September 16, 2019 Thermal to the End

Hi all!

It rained! Hard. Hermana Staker has been praying for rain for weeks, but I think I was the only witness. I woke up in the middle of the night to the crack of thunder and flash of lightning outside the window. It was pouring! I love summer thunderstorms, so I cracked the window and slept facing the wrong way just so I could listen to it. "Hermana Staker, " I whispered, "God really loves you!" "I just love HIM so much." she responded. Ask, and ye shall receive. Now she's gotten a bit cocky, though, and marches around telling us the weekly forecast. Oh, boy. 

Where do I even start? This week was wild. All these people just came out of the woodwork! The Lord has big plans. We met Willie, who has been taught by elders for almost 4 years now, and had twice as many baptismal dates, but had some "mystery iceberg (obstacle)." We found it pretty quick. The man sort of thinks he's a prophet. He may or may not be pretty justified though! 

Cute little Yadhira dragged all 3 little boys to yet another activity--a big event about the Book of Mormon. Eric kept running out of the room, so she only caught snippets, but at the end when I asked her what she thought she said, "I liked the part about the Mayans, and I think I want a copy of that book!" Jose kept asking me about the "Lamanite curse" so I have no idea what was taught in the other classes, but he loved it. We taught an introductory class with 7 other local missionaries. 

It was amazing to see the Lord's hand this week. Ruben, the sweetest man, opened up about an experience he'd had with sincere prayer during the sickness of his son. His wife joined us at the end, but caught enough of the lesson to thank the Lord in prayer for sending us. At another house, we missed the two women we were trying to contact, but met Jose Luis, who lived in Salt Lake for 20 years, and has always loved the church. I may or may not have announced in Ward Council that we'd found the future bishop for Mecca. The whole room went really silent, but then everyone wanted to come with to the next appointment! 

A little returned missionary in the ward shared a story I loved from her mission in Argentina. One day while tracting, they were surprised to find a very nice, well-kept house in the middle of a very poor area. The family was very friendly, and quickly told them the story of their success. Many years before, they had owned a dairy cow. This cow was the center of their lives; they earned their entire livelihood selling cheese and milk. One day, however, the cow went missing, and the family feared the worst. What would they do--they only knew cheese and milk! Quickly, however, and out of necessity--the family developed and discovered other means of making money. They discovered they had gifts and abilities far beyond what they had previously thought, and their new ventures earned them far more money than the cow ever had. As an explanation for their success they would say simply, "la vaca tiene la culpa" (it's the cow's fault). She applied this beautifully to our experience with the gospel-- how often do we stay stagnant, without pushing ourselves to truly discover our potential and live the gospel FULLY, because we're used to and comfortable with the dairy cow? How often do we misunderstand the hard things that happen to us rather than seeing them as opportunities for growth? I'm so, so guilty of all of this! 

An amazing example of all this is Hermana Eva. Metaphorically speaking, she's lost every "cow" she's ever had. If you listened to her life story, you'd think that not very much ever went right, but you couldn't tell from how she told it. When Eva was a baby, friends would tell her mother, "this one will be a nun!" Eva just nods happily. "I've given my life to God, every bit that I can, so I guess at least on the inside that has been true!" Eva lives alone, but her home is always open to any dog that needs babysitting or old friend trying to recover from old habits. She gets up every fast Sunday, because she can't repress the need to loudly exclaim, "This is the true church!!!" She brings anyone she can drag. She'll work until 7 or 8pm at night, and then she's always finding a way to serve a friend or haul donations or come to lessons or attend Book of Mormon class. The glass is always half-full with her. "Every morning when I wake up," she tells us, "I just pour my heart out to the Lord and tell him thanks for waking me up, and giving me another day. Then I just dig into my scriptures, but sometimes I've got my nose into them so deep that it almost makes me late! Then I say, 'Let's go Lord! Vamos!' and sort of think of myself taking him by the hand and off we go. He's with me all day. He is my best friend. He has guided me through it all." All this was said with an huge smile, in her dark little front room, where she had welcomed us in although she had been running around all day, hadn't eaten, and hadn't been home. I left feeling very humbled about my "bad days,"  with one of her little Mexican buns sent from her village in my hand. They were a little stale from the mail, but we ate every crumb. 

I love you all so much. Have the greatest week! 

--Hermana Hawkes 

Great Quotes:

"Long time no see you!" --Hno Lopez

"...and then she took pictures of the men who buried her cat...you know, just to remember." --Hna Staker 

"If you were an Avenger you'd be a mix of Starlord and Happy (grumpy best friend of Ironman)" --Hna Staker 

"I'm not praying at the end of the lesson, sister. They tried to make me at the AA meetings, and I never went back!!" 

"Vas a salir porque no encontraste tu media-naranja." --Glena (I'm leaving the mission soon because I didn't find the "other half of my orange"/soulmate) 

"You all asked if I had questions...so what do you think about aliens?" --Raul