To sum up this week in a sentence. This week has been the best, most loving, hardest, and most humbling week of my mission. Well.. That's all I've got time for! I love you all! :)
Just kidding. I'll expound a little bit. Problem is I have so many different things I could share with you I honestly haven't a clue where I want to start. I better start with the hilarious story behind that title. We went tracting in this complex and a Muslim man, PaPe from West Africa answered the door, he had just finished his prayer but invited us into his house anyways Sister Blaylock and I were doing most of the talking, everything was good, interesting, but good. Well.. I don't really know how it came up.. I'll spare some of the details.. haha But all of a sudden Pape looks at me and says "You, you are beautiful. But Sister Young, She's quiet.. so I want to marry her." HAHAHA It was HILARIOUS! He kept going on and on about wanting to marry her. Well it turned creepy.. so we got out of there and gave him an address to the Stake center because he said he'd go to church to sit next to Sis Young. So funny. So I guess being talkative is going to keep me from getting proposed to here in Marietta. And I can't say I'm bummed about it.. haha :) I am absolutely smiling thinking about this experience. :)
The weather is crazy. We had tornado warnings and it flooded basically. I had water up to my ankles when we were walking home one night. What an adventure. :) Other days its like 88 and starting to get humid.. YAY.. haha
We had exchanges this week with a new companionship of Sisters they put in the Zone next to us. It was SO fun! (To say the least.) Sister Young went to their area and their traner, Sister PaePaeTaaTa (from Tahiti) came to our area. She's so awesome. I learned so much from her it was amazing.
The people we are teaching are progressing and such amazing people. Vivian has chosen a day to be baptized! So that's awesome! :) I have no idea if I'll be in the area but I'm so excited for her. Rebecca and D'lan are both still preparing to be baptized and we met a lot of other great people to teach. We are BLESSED!
I have a couple quick stories and then I'll have to call it quits. Oh before I forget! My dear amazing awesome family: Thank you for writing me notes on the Easter Eggs, I got them this last week and they all made me smile :) Adam here's a statistic to answer your question.. On Friday.. 14 of the 15 people we taught or talked to were either Black or Hispanic. :) I love the people!
First story: So you all know that I want to be able to speak spanish, so I try to teach myself right? Well I haven't been reading or studying in Spanish during lunch lately becuase I'm working on some other study stuff.. not important. (My brain is so scattered..)Well I had a neat experience this week, well actaully a few, and I'd like to share one of them because it made me happy. This man Louis walked up to us and asked who we were. His english was really broken, he is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese (obviously) and Spanish. So we just were talking and he was trying SO hard to understand what we were saying. He wanted to know so bad. He then looked at me and asked me (in spanish) "Please, can we speak in spanish?" At first I froze and then said, I'll try, but just know I don't speak it well. I prayed SO hard to remember the verbs, words, and phrases I have been trying to memorize. And you know what? I did! At one point he stopped me and told me "I understand everything, please tell me more." So I did! :) I grabbed the Restoration pamphlet in Spanish and explained it briefly to him and bore my testimony, talked about his work, about getting missionaries to him to teach him more. And all that in SPANISH. Say what??? What a tender mercy. There is no way I did that on my own. It was so amazing to literally have these words just come to my mind and have them form sentences at least enough that he understood it. He is now meeting with Portuguese elders too :) So that's really awesome!
Second Story: I'll preface this with saying this is my most powerful mission story ever! I bet all of you are on the edge of your seats :) So we saw this older woman smoking outside her apartment and so we (Sis P Sis B and I) went up to talk to her. She had two of her grandsons outside and she was NOT interested. I tried to just talk about how wonderful the Savior is and such and noticed that her grandsons were listening. So I directed my attention to them. I asked them if they knew how much Jesus loved them and we shared pictures of Christ with them. The younger one ran inside and next thing I new he brought his sister. Sis P suggested we sing them a song and they loved the idea. So we sang "I am a Child of God." Oh my goodness. I cannot put into words the spirit I felt nor can I explain the looks on their faces, the smiles, the light radiating from their eyes, and love from their souls. After we sang we asked the Grandma again if we could come back and teach more. She responded no, while her grandkids were nodding "yes yes yes" When she said no they said "Oh grandma, please! Please let them come back." She then agreed. I can't wait to go back to them. I love them!
Never before did I think I would say this, but I am convinced the words "I am a Child of God" are the most powerful words. Once we know the truth of that phrase we can change the world. We change ourselves, because we are no longer paralyzed by the words of critics but listen to our Father who sees us for what we can become, like Him.
I love you all. Please don't ever doubt that YOU, old young big small, YOU are a child of God. He has sent you here, and expects you to learn and grow and come back to him. I know this is true.
Love,
Sister Hamilton
Picture is of the pollen on my hands.. crazy!
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