Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Besos

Dear family,
I´ll just leave you hanging on that title for a while. It´s been a good week. We´ve been contacting like locas, and it feels so good to just give everyone a chance to listen, whether they decide to or not. We went to a resort town called Benidorm to help the Hermanas there find future investigators- it´s a really tough area. We contacted one man who at first seemed a bit standoffish, but when I found out he was from Chile and started talking about my time there, he opened right up. It´s kind of cheap- I have so many connections with South America that I can say to pretty much anyone I meet, "Ah, I have a sister/brother/friend who lived there!" And then I´ve got them.
Adrieli is progressing a lot. She´s going to stop drinking tea this week, and she committed to do it after her baptism- she´s just so good.
Leo is still holding back- every time we talk with him he has another explanation for why he´s not ready, even though he´s keeping all of his other commitments. Keep him in your prayers.
Had some fun moments at church- one woman gave a Pollyanna-style "Death comes unexpectedly" sort of sermon in sacrament meeting. Drowsy monotone and then "BROTHERS AND SISTERS- THE LORD IS WARNING US!" Fortunately Adrieli didn´t seem scared away- but she did say after that she´s got some repenting to do :)
So, about the besos. It´s custom here to kiss first the right cheek then the left cheek of a person when you greet them. The Elders can´t do it at all, and the sisters only can with women. I met a new investigator family of the zone leaders just before church, standing in a line. I introduced myself and went down the line giving besos to the teenage daughters (soft cheek 1 and 2, soft cheek 1 and 2) and just kept going down the line, and between beardy cheek 1 and 2 I realized something had gone terribly wrong. I jumped back with a yell, hands on my face, and started blubbering about how I shouldn´t do that to this poor investigator father who looked VERY confused, and Elder Rojas had to calmly explain the situation while I repeated "Que vergüenza, que vergüenza!" ("How embarrassing, how embarrassing!") over and over again like a shell shocked missionary. I guess I am.
Everything, is going well. I´m sure I´ll have miracles to tell next week, and hopefully no more moments of breaking basic mission rules.
Love you all!
Love, Hna. Johnson
P.S. Dreamt in Spanish again last night.

No comments:

Post a Comment