Sorry me di cuenta that I sent two emails with almost the same title "burg de harrison." It's just hard to come up with creative names every week. So today's title is how people say "Harrisonburg" in Spanish. Anyway...
*We had a good week in the valley :)
After emailing last P-day I tried to donate blood again. The first time I ever tried, they told me I was underweight. The second time, they told me my blood pressure was too low. And this time, they said that the needle is thicker than my veins. She said that if I ever want to donate blood, I have to eat like it's Thanksgiving 3 days in a row and drink like 5 or 6 water bottles the morning of. I was a little disappointed because I've always wanted to donate blood but I'll probably never be able to. I don't know why it made me sad but it kind of did, haha;)
Anyway...on Monday night there were some happenstances so we ended up doing a two-night exchange with some other Sisters in the Zone. I stayed in Harrisonburg! We did a lot of finding and found a new apartment complex to knock in! It's mostly American, but there are some Hispanic pockets hiding within.
Later I went back with Hermana McRae and it was SO COLD! And here, the cold is different than the cold in Utah. The cold here just penetrates you to your bones. It was only about 28 degrees, but my feet were so cold (even with boots) that it hurt to walk. It was about 4:50and I was thinking we should head home for dinner because I was freezing and wanted to put another pair of tights on. (I normally wear sweater tights with thermals on top and 2 pairs of socks.) BUT I have a really great companion who said we should finish the stairwell. On the very last door, a Puerto Rican woman named Vanessa opened the door, invited us in, and fed us soup!!! She's a former investigator and really likes the church's focus on family. Her husband isn't very religious but she's hoping we can help him. It was a huge miracle and I'm so grateful we knocked a few more doors! We got fed, we got warm, and we got a new investigators!:)
We also went to follow up on a potential last night. He wasn't home, but his mom Rosa let us in. She shared with us lots of crazy stories about her life in Puerto Rico and how she was a single mom to 9 kids. She also got shot three times and lived! She liked the restoration a lot. We invited her to be baptized on February 7th and she said "Maybe. I'll call you and let you know." Hahaha:) But we're actually going to go beWednesday so we'll ask her then.
*So I'm feeling pretty hopeful about this new apartment complex.
We taught the Nieves family twice this week and they still won't come to church! They commit to it and everything, but never show up! We talked about temples and the Plan of Salvation and they really liked it. They said that they want to go to the temple together! They just need to come to church so they can get baptized so they can go to the temple in a year...
Ana is doing really really well. She and Fabian came to church again. We have Sacrament Mtg, then RS/EQ, and end with Sunday School. We moved the Sunday School class to a different room, so Fabian got a little lost in the church trying to find his mom after Primary. She then explained to him that from here on out, he needs to come to this new classroom to find her. So that pretty much implies that she's planning on attending church regularly in the near future:) Ana's now come 3 times which means she could get baptized as soon as we finish the lessons. She still won't set a date, but we've been praying for the 24th.
We're teaching a lot of Puerto Riquenos. We're teaching these two sisters and they are crazy and have lots of crazy parties. We felt like they weren't taking us seriously and didn't have a lot of respect for our message. They let us in, loved us a lot, but it was a very difficult environment to teach. We brought Hermano Larsen with us, from the Branch Presidency. He's a professor at James Madison University (located here in the Burg) and he's a lay-down-the-law kind of guy. We brought him with us and the lesson was SO much better! Every time he spoke, they listened. It was a really great lesson too and we were able to answer some of their questions. One hard thing with investigators is making sure that they know that they're investigating!! "How to Begin Teaching" from Chapter 10 in PMG is key in making sure that they understand the purpose of our visits and what we expect them to do between our visits.
We also did three "power exchanges" with our Sisters this week. We met with each companionship, talked about their key indicators/goals for their area, and then went tracting. I LOVED going tracting with the Hermanas because they took us to the neatest trailer park I've ever seen. I dare say that this trailer park is even better than Foxwood Trailers in Stafford. It was like a middle-of-nowhere, country bumpkin trailer park that was all Hispanic. We chatted with one guy from Mexico on his front porch for 20 minutes and he basically told us his entire life story about being Orthodox Christian, wanting to be a monk, getting married instead, coming to the states, and now working in a bakery. The people here are so cool:)
I'm not sure if you remember this or not...but our Branch made Christmas baskets to pass out to their non-member friends. The past week or two we've been working to receive and contact all of the member referrals. (The Branch as a whole passed out about 120 baskets!) We received one referral from Hermano Chavez for his work friend Victor. We went by last night and he let us in. He lives there with his wife, son, and cousin. His sister and nephew, who are neighbors, were also there. The cousin wasn't very involved in the lesson, but we counted the other 5 as new investigators! They loved the message of the restoration, went on and on about how great we are, and committed to pray and read! I was just so filled with joy that I burst into tears when we left their apartment. This is why I love missionary work:) We've had a few hard weeks with trying to find new investigators between exchanges, meetings, and holidays. We were finally blessed with 5 new (and Rosa, 6!) in one night!! I love love love my mission so much:) We called Hermano Chavez after the lesson to let him know and he was really excited too! The Christmas baskets have been really successful in finding new investigators and helping the Branch members get excited about missionary work.
So things are going really well here in the valley:) Two of our Sisters are going home! Including Sister Robertson, who's mom lives in Lindsay's ward! She said she's going to hold Claire before I get to :P But it's okay. Then we have two Sisters being transferred, including Sister Lampinen, our T-Square Sister from Finland who is also my roommate:( But asi es la vida de una misionera! Hermana McRae and I are both staying and I think I'll be here til the end. I love Harrisonburg, I love my calling, I love Spanish, I love all of you.
Love, Hermanita Crandall
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