One of my favorite parts of the week was when we started knocking in an apartment complex that looks like Mexico. You just walk in and feel like speaking Spanish. This past week has been Spring Break for a lot of schools here, so a bunch of kids were out. We ran into a little group of them as we walked in, and we offered them stickers. So they each got some, then ran and told their borthers and cousins and next-door neighbors. When we were walking back to the car, there were little girls just standing in front of their door, waiting for us to pass by to give them a sticker. It was so much fun. This little gang of Hispanic kids kept on running around and talking to us and finding more kids. They finally got distracted by a lizard and we left. We are definitely going back.
We had a few miracles of finding new families that the missionaries taught a long time ago. At some point, they switched from Spanish Elders to English ones here, and a few people just slipped through the cracks. We also got a great new referral, and when we went to see him, he told us right away the day he was planning on being baptized. We were pretty shocked, but now we are super excited. Hopefully it rains more so that he gets work off and we can teach him more often.
I titled this email "Menudo" because I finally tried that stuff. It is a soup made of some broth that tastes ok, with pig or cow intestines, skin, and feet mixed in. And it was awful. We both only took one bite of the meat and couldn't handle any more. I do not recommend it. We thought that we weren't going to be able to make it to church the next morning, but we felt better by then so we went. I think they might have missed us a little if we hadn't gone. But seriously, I am never eating that stuff again.
We had a meeting this week with Elder Foster, of the Quorum of the Seventy. That was an amazing meeting. One of the questions that we were asked to ponder upon was: Do I have faith that Christ has faith in me? Most days, we are probably going along doing fine. Does the Lord expect more out of us? Yes. But with him it is possible. We are stretched almost all the time, usually in ways that hurt a bit. It is really for our benefit. Don't beat yourself up about things. Just go forward.
Also, we talked about weaknesses, which I think has become one of my favorite topics here on my mission. And then the next day, I was reading an article in the Ensign magazine about the differences between sin and weakness. I loved it a lot. Sin and mistakes are things to be left behind immediately, without wasting any time. One the other hand, dealing with our weaknesses takes patience. We can hate sin, but accepting our weaknesses is the healthiest option (and then working to gradually improve them, of course). So that is what I have been thinking about. It is something beautiful to me.
Anyway, have a great week!
Love,
Hermana Pace