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| 4th of July with Sister Smith |
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Hola family! Happy Fourth of July!! Tonight our curfew got extended by President Taggart, so we're going to see some fireworks on Point Pleasant Beach with the Bolaños family! We are so excited :) but this week has been so crazy! We started the week with a TON of appointments scheduled, but very few of them actually happened. Haha but it's alright! The best stories always come from contacting anyway :) so this is what went down!
On Monday, WE PUT THE VEGA FAMILY ON BAPTISMAL DATE. Aaaaaah!!! Finally! And if they don't make the date I'll be super sad, but they understand that they need to be baptized and they want to be! So that's good news :) we also got some free mango Popsicles (frozen mango juice in a little tied plastic bag) from some lady's trunk that we taught about the Book of Mormon.
Tuesday was awesome! We got a spontaneous appointment with Brenda, which went way well. She dropped us. But it was actually awesome, now we know! And we have more time to spend finding the prepared! We went downtown Lakewood for dinner, at a little restaurant called La Tapatia. As we were walking in, Libro de Mormon in hand, we walked past three policemen on their bikes. I heard one of them say something about "Mormon" and I whipped around and was like "you've heard of the Book of Mormon??" Anyway, long story short, we taught the three policemen the whole restoration there on the sidewalk! One had seen the musical, so he knew a little about the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and invited them to read! They were super nice! Smith was bearing down in pure testimony (she was so bold, it was so awesome), and one of them was like "okay, but like how do you know? Who told you?" And she was like "I know because I've read it and prayed about it and God told me it's true." So bold! So clear! And we ended up seeing a couple of them a couple days later and they were super nice! They hadn't read (haha), but they were way cool! So were tight with the Lakewood police now :) and in La Tapatia, they had some TVs playing crazy Spanish soaps and we were dying. So much drama. Hahaha so we decided after the mission when we hang out were just going to eat chips and salsa and laugh at Spanish soaps! We also broke an important barrier. We were in CVS and we got a Jew to talk to us!! First time. She told us about how she got her cute necklace at TJ Max:) it was awesome!!
Wednesday we met so many people! It was way good! We were going to set up a booth on the beach with the other missionaries, so we went over there, by the police told us we couldn't :( but we stood across the street from this sketchy motel and watched these crazy college kids that were a little bit under the influence.. Haha but as we were walking back to our car, the manager of the motel stopped us and asked what we were selling! We stopped and talked for a little while, and he was way cool! His name was Shipon and he was from Bangledesh! He's Muslim, so we talked for a second about his beliefs and told him some of ours. We didn't have any English Book of Mormons with us at the time, so next time we're by the shore we'll bring him one :) then we went to People's Pantry and served there for a while, helping this guy named Matt shelves of bread and tuna and whatnot. Then we went to Clifton and went crazy about our English Class! And we met this guy named Fernando with a beard like that guy from the Hunger Games. So rad. I also met a Columbian guy who told me a Spanish joke! Haha! Then we had dinner at the Esteban's, and it was just regular chicken this time:)
On Monday, WE PUT THE VEGA FAMILY ON BAPTISMAL DATE. Aaaaaah!!! Finally! And if they don't make the date I'll be super sad, but they understand that they need to be baptized and they want to be! So that's good news :) we also got some free mango Popsicles (frozen mango juice in a little tied plastic bag) from some lady's trunk that we taught about the Book of Mormon.
Tuesday was awesome! We got a spontaneous appointment with Brenda, which went way well. She dropped us. But it was actually awesome, now we know! And we have more time to spend finding the prepared! We went downtown Lakewood for dinner, at a little restaurant called La Tapatia. As we were walking in, Libro de Mormon in hand, we walked past three policemen on their bikes. I heard one of them say something about "Mormon" and I whipped around and was like "you've heard of the Book of Mormon??" Anyway, long story short, we taught the three policemen the whole restoration there on the sidewalk! One had seen the musical, so he knew a little about the Book of Mormon. We gave him one and invited them to read! They were super nice! Smith was bearing down in pure testimony (she was so bold, it was so awesome), and one of them was like "okay, but like how do you know? Who told you?" And she was like "I know because I've read it and prayed about it and God told me it's true." So bold! So clear! And we ended up seeing a couple of them a couple days later and they were super nice! They hadn't read (haha), but they were way cool! So were tight with the Lakewood police now :) and in La Tapatia, they had some TVs playing crazy Spanish soaps and we were dying. So much drama. Hahaha so we decided after the mission when we hang out were just going to eat chips and salsa and laugh at Spanish soaps! We also broke an important barrier. We were in CVS and we got a Jew to talk to us!! First time. She told us about how she got her cute necklace at TJ Max:) it was awesome!!
