Hey, family!
Okay, here´s a little more about where I´m serving right now:
-No one pronounces their "s" sounds here. They just kind of trail off on plural words and any other word ending with that sound. I´m very glad I´m here AFTER becoming comfortable with the language, haha. It´s really not hard at all to understand, though.
-Everyone´s NICE. Like, everyone. Even when they really don´t want to talk to us. They´re just all really chill. It´s like they all know they´re living in paradise or something.
-It´s not hot here like they told me it´d be.
-Members feed us always. But THEY LET US CHOOSE OUR OWN PORTIONS!!!! Praises on high, mah friends.
-It´s not quite like Africa, Kate, haha. It has everything I need. I´m actually seeing more PB here than I did on the Peninsula ;) But thanks for watchin´ out for me!
-´Lots of homeless folks.
-It´s almost always really cloudy where we are. And it´s kind of desert-y too. In most parts, if you imagine Las Vegas with a beach, you´ve got Las Palmas :)
Right now I´m on another island, Tenerife, and it´s just as gorgeous. It´s a reeeally rare case that we travel from island to island, because it´s a 3 hour boat ride to get anywhere. So we always do the monthly zone trainings on Skype. But every six months, the President and the Assistants come down, and we have zone conference- and I was lucky enough to come here just in time!
So we woke up absurdly early, took a boat (´didn´t get sea sick!! ...Hna Caballero wasn´t so lucky, haha), and we´ve spent all day playing sports with the other missionaries from other islands. President Jackson doesn´t hesitate to get right in there and play, too. I was playing basketball against him today, and he was rockin´ it, haha. I got to see some good mission buddies of mine that I haven´t seen since my Gijón days :D
We´re still getting used to teaching in a trio, but we´re doing pretty wonderfully. Hna Irigoyen is very eager to please, and she´s just a very pure, uplifting person to be around. Hna Caballero is amused by everything, and is always laughing, but takes the work very, very seriously. She keeps us focused and relaxed. I love the different perspectives we´ve got, with one companion just starting the mission, one in the middle, and one about to end. We´re trying lots of new things.
Here´s the latest on the people we´re focused on:
-F----o has a baptismal date! June 7th. Hna Caballero set up a set time for us to pray for him to be prepared for baptism each day- which seems a little Muslim to me, hahaha, but it´s been working great! We´re seeing huge changes with him.
-There´s a lady named Y-----a that lives an hour away (still in our area. Our area is half of the whole island. It takes so long to get to appointments!!! We do splits with a member almost every single day), and she´s got a lot of problems. She´s had all of the lessons, knows it´s all true, and wants to be baptized. BUT she needs to divorce her ex husband, marry or break up with the boyfriend she´s living with, and stop smoking and drinking coffee 24/7. We´ve been teaching the whole family, and we´re focusing on her nine-yr-old daughter, A----a, who has felt the Spirit and "just knows" she needs to be baptized asap. Her 16-yr-old daughter is also headed to an EFY in a few weeks (WOOHOO!).
-One less-active we´re teaching is named P--o, he´s an old, one-legged man who´s fallen back into his smoking addiction. We´re seeing a lot of improvement, though!
One of the Elder´s recent converts, R--a, and his Brazilian girlfriend, E----i, invited us to eat with them and E----i´s kids on Saturday. E----i´s such an adorable member, and she cooks great food :) While we were eating, R--a pulls out a ring and proposes to E----i!!!! It was a mix between being the cutest and the most awkward thing ever, haha. Mostly for the reactions of E----i´s kids.... I´m pretty sure that they wanted to "share this moment with the Sisters" (whom they hardly know) to help E----i´s kids stay calm, hahaha. It was still pretty cool getting to be there, though :)
Anyhoo, we´re working with a lot of people who have been investigators for a long time, as well as a lot of less actives, so we´re almost always going over the basic lessons. I´ve realized this week that my favorite way to repass any one of the lessons is to start with a brief overview of the Plan of Salvation. Lay the little pictures on the table so they can see it, and refer back to the different stages of The Plan throughout the lesson. It´s amazing what a little perspective can do!!!
And that kind of perspective is so ridiculously rare, too.
I mean, just look at people´s reactions to fútbol here, for example. On the day of a fútbol partido, the shops close, the streets clear out, and every living human body is sat down in front of a tv in the nearest bar to watch the match. It´s SILENT in the streets.... until there´s a goal. I swear, the atmosphere just EXPLODES.
It´s curious, and really sad, how people can be so indifferent and closed-minded when they hear about a Living Savior and His Infinite Atonement, and then errupt with happiness when a man they´ve never met kicks a ball into a net.
Haha, I´m not putting down sports or anything, it´s a really neat part of the culture here, but it definitely proves a point. Plus, I might just have a thing against fútbol because it´s one of the #1 causes for people not attending church, and our effectiveness really takes a blow whenever there´s a game, haha.
I´m not sure how much time I´m going to have, because I don´t know what else President has planned for today, so I´m going to get to sending pics- I´ve got a lot this time :)
I love you guys so so much!!!!!
-Hna Grover
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