Dearest Family!
Let me tell you about last Friday
We had our usual meeting with the other missionaries in our area. We got out around 12:30 and instead of staying to eat with everyone we made our way directly to a member's home for a BBQ. One, because we love barbecues, and two because he had asked us to speak to the youth after they ate. Sister Lewis is 4 months into her mission and I'm 4 weeks and out! She told them about the preparation she put in before she came and how beneficial it was to learn that "God can't direct our footsteps unless we pick up our feet". I told them about my experiences being humbled, one of the things I hoped to learn about, and promised them that if they set goals and trust that the Lord will help them, that they will without a doubt achieve them. Not to say that I am humble, but I have definitely been humbled again and again... and again, since coming on a mission. Through it all I have come to learn how much God loves me. I came on a mission to be able to focus on others 100% of the time and have been faced with so many inner battles that at times I have felt like I am wasting the Lord's time. Each time this thought comes into my mind I am filled with a determination, a strength, and a trust in the Lord that gets me up-over-and-flying through my obstacles. When I am the weakest, He gives me strength. I couldn't be more grateful for this lesson in humility, or rather humbly relying on the Lord, and know that it will carry me through the rest of my life!
After the BBQ we went to see a family who is soon to be sealed in the Boston Temple! They're a couple a gangstas from the Bronx with 5 kids and another on the way and I couldn't over exaggerate how cool they are. They were having a crazy day so we visited with them for awhile and talked about how they're doing. She picked up a book that I brought, The Power of Everyday Missionaries, and she was flipping through it and loving it so I said, "You know what, keep it. I'll get another one when I move to Utah. I hear they have Mormon stores all over the place." So any of you reading this now, who don't currently own a copy of this book, go get it either at the store, or from this website and get yourself one or three and give them away! It's so cheap, and the words are priceless.
We got out of there and headed to our recent convert Jordy. He's a difficult kid to work with, but super easy to love. After bribing him and patiently waiting for him to settle down, he set the timer for 10 minutes and let us teach him a lesson. He listened to what we said and gosh darnit wouldn't you know that he basically memorized it! He put all of the flashcards out and put them in order with their definitions. We did an object lesson/science experiment and he loved that! So, happily we asked him to say the prayer to finish and he got TICKED. He really didn't want to pray. His mom said, "if you say the prayer I'll give you something!" so he sat back down and gave the sweetest prayer I've ever heard him say. She stood up after, went over to the fridge, and turned around... "Your GUMMY VITAMINS!!!" "DAHHHHHHHH YOU LIED! YOU'RE A LIAR! YOU WEREN'T GONNA GIVE ME ANYTHING!!!!!" and he ran into his room and slammed the door. Sister Lewis laughed so hard that I thought she was gonna wet her pants, and Lucy laughed with us, too. It was so funny. He's such a bum sometimes. I sat there for 10 minutes trying to convince him to stop watching TV so I could teach him how to tie his tie so he won't look like a goob every Sunday. I didn't come away successful on that one. But the lesson was good, and we were happy for that.
We left Jordy and went to teach our investigator-turned-old-member friend Susan! She's funny, and we had a great time visiting and teaching her. Sister Lewis shared the scripture and explained it afterwards in great Spanish.
Ok, so it's about 6:00 and I had been hungry before so I started to say, "Do you want dinner?" but then all of the sudden I wasn't hungry and I changed it to, "I don't even think I want dinner today". We agreed to keep going! We had made a big list of names to see that day so we kept making our way through the streets of Downtown Nashua. Had we not decided to skip dinner we would have walked up the next street and gotten in our car, but since we kept going we walked a different street to our next destination. Almost immediately we passed a woman with an adorable little boy. We swiftly passed and happily said, "hola!" and kept going! Lots of names to check off! We didn't make it 5 steps before I felt guilty and said, "Lewis, we have to go back." Jeramia is from Santo Domingo DR and said that the Elders had visited her in her country! Her Uncle is a member of the church, but she hadn't seen missionaries since moving here three years ago. We exchanged contact information and set up a day to come by and see her! Walking away from that we were so stoked we could barely hold it in. Since she was now following behind us walking the same direction on the street, we decided to cross to the other side. Right before we got to the crosswalk someone ran up from behind us yelling, "Yo! I wanna talk about Jesus!" Oscar works at the Barber Shop and said that one of his friends met us the other day. He asked about when church is and said he'd really like to come. We gave him the info and said, "Alright, see you soon, then!". Standing at the corner about to cross the street and we are feeling PUMPED! Gotta keep going. We get to our destination and she's not home, so we leave the Book of Mormon in her mailbox (don't know if that's legal) and turned to go back. Sister Lewis said, "We should take a different route back in case there's somebody else we could talk to." We head over to the next corner to walk back up to our car and on the window of a tienda there's an ad for My Little Pony Ice Cream! Sister Lewis flooped and we had to go check it out. We didn't find ice cream, but they had my FAVORITE DRINK that I haven't found in years. It's called Sidral Mundet, apple beer from Mexico. We were so happy and talking to everyone, and we made friends with the worker! We're going to be frequent customers there from now on. Sidral Mundet?!! Man that was a great tienda.
We finished off our day over with our friend Patricia and her son Jonathan. He's about to move to Pennsylvania. They're some of the nicest people I've met and they treat us so well!
Ok I'm out of time.
Friday was a good day because we didn't not do what we wanted to do, we did what the Lord needed us to do. Not only did we check off all we had planned out, we got added bonuses along the way. We went from one investigator to 4 prime potentials! And we had a great day.
I love you all! Here's to 4 more weeks of Fridays!
LIFE IS A MISSION!
Hermana Hileman
PS: NEW NEPHEW PHILLIP BORN LAST FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU STEPH! You're one hot mama.
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