Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Week 42 Still Together!!! May 30, 2016

Weeks keep flying by!

Shoutout to Hermana Sandison who has officially been a member of la iglesia de jesucristo de los santos de los ultimos dias for 2 YEARS! Woohoo! Shes doing so great! I don't even have to plug her nose for her when we walk by Starbucks anymore! (; #progress

Greatest news: *Drum roll* HNA SANDISON AND I DIDN'T GET TRANSFERRED
-which is such a blessing not only because we love each other but also because we have got a lot of things to do!
Goodbye party for Elder Gandarillas (assistant) He is awesome!!!
The other day we were teaching our family of 7 about baptism. We taught them how the baptismal covenant is so important! We covenant with God to keep his commandments. Jasinto interrupted us and asked, "So does that mean I need to get married?" We replied, "Well what do you think?" and he said that yes, he feels that he needs to be married. So long story short Hermana Sandison and I will be heading with them to the municipalidad tomorrow to figure out their Matrimonio! How exciting!
Last picture with the district!
I think one of the Top 5 Hardest Things About Being a Missionary is: Being mad at yourself. Surprise! The sad reality is that I have spent a good majority of my mission being upset with myself. Why? When your investigators stop progressing you eventually have to drop them. Every time I have ever dropped an investigator it has left me with feelings like, "What did I do wrong?" I should have done this, or that, or brought this member to that lesson, or picked them up for church on this day. The list is literally ENDLESS. You are only left feeling like a bad missionary. On an opportunity with Hno Silva (future mission pres), I expressed to him these feelings, this was his advice: Get Closure! He compared it to breaking up with your boyfriend. If the two of you don't sit down together and verbally say "its over", you will never have closure! So we put his advice into play, we broke up with Jaco!

NOOOOO we never ever wanted to break up with Jaco! He was THE BEST. Such a fun person to teach. But the time came... the relationship wasn't progressing, we had less and less things in common, our goals were different... "It's not you Jaco, It's me." Just kidding it was all you Jaco! 5 Sundays in a row he committed to coming to church, we did everything we could, and he let us down every. single. time. So we visited him one last time and let him know that he was always invited to come to church but that we wouldn't be visiting him anymore. With all humor aside it was actually heart-breaking. I turned to Hermana Sandison and saw tears streaming down her face. We love our investigators and we want what's best for them! But sometimes it just isn't their time. "We do not preach and teach in order to "bring people into the church" or to increase the membership of the church. We do not preach and teach to persuade people to live better lives .... We invite all to come unto Christ by repentance and baptism and confirmation in order to open the doors of the celestial kingdom to the sons and daughters of God. No one else can do this." And that was it, our mission with Jaco was finished. I have all the confidence in the world that one day, when his hair turns gray, he will end up taking missionary lessons from our children (: My hope and prayer.

Con mucho amor,
Hermana Ingram
2 of our investigators that came to watch the baptism
We love Hermana Orlenka! (She was just called to be a mini missionary)
Hermana Sandison's shortcuts... For the beauty of the earth? 
We found Hermana McRae!! (she's been 6 hours away in Tumbes for almost A YEAR) We were beginning to think that she was a myth or a legend. We love her!!!
About ready to pierce us with its horns
Ready to charge...Torro!!! (like in Spain)
This picture does not show how massive this bull was...

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