Dear Family and Friends,
I would like to
celebrate a moment with you all right now: I left the house WITHOUT tights this
week and also went to bed without socks!!! HOLLAAA!!! Very exciting that it is
actually a little bit toasty during the days (celebration time!)
This week I would
like to call a weekend miracle, because we got up super early on
Tuesday morning, caught a bus and went an hour and a half to the south to
a city suburb that is called La Union. There, we had four days straight of intercambios!!!
(nice little street tour of the Union, right? Four new sectors in four days.)
OH! And I got to go on exchanges with Hermana Alvarez (my companion from the MTC) and we arrived back in our sector Saturday at Lunch. We got back and...oh heavens…I was praying SO hard to use this time well to help our investigadors actually make it to church ...and then Rodolfo and Gimena canceled our appointment. And so went a searchin´. We were knocking doors and I felt like we NEEDED to knock the next door (we were going to anyways, but I cant ignore in the story how I felt like that house was just CALLING my name.) we talked to the girl, she let us in after we said like two sentences, and before we knew it we were teaching her and her mom (Isabel and Yanira), her mom was crying because she "wanted to know more...more about this peace that her sister has" and then they accepted baptismal dates and went to church with us on Sunday. WHEW. We are all going to take a little pause and examine the consequences of one action--concentrate on this chain for a second--the nephew of Isabel was dating a member, and this member shared the gospel with her boyfriend, he got baptized, and so his mom and little sister got baptized, and then his mom shared a book of mormon and a pamphlet with her sister, and so Isabel HAS a book of Mormon and was literally just waiting for someone to invite her to church. THE POWER OF ONE INVITATION. PEOPLE. it´s so real. But they were the first investigadors to come to church in quite a while, so we had a little mini celebration in the consejo that we had with the ward after church.
OH! And I got to go on exchanges with Hermana Alvarez (my companion from the MTC) and we arrived back in our sector Saturday at Lunch. We got back and...oh heavens…I was praying SO hard to use this time well to help our investigadors actually make it to church ...and then Rodolfo and Gimena canceled our appointment. And so went a searchin´. We were knocking doors and I felt like we NEEDED to knock the next door (we were going to anyways, but I cant ignore in the story how I felt like that house was just CALLING my name.) we talked to the girl, she let us in after we said like two sentences, and before we knew it we were teaching her and her mom (Isabel and Yanira), her mom was crying because she "wanted to know more...more about this peace that her sister has" and then they accepted baptismal dates and went to church with us on Sunday. WHEW. We are all going to take a little pause and examine the consequences of one action--concentrate on this chain for a second--the nephew of Isabel was dating a member, and this member shared the gospel with her boyfriend, he got baptized, and so his mom and little sister got baptized, and then his mom shared a book of mormon and a pamphlet with her sister, and so Isabel HAS a book of Mormon and was literally just waiting for someone to invite her to church. THE POWER OF ONE INVITATION. PEOPLE. it´s so real. But they were the first investigadors to come to church in quite a while, so we had a little mini celebration in the consejo that we had with the ward after church.
Hmm. But apart
from that, Hermana Espinosa and I have been thinking a lot about our assignment
as sister training leaders. We were perched up in the loft of one of the houses
of the other sisters, having weekly planning, and I told her: "Hermana, if
we don’t like the assignment, we can CHANGE how we do it!! We are not limited
to what the other sisters did!" Hermana Espinosa is a master teacher, and she told me the other day that what she
really thinks is the problem in the mission is that we never focus on teaching
techniques, we don’t focus on teaching like it says in preach my gospel. And
you know what? No one really did ever teach me how to teach...it was never a
focus. But most of the time in our exchanges we let the other sister direct,
and we support…but I was talking with her and I said, "Hermana, I didn’t
realize how I COULD teach until I SAW you teach, until I saw your example.
After seeing your example, I copied it." and the truth is, she tells me
that if she could be a trainer of missionaries in how they could teach, she
would be SO happy, but that she, also, would like to know a little bit more
about what IS our role as Hermana training leaders. Because this was my/our
idea...to teach the sisters how to teach. We could call them a week before the
exchanges and invite them to study PMG chapter 10, and then go , have the
exchange, and take turns starting the lessons and contacts, and then afterwards
we can have a consejo all together where we can talk about what we saw,
learned, all together, and make goals all together. It could be a LEARNING
experience, instead of a time when maybe they just feel like the Hermana
lideres are following them around, making mental notes and evaluating them...because
the truth is Hermana Espinosa is a powerhouse and she has to share her talents
with all the world, but it will be better if it is through example, right?
Anyways, this is our idea...but we will see what happens!
Anyways, life is
good and I love you all!!!!
Question of my
soul of this week: In your experiences as a leader, what is the best way to
give corrections that we HAVE to give???? please send your thoughts and advice
to missionarymusings.com (just
kidding, please send them to ME.)
Love,
Hermana Monroe
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