Hello everybody!!! It was another great week out here in
the land of Springfield! Let me
hit you with some highlights from this week.
 |
| Melanie and Shayla :) |
Coolest experience was probably again with our friends
from the Congo! We taught an
English class again on Saturday and there were no lie probably 60 refugees that
showed up! How cool huh? It has been super hard on them because
not only do they not speak the language but they have only ever lived in tents
before coming here. So they don’t
know how to cook or how to clean a house or how to buy groceries or make a bed
and I think a lot of times we don’t even realize how nice we have it and how
grateful we need to be until you are with somebody who doesn’t. However, despite being so confused in
this new country and having to be torn from family in a war zone they still are
some of the happiest, kindest, and most respectful people. I have especially taken to this 19-year-old
kid named Gabriel. He is the
oldest son in the Molenge family and he is a pretty cool kid and he loves talking
about soccer so all my Fifa playing back home really pays off haha. When I told him that Zlatan was better
than Messi his face was priceless. But they have been teaching us a little Swahili
which really has paid off because we keep meeting more and more of them and so
to be able to speak their language always puts a huge smile on their face and
makes them laugh. Some of them
were at church Sunday and President Loveland came and taught them this Wednesday
because he can speak French and they also speak French! The language barrier has made it tough
to get our gospel message across, however it isn’t always about just shoving
the gospel down peoples’ throats especially when they first need love! We need to care for the temporal needs
and spiritual needs of all people!
We found a really cool girl too her name is Lacey and
she lives just kind of down the street from us and we found her tracting and
then we went back this week with one of our awesome members, Brother Delafuente,
and when we got to her place there was already another member who she is
friends with that is in the YSA ward in her house. She had invited him over
because she has been waiting a while to learn about Mormons and she was so
excited to learn and it was such a good lesson and her sister wanted her own Book
of Mormon after the lesson! I was
on an exchange this day with Elder Atkinson who hadn’t even been out a week yet
and so that was all just a really cool experience!
All of the recent converts are doing pretty good! The Betlyons are just awesome and we
love them and they are doing great! They take awesome care of us and they are going to have
us over for Thanksgiving Lunch.
Then the Harpers (Ann and Jeanie) are going to have us
over for dinner on Thanksgiving haha we are pretty excited! Also they are trying to bring their
whole big family into the church and that is all exciting! Ann's son Demetrius is going to be
coming to play in a turkey bowl with us on Thursday morning with the Hillcrest
Ward, haha.
Also the members out here have just been awesome and the
King family brought their friend to church yesterday which was just awesome and
she seems to have been really prepared to receive the gospel and so their are
just a ton of good things happening right now!!!
