City Adventures

Hola mi familia!!

This was another great week! I cannot believe that it is June already!  We finished off the end of the month really great and are pumped for June!  Transfers are next week, so we will find out if Tirado and I can go one more together, or if they split us up. Everything is kind of up in the air right now... Haha.

Last Friday we had Elder Stephen E. Snow and his wife come visit the mission!  They were absolutely fantastic and I learned a lot about continuing with our high goals of faith and excellence and especially about how to become a better teacher.  We all had to prepare a talk to give about faith and then two elders and two sisters were chosen to speak.  After they each spoke we had to critique them! That was a little unexpected and definitely a little nerve-wracking, wondering if we'd be picked and then have to endure the critiques of our peers.   Luckily all my years in art have made me love a good critique, so I wasn't too nervous if I was chosen to speak (which I wasn't).  But either way, I learned a ton more techniques in how to teach well, such as keeping eye contact, keep exactly in the time limit you are given (they timed each of the talks to make sure they were exactly 5 minutes!!), sharing stories, and especially including music.  It was an awesome meeting.

On the more hilarious/awkward side of my mission life, this week in the good old Spanish ward the members taught me all of the following words: sunburn, you got fried, sunscreen, and aloe lotion.  Needless to say, instead of being made fun of for speaking like a Dominican this week, I was made fun of for being a gringa.  Hahahaha. Thursday was the most beautiful day yet, so Tirado and I decided to do weekly planning outside.  Mom, you should be so proud--I put my 70 spf sunscreen on my face! But that was about it... The worst part about the burn was the fact that Friday, the next day, was the mission conference with Elder Snow.  Basically I met a general authority with arms and legs about as red as a fire truck... Haha.

ZONE MOVIE PARTY!  After our movie party! Yeah, I love when I get to wear my stretchy pants :) 

Yesterday, Tirado and I were out tracting and looking for people to teach.  All of our appointments fell through, so we decided to spend the time outside since it was a lovely day.  We decided to check up and see if Juana was home, so we walked over to her house.  Her van was not in the parking lot, so we decided to go somewhere else.  On the way out the parking lot, we decided to stop and talk to this man sitting in his truck.  As we approached him he says, "I know where you're from!"  We reply, "Oh you do?? Where are we from?"  And then he says, "You're los Santos de los Ultimos Dias!"  We ended up having an awesome lesson with this man Carlos who told us he had been baptized in Guatemala 26 years ago, when he was a kid.  Then when he moved here he and his three brothers didn't know if there was a church or anything, and they just kind of forgot.  He said he had been to other churches if people invite him, but it never felt the same as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He even remembered the names of the missionaries who baptized him!  We promptly told him where the church was, gave him a Book of Mormon, and are now working with him to get back on the path!! SO CRAZY!! WE FOUND A LESS ACTIVE STREET CONTACTING!  The Lord works in mysterious ways… That is for sure...

Love you tons!! Have an amazing week!

Love,

Sister Dodson