Tuna Helper

Hola todos!

Okie Dokie. Well, this week wasn't that great. It started off awesome because 1. YOU SENT ME CHOKIS!!! :D and 2. We started doing a lot more contacting and got some great referrals for the English Elders. We were getting a lot of work done.

But then Thursday came around.

I made Tuna Helper for dinner on Wednesday, and when I was on the phone with our District Leader later that evening, I started feeling sicker, so he told me, "Go throw up! That makes everything better." ... So that's what I did at 4:30 am. I was sick all day Thursday, and I'm blaming the Tuna Helper. I felt bad for my companion because she had to find things to do to entertain herself all day while I laid in bed trying not to die. We didn't get any work done. :( She told our District Leader that I took his advice seriously, so he offered to give me a blessing if I went to District Meeting.

So I got up and got semi-ready, thinking we were only going to get a blessing and come home, but we stayed the entire two hours. To make it worse, we had to do introductions because it's the beginning of a new transfer and we have new elders in our district. I looked like trash and almost threw up five times while we were there. Hermana Porter is great at first impressions :) Eventually I got the blessing, bought some saltines and 7Up, and slept all day. I did wake up for a minute when I heard the tornado warning, but I just kind of ignored and went back to bed. haha. I should probably take those things more seriously...

But hey I'm still alive! We had a few good experiences to end our week after my little sick-day. We went tracting in Lanesville and ended up talking to this lady who took a Book of Mormon, saying, "I love to disprove things." She had a big problem with Joseph Smith and was just being really... like, sweetly sarcastic. We just testified of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet and went to the next house. We're hoping she reads it like she said she would and that she finds the truth for herself. It was a good experience for me to be able to feel the Spirit testify to me that Joseph Smith really was a prophet, that we have the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth today, and that the Book of Mormon is where we can find it. Though things might be hard and someone might be bashing your faith right in front of you, God is right there standing by you, and the Spirit is testifying the truth of what you know all over again.

The end of this week was kind of rough for me. We didn't work on Thursday because I was sick, and then I felt like trash all weekend because I felt like I wasn't understanding the language again and didn't know what I was even doing to help the work progress here. I'm trying, but I felt like I was failing. But Hermana Lawrence reassured me that I'm fulfilling my purpose out here and that God called me to speak a different language for a reason. The members and our investigators are patient and know that I'm trying to learn. Of course there are things I need to get better at, but they come with time. I'm just having a hard time being patient with myself, most of all. Sometimes I get caught up in the fact that I have so much to improve, and I think I have to do it all at once, and you know how that goes for me. High standards. Might be too high.

We ended the weekend with a branch Valentine's Day party. That was really fun :) Lots of good food and fun company. I hung out with the kids and the Van Uiterts (they were the only white people at the party besides Hna. Lawrence and I haha).

So that's my life! I'm just glad I'm not sick anymore. Lots of work to be done out here! Thank you all who wrote me last week :) I LOVE YOU!!!

Hermana Porter