. That and I'm going to miss knocking doors and
entering strangers' homes A TON :( There's nothing like serving a
mission. I will never get to serve God full time again like the way I
can now. I think my heart it breaking.
So we had a pretty good week of finding and just getting to know the area.
We
were able to see Christopher from the part member family again! He
wants to get baptized, but is really nervous about it. We set him on
date and then came back later in the week with a baptismal calendar. He
earns a sticker on his calendar every time he reads a scripture, prays,
has family home evening, or goes to church. Every visit we're going to
bring prizes that he can purchase with his stickers. I love teaching
kids:)
Speaking of which, across the street
from the Branch Mission Leader live these two awesome kids, Kelly and
Hirlim (I have no idea how to spell his name). They are former
investigators, and they want to get baptized so bad! The mom is
less-than-interested. We've set at least 5 appointments, and every time
we show up, the mom isn't home and we can't go in. She said we can teach
the kids without her, but we can't enter the home if she's not there.
So we've chatted a lot with the kids in the doorway. They say the cutest
things. Once Kelly said, "Winnie the Pooh is really evil. Because if
you write "pooh" upside-down, it says "400d" which means 400 demons."
Where in the world did she get that??? Hirlim also tried to convince us
the Hello Kitty is evil because she doesn't have a mouth and she steals
other peoples' mouths. Weird stuff. But they're super cute and they want
to come to church with the Familia Rosales:)
We found two GOLDEN new investigators, Juan y Marcelino.
When
we tracted into Juan, he at first started by saying he was Catholic,
but we bore testimony of the importance of our message--evidenced by our
desire to speak Spanish. He invited us to come back on Saturday.
In the appointment, we learned that he's not even really Catholic. He
seemed genuinely interested in the message of the Restauracion y dijo
that he's going to pray and all. He's also Cubano, but raised in
Nicaragua. Cuban, Dominican, and Puerto Rican accents are SO HARD to
understand! He was telling us that in Nicaragua he was a fisher
(pescador) and I thought he said pecador, which is a sinner. Jajaja we
thought he said he was a professional sinner:)
Also,
earlier I had a difficult time understanding los Salvadorenos. There
are a ton of them in Stafford, so now I can understand them better! But I
think I understand Mexicans and Peruvians best.
Anyway,
Marcelino was also a miracle. We street contacted him while he was
sitting on his porch. He invited us in and really opened up about his
life. He lives alone here in the states and his four children live with
his parents in Mexico. He's very lonely and works 6 days a week, all
day. He has Sundays off, and he usually gets together with a few people
to play futbol. The Spirit estuvo BIEN FUERTE in this leccion. He
believes that Jose Smith was a prophet and said he'll pray about
baptism. He is super golden because he doesn't drink or smoke and he has
Sundays off! I really hope we can help him make covenants with Heavenly
Father muy pronto:)
We're also teaching a family. Well, we've taught the wife (Maria) so far. On Friday
night, our dinner canceled. Hermana Sprunt has never had fried chicken,
so we decided to go to Popeyes. On our way in, I commented, "there will
probably be zero Hispanics here." We got our food and sat down to eat,
and Maria showed up with her family!!! We were able to meet her husband!
It was definitely a miracle:) Who knew that Hispanics liked fried
chicken??
The following day, we were walking in
London Towne, our favorite apartment complex (because there are no
trailer parks here), and a car drove by with a BYU sticker on it. I
said, "Look! A Mormon!" The car parked and MARIA AND HER FAMILY GOT OUT!
Apparently they recently purchased the car from a young guy who was
about to go back to school and didn't need the car. Two crazy miracles
in a row with this family:) Heavenly Father definitely wants this family
baptized!
This past week we also had Sisters
Meeting, which was a lot of fun. It was based on the YW theme. There
were 8 mini classes for each of the values and we got to pick 4 of them
to go to. We also had the usual clothing exchange and Hermana Sprunt and
I both found some cute things! I really enjoyed the meeting, especially
President Wilson's remarks about our Heavenly Mother and Sister
Wilson:) It was super cute.
In the faith
class, the Hermanas teaching it explained something pretty cool. Dogs
don't make kitties and cats don't make puppies. God didn't make mortals!
He made baby gods! When babies make mistakes, we don't get angry with
them. We need to be patient with each other and especially with
ourselves. We have to have faith that through the atonement of Jesus
Christ, we can one day be WITH God and be LIKE God! Sister Miller (my
BFF) wrote something chevere in her email last week:
"I feel like I should be able to change and stay changed. I realized...that we can change and stay changed, but change is a process, and sometimes it takes time. I have to...remember that applying the Doctrine of Christ is continual, and not a one time thing."
Soooo I'm learning a lot about being patient with my weaknesses. I love Ether 12:27.
I feel like I have truly come unto Christ in choosing to serve a
mission. In so doing, He has shown me all of my weaknesses. It's been
very difficult, but looking back over the past year, I can see how many
of my weaknesses have become strengths.
Hermana
Sprunt mentioned the other day that when I street contact people, they
are always very respectful to me and it's because of the way I talk and
hold myself. People treat me different than they treat girls of the
world because I am different. I have grown so much in confidence in the
past year. I felt super confident in high school, but it was all
superficial. When things got hard, that "confidence" was shattered.
Through my mission, I have really come to know myself and know my
Savior. I'm a completely different person!
I
also read a scripture this past week in Mosiah 18, where Alma is
teaching and baptizing the people at the waters of Mormon. I only have
my scriptures in Spanish with me, but it's verse 30 and it says:
Si, el paraje de Mormon, las aguas de Mormon, el bosque de Mormon, !cuan hermosos son a los ojos de aquellos que alli llegaron al conocimiento de su Redentor; si, y cuan beditos son, porque le cantaran alabanzas para siempre!
Virginia
truly is un hermoso lugar to me because it is here that I've really
come to know my Savior. I knew who He was before, but know I KNOW Him.
*And last story for the day...
On Saturday,
we had a branch service project cleaning up around an elementary school
in downtown Richmond. Someone had set the playground on fire and there
was still rubble to be cleaned up. Also there was a lot of broken glass
on the black top. (That's downtown for ya!) It was a lot of fun and I
got to know some of the members better:) And I got to wear my new BYU
RISE shirt!
On
the drive home, we drove past an LED billboard and I saw the BYU logo!
It was announcing that it was game day, and UVA was playing BYU in
Provo:) I didn't even know and I wore the right shirt! And BYU won:)
Okay well that's all for today. I love you people so much and I'm so
grateful for all of your prayers and love and mail! Especially
Millie...LOL your letter made me laugh and smile so hard;) jaja.
Que tengan una buena semana <3 Con amor,
Hermanita Crandall
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