12/05/22 That time Christmas was hot

 Hello friends and family and other people!! 

Another week over and done with, and it's getting hotter every day here, and it's SO HUMID!!! And we walk all day everywhere we go so it's been... fun 

Monday we had a milagro where we had planned to knock doors, but without even saying anything went straight to the park by the riverside, I turned to her and said... I feel like there's someone who needs us over here... and she said she felt the same so we talked to everyone in the park, and met this abuelita who's an inactive member, with her grandbaby and shared a little message with her. She told us she's felt the need to get closer to God for a while now!! Afterwards we went up to a pretty bridge and this crazy guy started talking to us about Joseph Smith, we both felt uncomfortable so we started backing away, and then he started chasing us, but he was clearly very under the influence of SOMETHING and tripped and couldn't follow us. 

Tuesday we had a milagro when we were knocking doors (we knocked SOOO many doors this week- we're in a brand new sector) and another abuelita came out of her house (we were 2 houses down) and we thought she was yelling at us about the house we were out... which she was, but not in a mean way! She was telling us that nobody lived where we were knocking, so we went and talked to her and she invited us to come back another day and eat bread and drink tea with her and share our message. We will be doing so this week :) 

In the afternoon we were knocking more doors, and we talked to these two dudes in their front yard, and they were suuuuper not interested, and a little bit rude... and so then we were knocking doors (outside the gate you yell ALOOOO to get peoples attention), and every time we yelled aloo, they were like HELLO in English. It was a little awkward haha. 

Wednesday we had a little miracle with a couple of little girls!! In our apartment complex, there's a park with a bunch of playground stuff, and we always say hello to all the kids playing when we're on our way out. Over the course of months, the other hermanas have become friends with one little girl named Denise, and that day we decided to invite her and her family to the branch activity that night... and she was so excited and Really wanted to go!! AND like begged us to go talk to her family with her. I felt a little uncomfortable because you're not supposed to proscilite in the apartments, but Denise was with us so... yeah anways, we went and her family was SUPER nice, and long story short we're kind of teaching them now. She had another little friend with her who also wanted to come, but her family was super not interested and also kinda rude haha. Win some and lose some I guess. 

That night was the activity, and we shared a message about Light the World, which went really well!!! The elders were in charge of the game and so we played Musical Chairs, and I was next to a little girl named Maria who is the granddaughter of one of our friends in teaching, and she wants to be baptized but her parents won't allow her, so she comes to a lot of activities but isnt even allowed to go to church on Sundays. But anyways, she lost in musical chairs, but really sneakily I gave her my chair before anybody knew, and I guess between that and the little bit I talked with her before the activity, and sharing our message, she was talking about me all night to her grandpa, which like...  is the cutest thing ever. 

Thursday we had a milagrito when we knocked on a door and found another inactive member who's 21 and converted to the church right before COVID and never returned because she kinda just forgot about all of it, and no one ever contacted her afterwards... but she was super interested in coming back to church and was telling us how she missed it!! And she gave us cold pop in the middle of a very long day. 

We also taught the word of wisdom to one of our amigos, and literally every time I said anything she would ask my comp to translate what I said, and look wouldn't talk to me, but only asked my comp to ask me whichever thing. It was super frustrating, cuz like, I speak Spanish  and 99% of people dont have any problem understanding my gringa accent. 

Friday we had a lesson with our friend who has a baptism date, but he told us he's moving... but after a lot of him talking to us he convinced himself he doesnt want to move. I don't know what's going on there, but we're going back tonight. We also decorated for Seminary graduation and had a little milagro when we went to get ice cream. There's this place that has $1 ice cream cones, and they're super delicious, so we go like 2-3 times a week... so we went there and there was almost no one there, just 2 ladies sitting in the chairs eating ice cream, and the owner, Jessica, talked to us and asked us a ton of questions, and she and her daughter are both interested, but always working, so they said we can come and if the store isn't too busy we can share with them our message!!!! Now, about those two ladies... I was talking to Jessica (she wanted to know about why I was here, so far from my family), and the two ladies started talking to my comp... they were saying how they're both pregnant and told (didn't ask) hna García to buy bread for their babies, and were being super super aggressive about it... so she bought them bread and we had to scurry our way out because they looked capable, willing and ready to rob us (I only have like $5 on me at any given time, but still!!). 

Saturday we started sharing a little Christmas message with everyone, so in the morning we bought some reindeer antlers, and wore them for the message... but then we forgot to take them off and left the house of one of our amigos... and then all the abuelitas that we passed by told us how cute our antlers were, and we were like, do you want to hear a Christmas message?? And all of them said yes!!!! So we're legit gonna use that as a finding tactic now! In the evening, we had to open up the church building for Presidente Wu (he was in town for district conference) and he asked us why we had antlers, we explained what happened, and he congratulated us for our creativity and said "if you want to have results you've never had before, you have to do things you've never done before!" 

Sunday was special because we had district conference with all the branches here, and it was really good. After we had interviews with presidente, and mine was really short- like 5 minutes. 

In the afternoon we had the miracle where everyone was rejecting us lol and that included this abuelita... but then we got like a Block away and went to turn the correr, and saw out of the corner of our eyes that someone was waving at us... it was the abuelita!!! She invited us in and gave us ice cream (which was really nice because we were dying from the heat and rejection) and we talked to her for like 45 minutes! In the evening we talked to a member for a while and she told us all about her mission 20 years ago. I think she's one of my favorite members I've met so far!!! 

Today we had a crazy crazy busy day where we were pretty much out of internet service and we made food all day and ate all together as a zone and watched Christmas movies... well kind of. The little girls who live here were watching them and we were all preparing food!! 

Ok that was a lot of stuff that happened. 

Love you all!!! 

xo-hna griffin