This week was Zone Conference which was AMAZING (and long, but I think that's mostly because my attention span is short). President Walkenhorst, the APs, and the Zone Leaders all gave trainings about various topics. One of the things that really stuck out to me was about obedience. President W compared each "rule" or principle to a switch on a switchboard. If you demonstrate to the Lord that you're responsible enough to operate that switch then you'll get more, which means you get more rules, which are really just opportunities for blessings. The Lord blesses us with commandments so He can bless us, and if we obey the commandments we'll receive more. Some people have proved their obedience to the point that they can operate as many switches as you'd find in the cockpit of an aircraft, whereas some can only control an analog telephone. It really made me think, because every missionary has to be keeping the commandments to be worthy to go on a mission, but once we're here we don't get to relax the rules but rather we're given the white handbook which has TONS of rules but thereby tons of opportunities for blessings. Interesting, no? It definitely made me want to be more obedient.
Then on Thursday we had the demon wasp incident! If I had my camera chord I'd send pictures, but alas. So Sister C. and I were weekly planning like good missionaries and we decided to open the window because it was BEAUTIFUL out, like 70s and sunny and it was kind of hot and stuffy in the apartment. The only problem is that our windows don't have screens, but we remedied that by putting the fan in the window. Good. Actually not good because a little bit later this DEMON WASP (it was actually just a normal sized wasp) sent from SATAN came in the window and tried to eat my companion and then take her back to its lair to feed its evil demon wasp babies!!!! (actually it just flew in and started chilling on the light on our ceiling) So Sister C started making a flyswatter from her slipper and the twisty stick thing from the blinds while I kept an eye on the wasp to make sure it didn't disappear. Well I took my eyes off of it for about .01 seconds (maybe like 30...) and it disappeared!!! We looked everywhere but couldn't find it. We decided that it had crawled into the ceiling above the light fixture and was going to make babies which we for sure didn't want so we started to carefully take off the light to inspect. Well basically the light turned into a chandelier. No bueno. Then we had to go to the office and get Syndy (the office lady) to help us fix it. The maintenance guy came by shortly and turned our chandelier back into a normal light fixture, so now everything's good again. Hallelujah!! Basically from that experience we learned that you shouldn't touch light fixtures and we need a flyswatter. A little bit later we brought Syndy some pineapple because she was so helpful and basically awesome in general and then the next day she got us a flyswatter. So maybe the wasp was sent by Heavenly Father so we could meet Syndy. Whatever the case may be, it was a pretty funny experience and definitely delayed weekly planning by like 2 hours.
And then on Friday was exchanges!!!! Sis C and I got to be companions with the 2 STLs (Sister Training Leaders... they're basically in charge of the sisters. It's a fairly new calling) in the zone so I got to lead out Spanishland with Sister Pfister who is an AMAZING missionary but doesn't speak Spanish. Our first appointment was with people who speak English though so that was good and I was able to see her in action. She's fabulous. I want to be like her when I grow up. Our next appointment was at a trailer park and we had the ward mission leader and his fiancee come but the flaky people flaked out. So we decided to go tracting with members! We actually had an AWESOME finding miracle too. We were walking around seeing potentials when Sis P points out this man working on something in his yard. She tells me to go talk to him (because she doesn't speak Spanish) which I wouldn't have ordinarily done because he looked pretty busy. I go over and "heavenly gift" him, which is our usual finding approach. Basically because everyone here is religious you just ask to pray with them, identify the Spirit, and get a return appointment. It usually works pretty well. So we heavenly gifted him and asked if there was anything in particular that he needed. He told us that his dad had actually just died in Mexico. WHOA. So we ask if we can talk to him (Daisy said "compartir palabras de aliento" but I'm not exactly sure how that translates) and he agreed! So we talked about the plan of salvation and gave him a Book of Mormon! The Spirit was so strong too! I hope that he'll be able to progress, but I've observed that there are 2 types of Hispanics: those that are staunchly Catholic and those that believe that religion doesn't matter as long as you believe in God. Neither are very receptive to the Church, and he's the second. So please pray for Rolando!
Then the next day we went to Purcell, which is this tiny "blink or you'll miss it" town South of Norman. It was there that we found the trailer park without speed bumps (which was really exciting because that's the worst part about trailer parks) and we also had an interesting encounter with some other Mexican men. So we were visiting this potential investigator who lives outside of Purcell just off the freeway behind this abandoned gas station with about 5 other trailers. Sketchy, right? Well he wasn't home, but as we were leaving we saw these guys cooking chicken and chilling in their little garage off their trailer. We decide to go talk to them, and they feed us chicken with tortillas and this hot sauce that I'm pretty sure burned a hole through my tongue. You would've loved it Mom. We talked about faith and the gospel and gave them a Book of Mormon. It was super fun! I love meeting random strangers. It's the spice of life. We'll probably go back there and talk to them some more. Hopefully they'll read the Book of Mormon and want to be baptized! Hey, miracles happen right?
Well I think this is sufficiently long, but just know that I love you all and I'm doing SO GREAT and loving being a missionary here in Oklahoma! I'm so blessed and have the best life ever!!!!
Love,
Hermana Halloween (because Holloway is too difficult for most Hispanics)
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