Fish Pasta - July 18, 2016

This is Juana
7-18-2016

Hey family! This week was SWEET! So many little miracles, it was so great :)

On Tuesday we had an AWESOME lesson with a less-active, Gerardo. He's
living in a boat right now so we went to see him and had chips and dip
and coconut cake on his boat! Don't worry, we didn't go anywhere :) but
it was awesome! So many beautiful boats. Dad would have died. We also
drove past a place called Hammet gardening service, so that was sweet.
We also saw Judith down south, whom we hadn't seen in a really
long time. That was sweet! She's such a nice lady. We had our English
class, and we had fourteen people there!! It was so fun. Sister Smith
is so funny. We taught about families, and she kept cracking jokes
about how her husband is Enrique Iglesias. Hahahaha they probably
think we are SO DUMB.

Wednesday was pretty good! We helped Norma pack her car with some
stuff to sell at the flea market. We went to her storage unit, and she
has SO MUCH STUFF. Literally 40 suitcases of clothes, hundreds of
pairs of shoes, so many cups and plates, it's insane. We also went to
see another lonely old woman, Ana, who is super sweet. Then we went to People's
Pantry to serve.

Thursday we had zone conference, which was just lovely! We learned
we're getting FACEBOOK on July 29th! Crazy, right?! I have so many
mixed feelings about it. It'll be really interesting. But I think
it'll be really good for the English program especially, they'll have
a better front for talking to people as opposed to knocking doors.
Anyway, we also went on exchange Thursday, and Sister McAllister came
down to T-Riv with me. We went to Maria & Antonios and they fed us
Puerto Rican food! Oh man, it was so good! I love those guys :) we
talked a lot about potatoes. Maria and I talked about our
favorite kinds of potatoes and everything! It was funny!

On Friday we had breakfast with the Bolaños, then lunch with Hermana
Laura. And oh man. She made this pasta. I know she made it with all
her heart. She is so kind. But she didn't have enough beef, so she put
fish in it. Fish. In the pasta. With the red sauce. What. Oh man. This
was the first time I had to drink so much juice to swallow my food
totally whole. It was so bad. I know she made it with love! But it was
rough. Hahahaha oh heavens. But Sister Smith and I learned just how
great we have it down here :) we had an AWESOME lesson with a guy
named Gabriel this evening! He had totally read from the Book of
Mormon, and he had good questions! We taught the whole restoration,
asking good questions and everything, and he took it all really well!
The Spirit was with us SO strong. We were praying really hard before
we went in for the Spirit to guide the lesson, and it totally
happened. We walked out to our car and just prayed and thanked
Heavenly Father for how awesome that lesson was. So we're hoping we
can keep seeing Gabriel and working with him!

On Saturday at our English class, Sister Smith totally came out of her
shell. She was cracking so many jokes, but they only got like 50% of
them. I was laughing pretty hard, though! We went to Juana
Carrasco's house for lunch (she's a solid member), and had some
Peruvian rice and chicken and potatoes. And her niece is visiting from
Peru, and brought a whole bunch of handmade stuff to sell here. So
Smith bought some earrings, and I bought a sweet llama keychain! We
named it Juana, and she hangs in our car :) I'll send a picture! We
also went to the Vegas, and that was good. Things are still crazy in
their house, but we have faith things will fall together! And we had
some helote, this yummy Mexican corn thing. They are too sweet. And it
was raining SO HARD! My shoes were FULL of water! The streets of
Lakewood had rivers flowing through them! So crazy! Then we saw
Manuel and Yolanda again, and that was good. But it was kind of tough,
their two young daughters were pretending to make us food the whole
time! So as we were teaching he plan of salvation, we were
pretending to eat eggs and apple juice on little plastic plates.

Sunday was great! Lots of little miracles :) Yolanda was at church, we
finally found Ramon, and we found someone to take us and Maria &
Antonio to the Philadelphia temple next Sunday!!! We are SO excited!
It's going to be so beautiful and so awesome :) then we saw Rafael and
his family, and ended up with Popsicles, mangoes, and watermelon. Haha
it was great! They are too good to us. We taught them about the Plan
of Salvation, too, and they took it well! They're really sweet. And we
have good members fellowshipping them, so that makes our job a little
easier!

This is a lesson I learned this week:
I've had an interesting experience throughout this last week. There's
a family in our ward, the Hernandez family, that joined the church in
December. We went to see them one evening and it was humbling. They
live in a little house on Lucy street with another family in the ward,
the Velascos. The Velascos have just one son living with them, whose
name is Oscar. Oscar is in his thirties, but acts like he's five--he
has severe autism and he's really crazy, and not very kind. But the
Hernandez family has just one little room in the back of this house
for the mom, dad, and two daughters who are both developing little
mental disabilities as well. All they own is in this little, messy
room. But as we left, they insisted on giving us bananas and mangoes.
We couldn't believe they would be so generous when they really have
nothing to give! But they are so kind and sweet. We could feel their
love for the Lord and His word and each other while we were there.
We also have a woman in our ward named Norma. She doesn't come to
church, but she loves the missionaries! She lives all by herself in an
apartment and is pretty lonely. She has some health troubles right
now, so we do what we can to help her and be with her. But she has
closets and storage units full of hundreds of suit jackets, shoes,
pants, everything! And she wants to give it all away, but she doesn't
want to give it to the people of the church because she thinks they
won't appreciate it. She is very giving and charitable, but she's so
bitter about so many things, especially the church. And she tells us
all the time, "don't hold on to things. They don't do you any good.
Things don't matter." And it's so true! She has so much stuff, but she
doesn't have any family around or any love from friends, really.
Anyway, it was just an interesting contrast. It really doesn't matter
what we have in this life, it matters who we have. Our family and
friends and their love are what's most important. Our relationship
with them, our relationship to God, and our knowledge and experiences
are all well take with us into the next life!

All in all, it was a good week:) life just keeps moving on! Sister
Smith and I are making more of an effort to be totally completely
obedient to everything, and we've seen such a different in the
presence of the Spirit in our work. We're understanding the scriptures
better and finding more joy in reading, relying on the Lord to guide
our teaching, and having a lot more unity in lessons. I'm so blessed
to be here and be with her! This work is the most important in all the
world and I'm blessed to be a part of it :)

I love you and pray for you all the time! I know Heavenly Father
loves me because He gave me you :) thank you for all your love and
support. I am unbelievably blessed :)

Con Amor,
Hermana Millington