What a Unique Week!

Okay so I will do my best to give you all an accurate description of this past week!
I think I could sum it up in one word.

INSANE! 

Haha but so wonderful at the same time! We taught like crazy this week which was amazing-- we also were able to find opportunites to serve which was even cooler- because as we were serving, it opened so many doors! I love service! 

I'll talk about the funny/crazy stuff first- This week we ate some of the most interesting food! We had frog legs in some seafood restaurant... but it tasted like they were still swimming. Haha we bit into them and they juiced out into our mouths and it was the weirdest sensation- I would love to not experience that one again in a while. It doesnt help either that instead of having the frog legs like little drumsticks of a chicken, it looked like they just cut the frog in half and threw it in a frier. The legs were still attached to the spine, flippers and all. Super fun experience. haha. 

THEN I FINALLY HAD MENUDO! I heard about it for the first time in the MTC, everyone would warn us about the menudo-- it basically is intestine soup, and depending on how well it is washed out, you might get some digested material stuck in the intestines still. Suffice to say I was terrified for the day I would have to eat it. That day came this past week. So we were teaching our investigators Isabella and Douglas, and they looked a little uncomfortable so we knew something was up. We stopped the lesson and asked what we could do for them and Isabella told us, Well he has to go to work in about an hour and I still havent made him lunch. So we jumped up and started helping her cook while Douglas got ready to go! hahaha then we saw it.....MASSIVE slabs of intestine sitting on her stove just cooking in their intestine juices. But she was so excited to have us help her prepare it, she invited us to stay and eat with her! What a blessing! :) Well it wasn't AS bad as I was expecting, but man there was times it was really hard to choke down. But I was grateful for them being willing to share their food with us. Apparently Guatemalans prepare Menudo differently than Mexicans, they just leave it in huge chunks and eat it with some tamales and rice, whereas in Mexico they put it in a soup- so I had intestine tamales.
THEN.. that same say that we had eaten menudo for lunch, we went to a members house for dinner and they gave us these wonderful sandwiches!! It had ham, avocado, shredded pork, onion, tomato, beans, white cheese, yellow cheese, chorizo, and then this stuff called Chicharron. Basically Chicharron is straight up pig fat... or skin...or sometimes both! If you're really lucky, there's still little hairs on it! Mmmm.. but the sandwiches were really good. I've also heard that Chorizo is just basically blended cow-- all the stuff that doesn't go in normal beef is in chorizo. It was fun. Quite the eating experience to say the least. 

Aside from that, it was a week full of miracles. 

So one day we went to our bishops house and helped them pack up a ton of things because they are about to move into a house they are building (WHICH IS GORGEOUS) but anyways. We helped Hermana for an hour or two, then went to an appointment, and as we were about to go to another appointment we had, that person cancelled. Earlier that day on our way out the door, we saw one of our neighbors packing things up and we asked if they needed help, and they said maybe later. SO because Eduardo's appointment fell through, we had a bit of time to come back and help our neighbor move. We went and knocked on the door, expecting to find one of our neighbors at home but INSTEAD, a different neighbor was in there. (turns out they are sisters) Wow this is confusing. 

Anyways so we helped out for a while, then told her we needed to leave and she said, "okay thats fine. But before you leave will you do me a favor? Will you pray for me?" So we asked her if there was anything in particular she wanted us to pray for and she BURST into tears. She told us ALL these things about her family, boyfriend, kids, work, home, food, money, etc and was SO stressed out but had been holding EVERYTHING in and no one knew she was struggling. But because we were there helping her clean, she opened up to us. We were able to go back to her house and say a prayer with her, and as we were walking out the door, she yelled out to us asking if we could come back another day and have pizza or something. So we agreed and will be eating pizza with our neighbor soon! Sidenote me and Hermanas Davies and Johnson had tried to talk to that neighbor about the church and she didn't want anything to do with it, but service opened that door wide open and now she trusted us and asked us to pray with her. It was just a cool experience of how even when our plans don't go through, Heavenly Father always has a backup. :) 

Then later that day something similar happened-- one of our appointments cancelled, so we went to try and see Janet and Alejandro, but they weren't home. So as we sat there wondering what to do we had the feeling to try Janet's familys house-- we had been teaching her brother and mom, but her brother had a lot of concerns and mom talks over him all the time. We just really wanted to see him alone. So we went over there and only Marvin was home so we had a lot of time to talk to him and see everything that was going on in his life and he opened up to us a ton. It was really cool. 

