Buenos Días familiares,
Como han estado? Espero qué todo este bien!
Well that's all the Spanish I know ;) so I guess it's a good thing I
am going to have another native companion. Yes that's right. I am
super lucky :) I will be with an Hermana named Hermana Santos, she is
from Mexico. I will be leaving this wonderfully hard area of
Bloomington/Normal and heading back up to the mission(in case you
didn't know we are so far away down here it feels like our own
mission) where I will be serving in my last stake in the Bloomingdale
Spanish branch! :) what am I going to do being back in a Spanish
branch, with Hispanic people everywhere..... I really don't know. Haha
but I am excited. I would say I am more sad to leave than excited, but
I am excited. I just love this area so much. Don't get me wrong. It
has been hard. It's a blood, sweat, tears, heart and soul kind of
area, and so for that, I will miss it dearly, because I have poured my
heart into it. The people here are so good. The ward is the kind ward
that I want to put in my pocket and take with me everywhere. They are
the dream. They really have become my family and I will miss them a
lot. But it will be kind of nice leaving the stress behind. For
example this week, all we did all week was try and get people to come
to church. We invited everyone. We talked to everyone. We passed by a
couple times a week to remind them and invite them again. We left
notes, sent texts, called everyone we knew, it was basically all we
existed for this week.....no one came. Not a single person. It was a
significant bummer. I even spoke in church and tried to get them to
come support me and they didn't :(
It was kind of a bummer week for that. Plus we have just realized that
we keep going in circles with Karla and Carlos, so we are going to
drop them :( which if you don't know what that means, it basically
means exactly that, we aren't going to teach them anymore, or visit
them vey often because they aren't ready to make real commitments.
It's heartbreaking. I mean my mind has been so focused on how to help
them, and my prayers are for them, and we have worked really hard with
them, so it's kind of yeah. But it will be okay.
We did have some interesting experiences this week....first remember
that lady I was telling you about a couple weeks ago that prayed over
us that we would be able to except the truth and leave our loved ones
behind. The one that wouldn't not even hear us out about the Book of
Mormon, (by the way, being a Spanish missionary this kind of stuff
never happens to us. Everyone we teach loves Jesus and usually will
listen, maybe not interested but will listen. People don't try and
bash with us. Or convert us) anyway, that lady, whose name we couldn't
even remember, because it was like 3 weeks ago, well she called us,
and I answered and immediately recognized her voice and was like "oh
my why is she calling" I mean we met her once, we didn't even get her
information we just left ours. So anyway she says, "I was just call
into see how you girls are doing, and to see if maybe we could set up
a time to meet again, if that would be okay with you, because I want
to know more about this Book of Mormon". We were stunned and a little
suspicious. So we asked her a lot of questions to see if she was
really interested or if it was going to end up being something like an
intervention for our salvation. Nope, she really had been thinking
about everything we said, and she couldn't shake it, she wants to know
more....it's crazy. So they are going to meet with her on Friday.
Then on Friday our planning day and as we finished and were leaving
our house I decided to grab our only French Book of Mormon. Thought
process was, we are riding the bus, and sometimes when we ride the
bus, we see this lady who is trying to learn French and really wants a
Book of Mormon in French. So I grab it. But then we get on the bus and
she isn't there. So I am just stuck walking around with this French
Book of Mormon as we knock doors. So we go into this apartment, and
outside the apartment complex are these two black guys, and they are
not speaking English, and I wonder to myself if they are speaking
French, but we continue onward and go in to knock the apartment, and
when we come back out they are still there, and as we walk by down the
street towards the next building Hermana Frisbie says, "they are
totally speaking French! we should give them the French Book of
Mormon, kind of as a joke" and then we continue on and knock the next
building, meanwhile I am think about the odds that I happen to have a
French Book of Mormon and there happen to be these two French speaking
men. So we decide we will just go talk to them and see if they are
interested. As we walk up to them they say, "we have a questions, we
were just talking about the bible and......etc" and Hermana Frisbie
and I are like wait what! So we are able to talk to them all about the
Book of Mormon. They are from the Congo, but grew up in France, and
recently moved here. So they speak English too. And one of the men was
so excited about everything we were sharing with him about the Book of
Mormon and prophets and etc. He reads in French and recognized that it
was no convenience that we happened to have a French Book of Mormon
and that God put us in his path. It was incredible. On Saturday the
sisters were having a baptism and we invited him to it and he came!
Then we gave him a church tour and he had to work on Sunday, but he is
going to come next week. It was great......until it wasn't. On Sunday
we get a few phone calls from him during church, and then a couple
texts, one of which says, "Hey Simmons, call me so you can come over
and we can hang out". Yeah that happened. Hoping that it was just a
misunderstanding because of the language barrier we send him a text
basically stating our purpose and that we teach people the gospel,
that's it, etc.....He never replied..... Well it's not the first time
someone has wanted to "hang out" on my mission. I kind of got that
vibe from him at the church on Saturday anyway.
Being a missionary is so great, I love it :) so many adventures. I am
sure I have more to tell you, but I am currently sitting in McDonalds
so I can't remember everything that happened. But I have a lot to do
today since tomorrow is transfers. I love you all. I know that this is
the work of The Lord I see his hand everyday making miracles happen,
and showing me tender mercies. I know the Book of Mormon changes us,
because it brings us closer to Christ, and he perfects us after all we
can do. I love you all. I pray always for you. I have so much stuff on
my mission it's ridiculous so packing will take me awhile. I love you!
Fight the good fight.
Love,
Hermana Simmons
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