This week we were invaded by ants. Big ants the length of my thumb nail, ants the size of a hyper active grain of sand, and medium size ants. They were swarming all over the wall next to Hermana Peine's desk. We moved the table out back so we wouldn't fumigate ourselves while studying (see attached, though DEFINITELY not posed picture ;) ) and then went at it with the bug spray interrupting their newly created but well traveled highways on our wall. When we came back in after planning we discovered that it had been raining ants. Instead of a wallpaper we had a carpet of them. (yay for brooms!)
But here's what I learned: if you attack ants, they attack back. After the first round of bugspray several of them ended up on my feet and they quite angrily started biting my toes ''Take that giant human! (chomp) and that! (crunch). The little things don't bark but their bites sting, for sure. Here's the thing though: I'm much bigger than them. And I have a can of bug venom. They never had a chance.
Doctrine and Covenants3:1 Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men. Basically, if we choose our Father in Heaven, we choose the winning team. The Adversary has hundreds and hundreds of ants that bite, but we have prayer, the scriptures, and living prophets to guide us, all of which beat up those pesky ants without a problem.
On non-ant related things, this week was an excellent week. We got to spend some time with a sister, Nelda, who was one of the first members of the church in this part of Mexico. She no longer sees or hears very well, and she uses a walker, but her conviction of the truth of the Gospel isn't shaken. We invited her to a baptism and she was so happy to be invited and asked us to tell her every time there was a church activity.
We also had a lesson with a gentleman I remember talking to almost at the beginning of my mission. I was kind of skeptical going in, to be perfectly honest. It turned out to be one of my favorite lessons of the week. He was interested in learning, very polite, although with zero interest of changing belief systems. But the whole point: INVITE, was really driven home to me in that lesson.
The most important parts of my week are small things - lessons, asking for and being super excited upon receiving references from members, a testimony that was particularly touched me, conversing with Sister Vicky about her mission years ago, finding out that there are free weddings (for so many people we teach the 1000 pesos is a huge impediment) and things that maybe aren't that interesting to write home. But the people are so much more important than the ants.
Love,
Hermana Juliana
P.S. we ate the whole bag of animal crackers, it was from last Monday's grocery trip.