Wednesday we met so many people! It was way good! We were going to set up a booth on the beach with the other missionaries, so we went over there, by the police told us we couldn't :( but we stood across the street from this sketchy motel and watched these crazy college kids that were a little bit under the influence.. Haha but as we were walking back to our car, the manager of the motel stopped us and asked what we were selling! We stopped and talked for a little while, and he was way cool! His name was Shipon and he was from Bangledesh! He's Muslim, so we talked for a second about his beliefs and told him some of ours. We didn't have any English Book of Mormons with us at the time, so next time we're by the shore we'll bring him one :) then we went to People's Pantry and served there for a while, helping this guy named Matt shelves of bread and tuna and whatnot. Then we went to Clifton and went crazy about our English Class! And we met this guy named Fernando with a beard like that guy from the Hunger Games. So rad. I also met a Columbian guy who told me a Spanish joke! Haha! Then we had dinner at the Esteban's, and it was just regular chicken this time:)
On Thursday we went to Norma's in the morning and got all kinds of advice about marriage and children and everything. She is too great (: then we went to the Geschwandtner house and talked with them for a while! He's the 2nd counselor in the branch presidency but his wife is way Catholic. They fed us cupcakes and talked about their grandkids forEVER. That night we were at the Rec Center for our ESL class and there was some boxing thing happening in the main room. After they finished and the coach guy was cleaning up, he talked to us about how he coaches these pros and how this one famous boxer is going to "our country"... And then he started talking about how can never get "our kids" to come box with them.. And then he was like "but there are famous Jewish boxers, so I don't know why you're kids won't come out!" Haha then it all came together. We aren't Jewish, sir.
Friday was good! Best part: Smith was making me a smoothie for lunch and she hadn't made many smoothies before.. So she thought it would be a good idea to stick a fork in the blender while it was on. Long story short, there was purple all over her sweatshirt and inside the open cabinet above it. Hahaha! I didn't think it was very funny at the time.. But looking back it's pretty hilarious (: I also caught a lightning bug! That was cute (:
Saturday we did SO MUCH CONTACTING again! It was awesome. We spent a little over an hour on Clifton just walking up and down one street and we got like 16 phone numbers of people to text about the English class to remind them about it! Super awesome! We met some way interesting people, including two Maria Sachez's and four people with the last name Flores. We also taught two men who opened their door and were shirtless for the whole thing. Cool. We also stopped in to see a less-active who literally peed his pants while we were on the doorstep. And he didn't flinch. What. No jk. Hahahaha
Sunday. Oh man. So we had church and it was all good. And then we went out to Brick to try to find a couple people. We were going to go back to Lakewood, but then we remembered that the bishop of the English ward had asked us to stop in on a family there on Brick. I guess their records had been in a Spanish branch before and the other missionaries hadn't been able to get a hold of them? We went and stopped by and oh man. The Lord blessed us. We knocked on the door, and Joanne Olszewski opened the door and sat us right down on the couch. She started telling us her whole life story! Also, they didn't speak spanish at all. And we didn't tell them we were Spanish missionaries.. But our name tags clearly said "Hermana" soooo.. Anyway, we were talking about the children their family had lost and how hard it was, and her husband walks in and is all "hey sisters, I just made some steak! Do you want some?" Soooo, we had a steak dinner with them! And wow. There was not one second of silence the whole time. They just talked and talked and talked. It was the funniest thing EVER. Their uncle Larry was missing teeth and called us the "sis-tors" from "Ee-da-hoo" and "oo-taah". Hahaha oh man. I literally had to stop myself from laughing so many times. And we tried to share a scripture with them about trials and hope and everything, and Larry kept interrupting with "mmhmmm, uh-huh, amen sister. Amen." STOP TALKING LARRY. And at one point there were three separate conversations happening amongst the six of us at that table. And Joanne just kept telling me about how she's teaching her autistic grandson and how he's learning and his dad is such a good father and everything. Anyway, we ended up leaving a while later with an entire watermelon. Not cut or anything. Just a watermelon. Too good. They still don't know we're the Spanish missionaries.. But how could we tell them?! They gave us steak!! And they were so nice (: I don't know why they don't come to church.. But well send the English sisters back (: anyway, tender mercy for sure. It was awesome.
I love you! God bless America! (:
Hermana Millington
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