First fun news: we had a red alert this week for severe storms and got stuck in our pisos for like 2 hours...while the sun was shining outside. Literally nothing happened. Apparently some parts of Tenerife were a little harder hit, but it barely even rained here. The even funner part of it was that I was on intercambios with Hermana S in Telde! So I got to read my scriptures on Hermana C´s full-size bed while we waited for the all clear to go back out and proselyte. We also made pancakes with nutella and peanut butter. We had a pretty good time. The only hint of danger we experienced was afterward when we went back out and went up to Jinamar, which is basically on top of a mountain. We were there with a little old member who was probably 60 or so and just tiny, and the wind was blowing really hard and we were afraid that she was going to get blown right off the mountain... but it all turned out totally fine.
Our intercambio was really fun-- we were visiting a menos activa and asked her if there was anything we could do to help her and she just ran out of the room and then dragged a chair past the doorway and then told us we could come in. So we went in and got to teach her sister, who´s a nonmember and in a wheelchair. She told us that she didn´t have very much faith, but she invited us to explain to her why our church is different. We started talking about prophets and we were both bearing our testimonies and I said something and she just stopped and looked at me and said, effectively, "There´s always room for doubt. No one´s ever sure about anything in this world. But you´re CONVINCED. You know that what you´re saying is true." And I almost started to cry. We work so hard to get people to understand that. Ours is different. Our church, our beliefs, they aren´t like anything these people have seen before. And we really do KNOW that they´re true. It was an amazing experience.
We also invited three people to get baptized on a specific date in the first lesson we had with them. It was different, but it worked really well. And all three of them said yes! So now we have some cool new investigators who are going to get baptized in January! R is still reading and praying, but she told us the other day that maybe she wants to push her date back. We´ll see on that one...we know she´s prepared, we just have to help her recognize that.
On Saturday, Hermano R, our ward mission leader, who is also a dance teacher, had his Christmas dance spectacular and we got to go! We were ushers and stuck pass-along cards into all the programs. (mwahahahaha!) 4 of our investigators were dancing in the program and several members of the ward. I have some pictures I´ll send out in a minute... It was awesome, although we got a little too excited about some of the worldly Christmas songs (or just worldly songs) they were dancing to...
Yesterday we had 2 baptisms of O and D and I got to sing Grande Eres Tu (How Great Thou Art) and it was super fun. It was the first time I´d ever sung with an accompanist who literally just makes everything up the moment he plays it, and it turned out FANTASTIC. He loves playing for me because he says I have a wonderful ear for knowing when to come in and what pace to take, and so everything we sing/play together always turns out beautifully. I got so many compliments afterwards. It was so much fun! I haven´t really SUNG for months now.
Okay now I´m going to send 6,000 emails with pictures from our island tour and everything this week! LOVE YOU ALL and I´ll talk to you again on Christmas!
Hermana Lara Schaumann
  |
| We found this Christmas tree while we were working out in our piso one morning. Hermana F was standing on a chair trying to put up one of the snowflakes that had fallen off the ceiling (those big ones fall almost every day) and she looked over and saw a bag hidden behind the couch. We pulled it out, and lo and behold, it was full of Christmas ornaments! A little further searching revealed a tree! So we assembled and decorated it ASAP. Isn´t it SO PRETTY?? |
 |
| On the Coast! |
No comments:
Post a Comment