August 6, 2018 I'm still here!

Hi all--

If anyone is feeling confused about the 2 week interruption in emails, I'm still here and well and happy. Our local library closed down for two weeks and as a result I wasn't able write very effectively (imagine me hunched over the tiniest little toy keyboard trying to figure out how to type a hyphen and read the tiny type on my phone and you about have it. It was so tiny my pinky would completely pass it and hit the table every time I tried to click "enter"). 

Little updates on Jesse, aka "Old Faithful" or as we also like to call him, "the tribal fire dancer guy." Jesse has been on date for baptism since the week I arrived in Fontana, but hasn't been able to be baptized due to a difficult family situation currently outside his control. Despite everything, Jesse has persevered with incredible faith, never missing a single Sunday of church. He recently finished his 40 day fast (he loves the Bible so I think he may have gotten the idea from Jesus) which I was more than thrilled about. We could NOT talk him out of it, although we could get him to break it occasionally to eat the peanut butter sandwiches we always brought to church for him. Jesse desperately wanted to demonstrate to the Lord that he took the baptismal covenant he planned to make seriously, so he fasted two meals every day. In Jesse's words, "fasting from just coffee isn't hard enough Sister Hawkes!!" I didn't like the idea one bit, but it had a sweet ending the previous Sunday when Jesse came to us in tears and told us he was finally finished. "All my life I've felt kind of little. I didn't really know whether I was important to God. But now...I don't feel like a grain of sand anymore." jesse says that the most important thing to him now is finding out how to share the truth he has found with those he loves. "This can't be just for me," he always says. Go Jesse! 

I swear all the bugs in Fontana are out to get me. there are these large green beetles called June bugs (they look like Egyptian scarabs) everywhere, and they can't see well so they'll crash into you without meaning to. I live in terror of them. I'm glad someone finally told me their name s that I can sound very local if I want to. "...And that right there is a June bug. They're blind you know." The other day we were knocking doors in an apartment complex when I made eye contact with a large grasshopper type bug. He was sitting right in my path and had a look in his eyes I didn't quite like so I turned to Hna Stanfield and said, "Hermana, I think that bug sort of wants to get m--" and before i even finished I felt it hit me square in the head. Hna Stanfield laughed so hard she nearly cried. 

This week was a difficult one teaching wise, as many of those we teach have been hard to contact due to work or vacations, but we talked to so many new people this week. When contacting, I'm constantly struck by how many people need the gospel. How many people have unanswered questions or an empty place they don't know how to fill. The hardest part is knowing how to let them know we can help without sounding absolutely crazy. 

It's surprising to me how often we are led to those we can't teach. Luis, who can't function without alcohol and doesn't want to; Rosa, a homeless woman at the park who said she needed no help but asked us to pray for her; and good old Rory, who at 80+ walks every morning to the grocery store in the heat. He's fiercely independent, turning down any assistance when offered, but he'll allow us to stop and walk with him a ways when we see him. He doesn't have interest in our message, but we have had the perfect timing to run into him twice now. Rory has no family, so I worry sometimes we're the only people he talks to all day other than the cashier. It seems sometimes as missionaries we're just there to spark a question in a silenced spiritual mind, or to give someone a first impression of missionaries, to join hands and say a quick prayer in the park, or to walk across the tracks to the grocery store and show someone that God is aware of them and they aren't alone. 

The miracle of the week was definitely Maria! 

We had met Maria on the 4th of July at the city celebration. We paid $5 a piece to get in just to talk with people (fireworks were past curfew) and had no success all evening. It was one of those days where people try not to make eye contact or walk away before you reach them. Sometimes it's funny how scary we are and we're only 19! We were about to leave when we decided to talk to just one more person. I'm learning that's usually the moment God sends little miracles. We then met Maria, a woman with the most beautiful, clear blue eyes and huge, warm smile. We found out quickly that family is more important than anything to her. She radiated charity, and is clearly a devoted Mom to her five kids. "Golden," we thought. "Maria is absolutely golden!" Our hopes wilted a little in the following weeks as Maria continued to cancel on us. She was in the middle of a move, so was understandably busy although she insisted she didn't need any help. Hermana Stanfield could not get her out of her mind, however, so two days ago we decided to just do a "hail Mary" and try to stop by. She lives on a lot with six other houses, but with no numbers we were at a total loss to find house four. We walked out by the street to ask a gardener when we say a woman frantically waving at us from across the lot. It was Maria, who had just happened to step outside to get her mail. turns out there were three more houses we didn't know were there. She warmly welcomed us in, and we were able to have a first lesson with her. She has had difficult experiences with church in the past, and she treasures the Bible, so the Book of Mormon made her very nervous. She almost didn't take it, but she took our testimony that it is further scripture from God very seriously. She held it like a baby, and keeps her Bible on a special stand in her home. The kids know there is a way to treat it, as "no other book." It really struck me. I have the Word of God in my life, but I don't know if I treat it with the same level of reverence that Maria does. Does it mean more than anything else in the world to me? Maria couldn't bring herself to promise to read it, but she promised to read a pamphlet and to pray. We still have hope!

 What a adventure. 

Love you all so much!

--Hermana Hawkes 

Great Quotes: 

"I'm jus' a lil bean I can't do nuffin'' --Hank Smith ("Be Who You Are" 10/10 would recommend)

Hna Stanfield: "Ok, say 'wisdom' in Spanish."

Me: "Wee-sdom." (the word she was looking for was "sabiduria" but I have been working hard pronouncing my "i" in Spanish so I just figured...) 

"Are you guys married? I hope you find your true loves.'' --little Kevin, aka the designated comedian of the Primary. Love him! 

"Esnake!"--the word I wanted was "culebra"

"Have you seen my fish pencil sharpener?" 

"well, what does it look like?" 

"Well, Good-night nurse!!" --Hna Stanfield (no idea where she got that one)