Hola Familia y Amigos!
Sometimes it still doesn't feel real that I'm a real life missionary doing real life missionary work in New Orleans, Louisiana! But then you go contacting in 110 degree weather with 93% humidity and only one person in two hours even gives you the time of day, and it feels pretty real. :)
Sometimes it still doesn't feel real that I'm a real life missionary doing real life missionary work in New Orleans, Louisiana! But then you go contacting in 110 degree weather with 93% humidity and only one person in two hours even gives you the time of day, and it feels pretty real. :)
That was my day yesterday. After church our ward mission leader wanted us as a district to make a special effort to find people, so we went to La Freniere Park to contact for two hours. The 110 degree weather was not an exaggeration, unfortunately. The park is so great though! There's a cute old carousel in the middle (I didn't get pictures though... next week!) and a little ice cream shop and a big lake with a ton of ducks and turtles and probably alligators, but I didn't see any. There weren't a ton of people out and the heat was killing us on account of it being fast Sunday and we hadn’t had any water or anything to eat since the night before. We're going to go back this week though because it's a prime spot for finding people!
One highlight of the week was actually one of our worst days. It seems like that happens a lot here. A mission is just a series of ups and downs in the space of a few hours. One minute, you're teaching a great lesson and the Spirit is there and they commit to going to church or some other commitment, and then the next you try visiting 15 different people, 5 of which were actual appointments that they set, and nobody answers the door or their phone. Anyways, on Tuesday (I think... the days all blur together after a while) we visited one of our investigators, Liz. She has had it rough. And I mean ROUGH. Oh man I don't know why I ever complain about anything because nothing I deal with is anywhere near what she has gone through. Actually, that's kind of true about all the people we visit here. It's a different world. So yeah rewind a little bit, that whole day literally no one was home. No one answered the phone, all of our appointments fell through, and we did not see one door open. Not one. Nada. Which is kind of hard because we like being busy and productive and we just felt like we drove around in circles all day. So we weren't planning on visiting Liz that day, but she's usually home on weeknights, so we stopped by, and she was there! Holy hallelujah! We start talking to her and she had a super rough day, and the day before she got broken into (don't worry dad I'm safe), and yeah it was just nuts. But she's seriously so strong and so happy, I don't get it! It was so awesome though because she said that when everything else was going wrong, she just had a feeling that we were going to stop by that day. She said she just knew that we were coming. We didn't call or text or anything, but she just knew. Man let me tell you. After a day of literally nothing, I can't tell you how amazing it felt to know that we were in the right place at the right time. Heavenly Father is so involved in our lives, to the point that he would give us a super unproductive day so that we could be there for one of his daughters who needed to hear that God loved her that night. The Church is so true. And being a missionary is the best ever.
I didn't really talk about my ward last week, so I'll talk about them now! So we're in a Spanish ward, but it's weird because it overlaps with an English ward. We have Sacrament meeting at 9 with just Spanish, and everything is in Spanish, then we have Sunday School and Relief Society with just Spanish. But primary, young women's, and young men's are combined with the Spanish and English wards. And then the English ward has Sacrament meeting last at 12. It's kind of crazy, but it's also super cool! Everyone is so friendly and nice down here! It's crazy because I have to switch between Spanish and English a lot here because some of the people we teach are English (basically because we're the only sisters in our area and if we're teaching a single sister the elders in our area can't teach her in her house, so it's just easier for us) and then when we're in the church building, half talk to me in Spanish and half talk to me in English. In terms of Spanish, I'm feeling pretty good! My weakness is just conversational Spanish because there's a lot of vocab I don't know. I'm pretty good at teaching lessons and classes and such because I know all the church vocab, but yeah I have a hard time understanding just normal everyday conversations sometimes because I just haven't been immersed in it as long. So yeah, the ward is great! This weekend though it was so tragic (mom, you probably don't want to hear this one), but a four year old girl in our primary drowned on Saturday. She was staying here in the United States with her aunt and uncle and cousins who are in our ward, and her family lives in Honduras (that's pretty common around here, because people need to work a ton either in Honduras/Guatemala or here in the States so they send their kids to live with family somewhere else). Our ward was just so sullen at church. It was so devastating. It was sweet though during testimony meeting because a lot of people just bore their testimony about the Plan of Salvation.
I didn't really talk about my ward last week, so I'll talk about them now! So we're in a Spanish ward, but it's weird because it overlaps with an English ward. We have Sacrament meeting at 9 with just Spanish, and everything is in Spanish, then we have Sunday School and Relief Society with just Spanish. But primary, young women's, and young men's are combined with the Spanish and English wards. And then the English ward has Sacrament meeting last at 12. It's kind of crazy, but it's also super cool! Everyone is so friendly and nice down here! It's crazy because I have to switch between Spanish and English a lot here because some of the people we teach are English (basically because we're the only sisters in our area and if we're teaching a single sister the elders in our area can't teach her in her house, so it's just easier for us) and then when we're in the church building, half talk to me in Spanish and half talk to me in English. In terms of Spanish, I'm feeling pretty good! My weakness is just conversational Spanish because there's a lot of vocab I don't know. I'm pretty good at teaching lessons and classes and such because I know all the church vocab, but yeah I have a hard time understanding just normal everyday conversations sometimes because I just haven't been immersed in it as long. So yeah, the ward is great! This weekend though it was so tragic (mom, you probably don't want to hear this one), but a four year old girl in our primary drowned on Saturday. She was staying here in the United States with her aunt and uncle and cousins who are in our ward, and her family lives in Honduras (that's pretty common around here, because people need to work a ton either in Honduras/Guatemala or here in the States so they send their kids to live with family somewhere else). Our ward was just so sullen at church. It was so devastating. It was sweet though during testimony meeting because a lot of people just bore their testimony about the Plan of Salvation.
In terms of fun stuff, we went to a trampoline place last pday which was pretty fun, and we had an awesome family home evening with one of our less actives last Monday. It felt just like home because we had a little lesson and then just played games and laughed our heads off!
I love you all so much! And I know Heavenly Father loves you all so much too! Never forget who you are and who you have the chance to become. Heavenly Father doesn't forget that. Have a fantastic week! I'm going to Magazine Street in downtown New Orleans today, which is like the stereotypical New Orleans with jazz and beignets and all that! I'll have some good pictures for y'all next week (or maybe later today depending on if we have time after New Orleans). LES AMO!!
XOXO
Hermana Sorensen
I love you all so much! And I know Heavenly Father loves you all so much too! Never forget who you are and who you have the chance to become. Heavenly Father doesn't forget that. Have a fantastic week! I'm going to Magazine Street in downtown New Orleans today, which is like the stereotypical New Orleans with jazz and beignets and all that! I'll have some good pictures for y'all next week (or maybe later today depending on if we have time after New Orleans). LES AMO!!
XOXO
Hermana Sorensen