One night we were about to go knock doors and said a specific prayer to find someone that just needed to talk and that we could bring comfort to (kind of like the experience we had with our neighbor was what we thought we had in mind). We went to this park, talked to these people for a little bit, then right as we were about to leave, these 3 girls walked up. We started a conversation with them and turns out they are homeschooled, haven't talked to anyone in a long time and were really lonely and wanted friends. So we sat with them at the park and showed them videos on mormonchannel.org and just let them tell us about themselves. Their dad was sitting in his car at the park so after a while of talking to his daughters, we introduced ourselves to him and he said that we needed to talk to them because they don't listen at church. So we will see where that goes! It was funny though how Heavenly Father answered our prayers and gave us exactly what we asked for, just not in the way we were expecting. 

Another miracle! There is this less active recent convert that we had been trying to contact for a while, but didn't know where she lived and she wouldnt answer her phone. Then we got a referral from hermana Williams to try and contact her mom! So we found out where she lived and went over there. The house is all fenced in and there is no way to get in unless you have a key or someone comes and lets you inside. So we went around the back of the house to see if there was any way into the fence, and on the porch balcony we saw the door open and her mom walked out! So we waved at her and she knew exactly who we were! She let us in and we were able to get to know them :) The timing was perfect. 

Okay one more! So right by where Carmen and Alejandro live there is this lady named Marcel. She has been saying hi to us and talking to us almost every time we are in the area (which is a lot). One day she stopped us and told us she was Mormon and wanted girl missionaries to come by her house. So we called the english sisters, tell them about this referral less-active and yeah. Time goes on, the sisters got flushed out and apparently had never gone over there. So she asked if we would just teach her-- we told her we were the spanish missionaries and she started telling us about how her husband got mad when the Elders were coming over so she just needed someone to teach her again. We went over a couple times this week and turns out SHE ISN'T ACTUALLY A MEMBER, she just calls herself a Mormon because she has been talking to missionaries FOR 15 YEARS. Ah it was crazy. So basically she has been reading the Book of Mormon and Gospel Principles on and off for 15 years. Yesterday while we were there she told us that she feels so much peace when she reads the Book of Mormon, its like all her stress melts away and she is super happy. She said that happiness lasts her way more than with anything else she does, and she is less angry, etc. Wow it was an awesome lesson! So we are pretty happy about her! :) 

Also we made dinner yesterday for a family that feeds us every Sunday (the family with the 6 kids where 2 of them are members) we haven't seen the brothers for a long time, but yesterday we made dinner for the mom and the oldest son! Are you proud of me?? I cooked! Well...my companion mostly but I helped a little bit and learned alongside her :) haha. 

Well that was pretty much the events of this week and as far as things that I have learned-- WOW I couldn't explain it all in words. This transfer for me has been a huge transfer of growth and learning and I feel like my eyes have been opened a lot. This week the Elders came over and gave me a blessing because I had been pretty sick-- my stomach wouldn't hold anything in and I couldn't sleep through the night for a week and a half or so. It was pretty bad but I was just going to ignore it until it went away, but thankfully Hermana Hurst is a lot more wise. So we called over the Elders and they gave me an incredible blessing. I thought it was just going to be a blessing of health, but Heavenly Father knew better. It was mostly a blessing of comfort- and wow did I ever feel comforted. I think the most powerful thing that stuck out to me was that Heavenly Father was proud of the person I am becoming. Hearing Him tell me that was amazing. Then at one point, he said, "According to your faith you are commanded to be made whole from any infirmities" When he said that, I felt the pain in my stomach (that had been there for DAYS) leave me. It was similar to the experience I had in the CCM and wow it was just such a reminder to me that God loves me- the Priesthood is real I just need to be aware of and seek for those blessings. I heard exactly what I needed to that day and it was amazing. i have also had some pretty amazing lessons taught to me by my companion. Sometimes I feel like I am the investigator and I just need to listen to her teach me. But I have learned tons from her. This past week I was focusing a lot on asking myself the question, "What do I need to do or change in order to become the person Heavenly Father wants me to be?" and I learned so many things, but one of the biggest was that i need to just live up to my privileges and understand my divine identity. Heavenly Father is proud of me and when I accept that I can continue to do my best to make him proud. 

I found a renewed sense of motivation this week, I learned ways to make change happen, and I learned how I feel the Spirit. All these are lessons I will continue to learn throughout my mission, but I was so grateful for the little glimpses I got this week of my potential and purpose here. It was amazing.
Well this has gotten really long and I have to go! But I love you all so much. Thank you for the love and support that you always give me!
Hope you all have an amazing last week of school and that everything goes well with finals and field day and golf retreats and all ;) I love you!
Love, Hermana Rogers