Hola a todos! <Hello everyone!>
So as mentioned last week, I will expand on the stories I listed, in numerical order, because this week was crazy; but a lot of crazy that would be best not shared publicly. But we’re all ok. If you ask my parents, they will know more, but I’ve also asked them not to share too much because it’s a sensitive subject :). BUT ANYWAYS, let’s get on with the fun storytelling and next week we’ll have an email back to the usual normal stuff.
1) The crazy lady who preaches the end of the world at us (she says it next weekend at noonish).
We met a lady named Milagros, a super popular name for these boriquas. She started out explaining to us how hard her home situation was and what her beliefs are. She’s such a religious person, but she’s been telling us these dreams that she’s been having where she sees PR destroyed by a huracana <hurricane> and she said it would have been this last weekend but – lo and behold – nothing happened.
She feels like the message was sent from God because she always feels his presence when she dreams this dream. We’re working on helping her understand the role of prophecy in our lives and how the Holy Ghost actually testifies to us. We love her so much, she’s such a great example of keeping faith even when there’s so much going wrong in your life. I think she’s honestly just grasping out looking for God in everything. Even though I’m pretty sure we weren’t meant to be destroyed this last weekend, they did make for the entertaining moments when we passed by her house. 🙂
2) The homeless guy gave us roses. RoSEs guys!
We met a guy named Alfredo who lives in the mountains, but he sells avocados and flowers in the highway for a living. Yeah, you heard me right, he walks in the middle of the highway at his favorite intersection and sells avocados to people as they drive by. This is normal in PR. They’re actually really good avocados. We met him because we were dying of thirst and we ended up buying water from a store by his intersection and we sat and talked with him for a minute.
He’s chilllll man. He has a Book of Mormon now, but can’t read it because his glasses broke, but we’re still trying to teach him. He gives us his agucate <avocado> that he doesn’t sell at the end of the day when we walk by at night to go home and just recently he gave us roses because he said we looked extra nice that day (as IF – tho because we’re sweaty all the time and I sometimes wonder if I look more homeless than the homeless) ((but I bet it was la luz del Cristo <the light of Christ> or something like that that made us look cute on that day)) and it was just sooo nice. Can you even grow roses in PR? Is it possible?
3) The word giligili
(ALSO, I LOOK PALE BUT I PROMISE IM NOT THAT PALE ANYMORE, ITS JUST WEIRD LIGHTING)
Now I can explain the title. If you look this up in google translate you won’t find it, because it’s a word in Tok Pisin – the dialect that my comp. Hna. Peter speaks. I’ve been learning a bunch of new things and I think it’s truly a blessing to be paired up with her because I’m learning so much! I just wish I was a better help to her. I feel so lost sometimes, but I know God is helping me help her in the way she needs it. 🙂 Sometimes that’s through laughing at learning a new word in a crazy dialect. Giligili means armpit in Tok Pisin. I dare you to use it in a conversation tomorrow. 🙂
4) Intercambios <Exchanges> and finding a boy named Drake who looks like Drake
Legit just this. It was a super-awesome-spiritual-filled-hecka-chill moment when I was able to place a Book of Mormon with a boy who looks like DRaKe. I mean, the best part wasn’t that he was so good looking, but that the whole time I shared it with him, he thought it was so cool and wanted to learn so much more! I just kept getting this thought in my head that this kid was going to become a missionary. I don’t know when, or even if it will happen, but the Spirit just kept nudging me telling me that I needed to give him a copy of the Book of Mormon so that he could start on this path. HOW COOL? HUH?? Well, the sucky thing is that he just moved to the area, and didn’t know exactly where his house was (we met on a bball court) so we just have to pray we can find him again.
5) Hna. peter told me how many pigs I’m worth in her country
H.P. told me that there’s a fun tradition in her country, that they still pay a bride price for their women. It’s nothing barbaric, it’s just a tradition that they like to keep. But she told me that I’m probs worth 30 pigs in her country and in countries like Samoa or Tonga I’m probs worth 20 cows. Cool huh? I’m not sure if that’s a lot or a little, but I feel adequately complimented. 🙂
And 6) How we found a family of 6 with 4 boys named Angel Luis
OK, last but not least, there’s a pretty odd thing about PR names. It’s that a) you either have one of the 10 most popular names in PR or b) your name is literally not a name, but a jumble of letters put together because your mom probably got tired of meeting Luz’s and Maria’s. But, the oddest thing was finding this family. My GOODNESS GRACIOUS, how many kids can you name the same thing and then how many kids can they have named the same thing?
Mom made me cute signs. Not all missionaries are as lucky as me to get this kind of stuff from their mom. Even the other girls love the cute sign every morning when we get ready for the day and when we go to bed EXHAUSTED.
Sierra sent me a cute package. Fun pin pic because you know I love this stuff and HER. No face in this pic because I am sin <without> makeup and drenched in rain water. Not cute.
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Keep beach city weird,
Hermana Thelin