Written by Sister Maren Madsen. Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Serving in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission, Spanish Speaking
Hola Familia y Amigos! Espero que todos tuvieran un buen Dìa de Gracias! Yo si!
To answer your questions... Referring to page 17 of the missionary white handbook "spend as much time as possible proselyting.. Holidays are excellent opportunities for finding and teaching because many families are together and are at home" yeah... This is what it says but if also forgets to mention that while spending time with the family (at least this has been my experience with holidays) missionaries are less welcome because it's family time. But maybe we will just have to give it a better try at Christmas. But no we mainly spent Thanksgiving with members. I'm really bummed cause we didn't get any pictures:( We first started off the day with some soccer! It felt so good to play again! We had lots of fun and my team won! Woohoo.... I mean.... It wasn't too competitive;) That was us and the elders and the Owens (pretty cool family in the Branch) Hermana Tester even played with her broken foot! (granted she couldn't do lots of kicking:)
Afterward we played some basketball with Angel who is an investigator. She's pretty funny, but she definitely needs a good example in her life. Later we had just enough time to shower and drive over to Warren to enjoy a thanksgiving feast with The Bryant's and later some pie with the Worthens! It's pretty nice being a missionary and getting to see lots of members on holidays. Plus we got to try everyone's different food. :) yum!
The only difference from a southern Thanksgiving and a Western Thanksgiving is that first of all they use giblets in the gravy and nobody would tell me what that was but I think it's something gross having to do with chickens. And second everyone kept on talking about "dressing" and I just assumed that was gravy; but finally (about halfway through the dinner) someone pointed at the stuffing and said, did you try the dressing?? Click..... that was kinda confusing for a little while. Just to clear things up for everyone when Southern people say "Dressing" they really mean Stuffing.... Steven Taylor has been telling us since October that he makes the best dressing, he says that he has had people who hate dressing "desire" his dressing the way he makes it. It was kind of a bummer we didn't get to try it:( But after Steven was telling us that he rubs the turkey for a half hour and then cooks the dressing inside the turkey....yes inside the turkey. So I was a little relieved that I wouldn't be tasting it.... I'll stick with Betty Crocker stuffing.
Then on Friday we went over to the Cochrans.....she is so awesome! Her house is amazing and so organized! That was the best food ever! She invited her friends over who are pretty much gourmet chefs.... I was stuffed and still went back for seconds just to keep tasting it. Man... I could eat that again! Then we had pumpkin cheesecake.. That was pretty scrumptious as well. I'll send a video of what we did after we ate.. It was pretty funny and Sister Cochran gets real sassy! Love her so much!
We had a really cool experience yesterday. We have been trying to get in-touch with one guy Edgar. We had a really hard time finding his house and so we ended up just having to go back before it got too late. But last night we found it! We were just going to head home after spending much of the day in Warren. But we decided that we had better try to find his house otherwise we'd never see him. It was kinda crazy how many times we drove past it trying to find it, but a huge blessing that we did and didn't just drive on back to Monticello. But he pulled up behind us and we were able to talk to him a little bit. The lesson kind of started off a little awkward and we could tell he was uncomfortable. He didn't really want to read because he was clearly overwhelmed. We found out that he is divorced and having lots of problems with the shared custody and his Ex. He told us that he doesn't have much faith. He feels like he is lost and stressed. We shared a little about how the Book of Mormon has changed our lives and how Jesus Christ is our rock. We invited him to look for tender mercies in his life to help strengthen his faith. He started to cry a little and suddenly we knew that he was an answer to our prayers and we were an answer to his. We showed him the Because of Him Video and bore our testimonies. It is so amazing how much God uses us to get to His Children. I'm not sure I'll ever stop being amazed at how much love He has for each of us. It's times like these that make me super nervous that Spanish will be taken out of the area, because people like Edgar need us! But I know that President Wakolo is an inspired man and only does what God would have him do with this mission. I love the Savior, and I love missionary work! Hurrah for Israel!
Missionary work is so hard, Hermana Tester and I came up with an acronym... Now we just need to make them into t shirts..
P- Preaching
I -Is
L-literally
E-exhausting
...yeah we are piles:)
But we don't regret it!:)
Les Quiero!
Hermana Maren Madsen
Three Dinners= Holiday Dieting!--November 30, 2015
