Week 32 - September 29, 2014 - Children like them...

It's creeping closer and closer to the end of the year, and it's weirding me out. December is going to take us all by surprise.

 

We had a lovely week this week - Mary was baptized (Yay!), we had a huge long meeting with the mission President, and it's still raining pretty much every day.

 

Awkward experience of the week - I asked a young woman we were teaching what is what she wants for her daughter (the three year old was sitting on her dad's lap, who was sitting next to her) AND it turns out they were cousins. Oops. When you're trying to get to know people and don't know how they're related, those kinds of things happen. I did get a different one right though! Someone we knew and her friend came to say hi to us in the street and I successfully guessed that they were cousins. Although, every day someone asks Hermana Peine and I if we're twins... I think it's because we're exactly the same height. Who knows.

 

We ate this really awesome candy this week for Hermana Molina's birthday. It comes as an extended leaf of sugar between two pieces of plastic. You take off the top one and fold down the sugar leaf until it's lollipop size. Hermana Diznarda kept saying 'a los niños les gusta' and considering that we were thoroughly amused by them and they were yummy that implies that we're children.

 

On Wednesday, the power kept going out sporadically because of a thunderstorm. The first time, I pulled out the cell phone to turn on it's flashlight (mom, it's the same kind of flashlight as the one on the little phone I was so proud of). The same little girl who's parentage I mistook was worried about the dark, so the second time they went out she pried the phone out of my hands and started walking around the house with it, and would promptly give it back when the lights came back on. She's pretty darn smart, she always asks us about balloons because the first time we met her we gave her one.

 

I'm really grateful for everything that I get to be a part of on a daily basis - being a missionary is incredible. I love all the little things, like being given a second pack of cookies, talking to half a van about prophets, the clear view of Takana we get walking to church on Sundays, and I know life doesn't need to be one giant exciting moment after another to be an adventure. Those small things like crazy weird looking bugs and splitting an alambre are things that count. See Alma 37:6 - it's the small moments that make it possible to move forward diligently and face the moments that aren't as pleasant. On my planner I have a picture of upper Punch Bowl Falls (courtesy of Dad) and on it I wrote, all things denote there is a God. Alma 30:44. Looking it up is your homework.

 

Love,

Hermana Juliana

 

(for those who might be wondering, the bird won the staring contest)