This week was CRAZY

Hey mom and pa..

Sooooooooo this week was CRAZY. If I could draw it out it would go up and down and up and down and in a circle and backwards and just all over haha. I guess I’ll start of talking a little bit about how my week went. So Monday I don’t remember a single thing that happened haha, but Tuesday was something crazy happened. So I’ve been telling that this whole time that we have been working, nothing has really happened as far as people wanting to talk to us, but we decided to talk to this black friend named key. He’s 17 and live about 60 steps from our church building, (which is on a street called Egg and Butter... haha) but we have been trying to get in and see him for about 3 weeks now, and we have had no luck. Tuesday comes around and we get in to see him. HOW CRAZY RIGHT? And we were not super sure on what we wanted to teach him. As we were walking into his house and sitting down I look over to my companion and he doesn’t know what he wants to teach and he’s like super into doing things fast and just getting in and out. But I felt like we should read something out of the book or Mormon, and I felt super strong that we should read from Alma, where it talks about the Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s.

IT WAS WAYYYY OUT THERE.. I’m thinking to myself. We have just brushed over the restoration and now I’m thinking about this.. o well I’ll try it, so we started to read a little bit where its talking about how they had just covenanted with god that they would not pick up their weapons of war again and would just lay down and die and the Lamanites came to kill them. I don’t know about y'all but when I read it for the first time out here I was super impressed with this, but it’s also kind of confusing to just jump in and talk about if someone knows nothing about the book of Mormon, there’s like 10 different people and things changing sides and moving around. I was amazed as we were teaching him he was totally understanding it and like engaged in the lesson. THAT NEVER HAPPENS haha. I was like jumping out of my seat when I was teaching him about it and saw that he was understanding it. And then to make things even better the spirit was SUpeR strong in the lesson.

I know that without the spirit, you can’t do anything as a missionary. But as missionaries we can bring that spirit into their house, and try and teach them. Another story happened on Wednesday. We were tracking somewhere that we had never gone before and the first house that we knocked on and started to get to know the lady. She says. Ya, I know Mormons, some live right next door. So were looking at each other and were like oooh well cool we will have to go see who all is over there. As were walking over to see them we see someone from our ward, we said hi and asked if they felt that anyone was kind of interested in learning about the gospel and if we could do anything for them. They were like noooo we don’t talk very much around here, so we said goodbye and kept tracting.

About 10 houses down we run into this lady named Carrie-ann. As we get talking to her she is telling us about how she’s super good friends with this Mormon family and that they would love for us to come over. So were thinking like way cool let’s stop by Thursday and she was like that’s perfect, so we came back the next day, we started teaching the restoration and she was super into it. She was like I’ve been super curious about the Mormons and stuff but no one has really said anything to me about it. Ooo I forgot to say that the Mormon family that we were talking with that’s she is super good friends with, the dad is the 1st counselor to our church. We were like WHATTTT? Why did y'all not say anything if she’s asking about the church and stuff. So it’s whatever. We’re going to teach her again this Thursday over at their house, so I hope that that goes over good.

That’s all the fun missionary stuff that went well. My companion got asked to do something for this big event down here, called like the sons of the American Revolution. We just called it big Boy Scout awards, because it was just a whole bunch or rich people giving themselves awards.... but anyway I was able to go out on an exchange with my zone leader. We were planning on tracting a new area for most the day so that was something to be ready for haha. We knocked 200 houses in the 4 hours we were out there between the 4 of us. And we got nothing..... Not a single revisit hahaha. But something amazing happened. We were going out to eat and I felt like pizza... why not right? But um, as we were sitting down and getting our pizza, we started talking to the lady that was making the pizza because it has super slow, and she was asking about "like so what do y'all do?" And so we told her that were Christian missionaries and we our just spreading the word of Jesus Christ for the next 2 years. Nothing really came of it till we were about to leave. She came over dropped a note on the table took our dishes and we left.

On the note it said something like, I want to talk more about God please come and talk with me. Here’s my phone number and email address.... MIRACLES the lord will help us as we put in the effort to do his work. But that leads me into talking about the last thing this week. While we were out tracking on Saturday, I was with the zone leader again he says something like, another one of the sisters that came out with you went home. And I was super confused because I didn’t know anyone else went home, other than one of my mtc district friends, who left the day we left the mtc.. And my zone leader says ya, like 7 of the group that came out with you has come home.

I don’t even know how to say something back to that other then, well who? The first person he could remember was my MTC companion. If nothing else I was crushed...... I've just gone through this super hard week and I was able to get out of the mtc and were just now getting something good happening and my mtc comp had gone home about 2 weeks ago... it’s just SUPER hard for me to think that I might have been able to do something, had I been writing him an email or just wishing him better luck when we left at the start. Of the 5 that came out of my district to Alabama 3 have gone home.

For anyone at home or reading who is thinking about going on a mission, READ UP!!!! I’ve had so many thoughts of going home over the last few weeks, even this week I’ve felt like going home. You HAVE to want to be out here. If you’re just out here because you want to make someone happy, or you’re just doing to do it, or you don’t want to do anything else. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, find some reason to be out here, any reason and stick with it. I sometimes have to tell myself I’m not out here for me anymore. I was before, but now I’m here for the kids that I’ve met. The people that I know I have to see and talk to. I’ve found ways to love my mission even if there’s no work to do, just find ways to love the people and ways to help the people.

Love y'all at home so much and miss you lots. P.s. my comps sick and I think I’m getting sick J pray for me please

Elder Aldana