Monday, July 15, 2013

Last week of my 2nd transfer!

¡Hola, buenas tardes! 

So we definitely just went to a chocolate factory today in one of our pueblos called Villajoyosa and IT WAS SO COOL. The other two sisters from our district came down and one member came with us and they gave us a tour and free chocolate. All of the air surrounding the factory smells like chocolate, so basically heaven. I told my companions that all I needed was a kitten in that moment and I could die happy. And all of the little factory workers looked like a scene out of Willy Wonka. 

This week we had exchanges with the sister training leaders again so I got to learn some new things for a couple days and also run around trying not to miss buses and trains. It may be possible that I have sweat more here than in Thailand, but I´m still not sure yet. It is humid and SO HOT in our area right now, which means I´ve had the pleasure of seeing some people who apparently have no problem being nude in public, but again Benidorm is a bit crazy. I also have some tan lines that get more pronounced by the day and by tan lines I mean sunburn. Now to more spiritual things I suppose.

The beginning of this week started out great with a good number of lesson and hope for reaching all of our goals...and then it slowly went down hill from there- meaning full days with no lessons and no numbers because everyone stood us up or we couldn´t find anyone to teach. I believe I got to experience my own personal pride cycle this week that I ironically have been reading about in the Book of Mormon recently. Not to go into all the details or problems but we all know I am not the most patient or humble person in the world. But after fixing some companionship problems in our trio we ended the week really well. Yesterday was a record high for contacting numbers and I contacted like I never have before without hesitation or dread. Normally you can´t even get me to contact on the street but yesterday I had no problem doing it. And knocking doors, we actually got results when normally we only get angry people slamming doors in our faces. It really shows that when you have the spirit in your companionship and are willing to humble yourself you have more success and the Lord is more willing to lead you to the people who are being prepared. 

Speaking of being prepared, I am about to fly solo in a week. We are 99.9% sure that Hermana Martín is leaving after this transfer which means that I will be in the one in charge of almost everything seeing as my trainee still doesn´t speak much Spanish. And the closest missionaries are an hour and a half away so literally solo. One of my goals this week which I never thought I´d have to make is to speak more English. Yeah I said English. Normally we speak Spanish 24/7 but all of my leaders have been telling me I need to speak more English to Hermana Brown to help her more. Sometimes I get cocky about my progress with Spanish and then I remember a second later how much I still have to learn. Hey but I still have 14 months left to get better I suppose. So before our two failed baptisms the elders before us had two failed baptisms too. Apparently it is becoming a trend here in Benidorm. But we are going to break it. If Hermana Martín leaves here without a baptism then it will be her first area and first companionship where she didn´t have one, so she is determined to find a miracle this week. 

Oh and fun fact I have now tried Coca Cola for the first time. And not by choice either. I have been able to avoid it my whole life and the other day we went to visit a inactive wife of one of our members and she only put out coke. I normally ask for water but she had finally let us come so I didn´t want to say anything and drank it. It doesn´t taste good anyway and her husband told us we can never come back again so that was a pointless sacrifice haha.

Well love you all and keep praying for me!
Hermana Thompson

P.S.- photos
1. at the Valor Chocolate Factory with Hermanas Martín, Greenwood, Brown, and Camacho. 
2. houses in Villajoyosa
3. Hermanas Camacho and brown walking down one of the streets



No comments: