Missionary meals

One of the reasons I don’t blog very often is because sometimes I don’t feel like there was anything out of the ordinary during the week that was worth sharing. Then today the missionaries came to eat dinner. I feed them the last Sunday of each month. We also have our FHE on Sundays because Mondays are Mike’s busiest days. So we were talking about prayer and one of the Elders, who has been a member for only 2 years, said that last week he was feeling down and that he was feeling like going home. They have had a hard time finding people to teach, he said that he felt like he didn’t know the reason he was here if they weren’t teaching anyone. Mike is usually very humble, he never brags about the kind of missionary he was, but tonight he told us that he was one the hardest working missionaries. He said he would work so hard that the mission president started sending missionaries who were struggling to him, he didn’t know it at the time but because Mike would work so hard his companions would just notice how much happier and effective their days were. I don’t know if I am explaining myself well. I am not saying that the missionaries who cannot find people to teach are not working hard enough. I guess what he meant is that his way of working on the mission field was contagious. He told the missionary that the best advice he could give him was to work hard and never stop trying. Then at the end of the day, even if they didn’t find a lot of people, he could rest knowing that he did everything on his power to find investigators. He also told them that sometimes you don’t understand the point of your mission, and that he didn’t get the point of his until  a couple of months before going back home when the mission president told him the reason he was getting the kind of companions he was getting. Mike’s mission president knew that he could turn around any missionary who was struggling. For some reason Mike is very reserved when it comes to sharing some of the things that happened during his time in Chile. I get it sometimes tough. The other day he was talking with our neighbor, who is a very good friend of ours, and he told him that one night somebody pulled a gun on him and asked him for money, he said he just told them that he didn’t have any and was left alone. I had never heard that story and Mike didn’t even now I was listening to what they were saying (I wasn’t spying or anything though).

Some Sundays I don’t feel like cooking, and today was one of them. I was regretting signing up to feed the missionaries. However it all changed when we got to talk to a missionary who was in need of some comforting words. I also told him that some of the blessings that come from serving a mission come after you served a mission. If Mike hadn’t served a mission he wouldn’t have known how to speak Spanish and could have never gone to Mexico, and then we could have never met. Now not only we are married in the temple but my parents also will have the opportunity to go to the temple. Also, If it wasn’t for the missionaries who taught me I probably wouldn’t have gone to church regularly and had discussions every week because Mike was not there with me teaching me.

Sometimes I feel like I cannot be a good missionary because I feel that I lack knowledge, but then I am reminded that I the only knowledge I need is the one that comes from my heart.

On a different topic, I don’t know if most of you know but I don’t drive. My family has only had one car our whole life. My dad takes the car to go to work. I always took buses or taxis to go wherever. Or my dad would drop me off at school in the morning and then pick me up at work at nights. So even though is not a very good excuse I never felt like I needed to learn how to drive…until I got here. Even here I had Mike or his parents all the time dropping me off and picking me up from places, I took buses, and also still didn’t have a car anyway. Every time Mike has tried to teach me I freak out, I am scared to death, my hands are sweaty, I shake so bad, I am just a wreck. However, the time has come where I just have to do it. I bet you cannot even imagined being home unable to go places because you can’t drive, and let me tell you it IS horrible. So since my neighbor Steve lost his job he is been trying to help me. However he just got a new car and he is afraid of me doing something bad. I don’t blame him. Mike in the other hand says he wants to teach me but since he works more than 12 hour a day we can’t do it. Saturdays are the one and only day I get to be with my husband, and I am not about spending my day terrorizing my neighborhood with my learning. I am really good at school so I only read the driver manual once and scored 38 out of 40 on my knowledge test and I now have a learners permit. So I guess I am going to hire a driving school and hopefully with the help of professionals I can get over my fears and start being independent. Besides I don’t like going grocery shopping (or any kind of shopping) with Mike, he doesn’t let me buy things I don’t need. What’s the point of shopping if you don’t get one or two thing you don’t need? Right?

The weather has been nice up until today. We love going outside to walk. This is how Lisa rocks the streets. I can’t get enough of these sunglasses.

Also, Lisa has some hair growing very uneven where her bald spot was, so I decided to take her to have her hair cut so it would grow even once and for all. But then I chicken out and only let the lady cut half an inch. Mike said it was the most pathetic first hair cut ever. I guess it was.  She was really good and had a lot of fun riding the “taxi” though.