February 14, 2011
hola mis amigos mejores!
I hope all has been well with everyone in the states. sorry if this letter is a little weird, just walking over to the cyber i was looking at the ground (because the side walks here are all jagged and messed up) and and then BAM i whacked my head into a stupid AC thingy. it hurt sooooo bad. and its really hard to look into the computer screen. so i hope this email makes a little sense. First of all today has been AWESOME! My comp and i were talking about how to make this valentines p-day awesome, so at 5 this morning we decided to go run to the water front and watch the sunrise. it was an awesome little 4 mile run (it felt INCREDIBLE) and the sun was beautiful. I took my camera with me, but right as the sun was peaking, but camera died. so i have no pictures. que triste. and then we walked home and say a lot of very cool monuments in downtown paraná. and i have pictures of none of it. ill go back and take more. but it was super fun. then we cleaned our pench and went to an awesome indoor basketball court and played ball for a while. I'm not terrible at ball, but my comp played division 1 basketball, and the elders we play with are very good...so i get schooled. its funny. but now I'm writing home and that always makes me so happy! PS i get letters for the first time this Friday!!! last time to use Dear Elder and Ill get it this Friday! just letting you know :-)
My comp and I ordered a pizza at a place for lunch last week, and it had hard boiled eggs on it. weirdest thing i think i have ever seen.
So, I'm SOOOOO excited for this next week. FIRSTLY, its like the moment every missionary waits for, MY FIRST BAPTISM! TIMES 2! Fausto and Lino (the ones i sent pictures of last week) are getting baptized this Friday! they are so excited, like 10 times more than i am, and I'm pretty dang excited for them. they are so fun. Dane and Carson would seriously be best friends with Lino. Mom, Fausto thinks you are incredible at sewing. Everything that I wear he says "ahh su mamá lo hizo? ahh que liiiiiiinda" (translation- your mom made that? how beauuuuuuutiful). And the next week we are having another baptism, his name is Cesear. I'm so bummed, and i really have a strong belief that Satan does whatever he can to stop the work. Cesear told us he really really wants to be baptized, but he has to go to chruch 2 times before that. he was so set on going yesterday, but then he texted us and told us that a bee had stung his face and it was super swollen. I was so sad for Cesear! but we still might have his baptism that weekend, just right after church. I knew Bees were evil.
Funny story. We live by some pretty interesting/funny people. There are 2 men who live across the street and they spend all day working on this car. its really odd. We do our studies in the afternoon during Siesta and they are working the whole time. and we see them look up at us all the time. We just laugh about it because we will be reading or singing hymns or planning and they will just look up at us. one day my comp went in the kitchen and could see them though a little window, and then i started dancing crazy, like doing the Eline dance from Sienfeld (i cant spell). I was ballet leaping and just singing into my water bottle, and my comp watched as the men just watched me the whole time. it was hilarious. then we walked out of our pench and they were laughing and looking at us and i just pretended like nothing happened. my comp was laughing so hard. Then there is the man who lives below us, who Karaokes all day and night. He sings with all the energy of his soul when he sings, and its terrrrrrrible. I cannot emphasize how awful his voice is. Like the other day he was singing Mariah Carey, and he was like yelling and trying so hard to hit the notes. Remember that YouTube video of that man singing 5 octaves? Yea its like that terrible, but like 5 times louder. I just laugh so hard when he starts to sing. We will be trying to pray at night and he will be belting a song.
My comp and I went to go pick up someone for church, and we walked in, talked to the man, he said something so his wife who was in bed and she yelled something, then he said something, my comp looked sad and kinda said "you need to go to church" and he said no and that he was sorry, then we left. I thought that he wouldn't go to church unless his wife would go, but what ACTUALLY happened was that the man asked if we would give his wife a shot and my comp said yes! what?!?! then he told the wife, she said no, and he said he actually wasn't planning on going to church because he wanted to stay catholic. um, i almost had to give a woman a shot. life will get a lot easier for me once it stops feeling like I'm watching a Spanish soap opera all the time trying to figure out what is going on.
So this week was a lot of contacting for us. We have a lot of wonderful investigators and people we are teaching, but contacting is so important so we can keep up the lessons and keep finding people. Contacting is really hard for me, because I am not great at Spanish. Some streets too are just fire and awesome, we contacted a street and got 8 people interested, 3 lessons, and 2 people wanting to be baptized. then we have other streets....where people act like we are just devil worshippers. One street everyone was SOO rude to us, it was hilarious. Hermana Kusilek said to me "all right Collins, this house is all yours, just give it your best" I was all pumped, so i knocked, she opened the door, i inhaled to say something, then BAM she slammed the door before I could say anything. Kusilek just started busting up, it was pretty funny. I just looked at her like "did that just happen?" ha we just laugh when that happens, and hope the next people will be nicer. Some people are wonderful though. I love the people who are like "yes! come on in! want anything to drink? how are you?". i just really love the work.
I think I am slightly obsessed with Tang, especially the flavor Pear. I drink so much of it everyday. It is incredible. I'm taking home so much of it. When the food is not the best, I just go drink lots of Pear Tang.
In light of valentines day, my comp and I read the article from the 2009 conference by Utchdorf. It is about the Love of God. It made us both tear up and want everyone in the world to read. It really is so touching and powerful. Here are the two best quotes from it:
"No, God does not need us to love Him. But oh, how we need to love Him! For what we love determines what we seek. What we seek determines what we do. And what we do determines who we become, and isn´t that our goal? To become as God?"
"Although we are incomplete, he loves us completely. We are all imperfectly, but he loves us perfectly."
and i just thought of one more I must write:
"Think of the most profound, deep love you can think of. Now, times that by an infinite amount. THAT is how much God loves you."
And I know that is so true. He loves everyone so much. I say it to every person we teach. I cannot say much in lessons, but I always make sure to testify of what I know is true. And I have felt it so much in my life in everything, and I see the wonderful blessings people have, and I know with all my heart, even as you are reading this, that God Loves You. I know it. Take everything away from me, and I will never deny that truth.
HOpe you all had a wonderful day as well! Keep it real where ever you are!
Chao
Hermana Collins
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