To sum up my week in a sentence-- I've been chased by 33 dogs, attacked by a goose, and peed on by a turtle after I risked my life running out in the road to save it! Turd...le;) There are so many dogs here it's nuts! I kicked one in the mouth because it wouldn't stop chasing me. It almost bit my foot but luckily I have fabulous kicking skills. Also, there was this giant German Shepard that was barking at us one day as we were riding past so I barked back because I thought it was chained up! He wasn't. That thing came at me so fast!!! I didn't know my feet could touch the handle bars!
Last week after P-day we got done playing soccer and as we were walking into the church one of the elders said "Texas why are you so hot?!" and I turned to the elder and said "I told you my name is not Texas!!" So everybody in our district calls me Texas.
This week flew by. We have such a hard time getting people to church because they are afraid of border patrol. Our ward is literally 95 percent illegal. I wish that I had a giant bus to take everyone to church. We find ourselves teaching a lot about faith and that they will be blessed for going back to church. It's awesome though because the one and only white guy that is in our ward works for border patrol, but when we are all in church none of that matters. We all become the same and we are all trying to become better. We are all children of God.
There are lots of things that I would say are hard about missions such as not talking to your loved ones whenever you want, feeling tired all of the time, getting mad diarrhea from the spicy food, being sweaty all of the time from the heat, but the hardest thing for me is not being sassy to people and finding nice ways to explain why I'm right. One member told us that he believed that Joseph Smith was resurrected. another guy told us that he believed we came from aliens and one lady yelled at us on her porch to not "worship Joseph Smith". It takes every fiber of my being to just tell them to have a good day and leave! I would love to just tell them that Hell is a lot hotter than south Texas!
Every time we go to a members house to eat they make us get seconds. Everyone makes me eat more because they say I'm "too skinny!" All the Mexican ladies like to try and fatten me up. The food hurts so good, if you catch my drift.
Also, my Spanish is coming along. This week I was praying for the food and muerto means death and cuerpo means body. I asked in my prayer that our food would blessed and strengthen our deaths. I also was teaching about the plan of salvation and I was teaching about showing God that we love him. Monstrar means to show and mensrar means menstrate. so I taught that we menstruate to God that we love him.
This week when we were tracking we were walking to a member's house when some little kids came up to us because their friends dared them to talk to us. It turns out one of the kids name Jose has been baptized but his friend Marcos who is 12 hasn't. We told them we were going to teach a member a lesson and that they should come with us. They did! They were a little nervous about coming because they didn't know whose house it was so I reassured them and told them that I didn't know the member either. During the lesson when my companion was teaching I leaned over and asked Marcos how he felt and he said really good. He is such a smart kid and knows a lot about God. After the lesson we were walking back and I asked Marcos if he would like to be baptized by the same authority that Christ was baptized and he said yes! We came back a few days later to teach him and his 8 year old brother came out on the porch and listened and after I asked him if he would like to be baptized and he said yes too! We are planning on May 17th.
This week we also taught Daisy and Diana, the two sisters that own the convenience store. We teach them behind the counter while they are selling beers and stuff but we still had the spirit while teaching them. They work a lot and so they don't get the chance to read a lot but our lessons have been really good with them. We invited them to be baptized but they said they weren't ready. I told them they don't have to be perfect to be baptized. I love that I have a past. I can sense things that my companion can't and I use my past to teach. It turns out she likes to drink. I told her that giving up those things that give only temporary happiness for the things that give us eternal happiness is hard but it's so much more worth it!! We are working hard with them to get them to come unto Christ and I can only hope that they accept our message!!
I hope you have a great week! Thank you for all of the support, love, and prayers! They keep me going! I love you all. Luchemos en la cause celestial truinfal!! Te Amo!
Hermana Thompson
