Voodoo Whodo Youdo Dowhat

So, as a missionary I feel that you're not as prone to awkward situations.  Yeah, it's awkward anytime you go outside because you have a church badge on your chest but you just kind of own it and go on with your life.  However, when you do have awkward moments, they are excruciatingly painful.  After lunch a few days ago, we decided to go visit a former potential investigator that lived far far away on Judea's plains.  We tried calling him to see if he was home, but after no answer we decided to drop by anyway.  This man LITERALLY lived in the middle of nowhere. We drove for half an hour through forests and cow pastures.  I wondered out loud to Søster Acosta if this guy had a cow.  We finally drove up to a physical barn and I bean to legitimately think that this guy was actually a cow.  However, we soon learned that he is not a cow, nor does he have one.  He has hundreds.  I have never seen so many cattle in my whole life.  There was black and white everywhere you turned.  Turns out that our investigators works AND LIVES on this farm.  We found him milking some cows with some other workers and it was SO INCREDIBLY AWKWARD.  We showed up creepily at his work and it was so inconvenient and I wanted to cry.  We talked to him for a quick sec and then jumped back in our car and zoomed off.  We did end up having an actual appointment with him later that evening so it all worked out! 

On Saturday we had a super fun ping pong tournament instead of our weekly fodbold because of the ceaseless rain.  It was waaaay fun though!! My fitbit told me that I walked 2 miles just from playing ping pong.  We had some investigators come and it was a blast!  Our Eritrean friends have come to our Saturday activities for the past 2 weeks and are really starting to like us! I feel like my ping pong skills have really enhanced since I've been here, hopefully my newfound skill sticks with me even after I leave.  Fingers Crossed.  We had a BBQ right afterward which was rigtig hyggelig.  

So Sunday was exciting.  We met a witch.  And witnessed Eritrean rituals.  And discovered my hidden psychic powers.  After our church meeting, we went to an Eritrean church with our Eritrean friends so that they could show us their beliefs, and next week we can show them ours.  It was all in Tigrinya and all very very exciting.  They are Christians that praise Maria.  It was super interesting to see what beliefs we shared and what was absolute different.  Cool experience though.  Highly recommend.  10/10.  Then while we were door knocking, we knocked into the door of a Wicca- a believer of witchcraft and karma.  She's had a pretty rough life so we gave her a Mormons Bog.  She needed it.  And THEN at our weekly dinner with our senior couple, Ældste Forslund taught us how to move coins WITH OUR MINDS.  I DID IT. I DIDN'T EVEN TOUCH IT.  I HAVE PSYCHIC POWERS SO BOW DOWN TO ME.  Hahaha just kidding.  You can learn to do it too.  Just google "power of the mind coin on a string" and you'll probably find it.  The point of the activity was to show us how much just our thoughts can influence our atmosphere.  In other words, visualization.  I know the importance of visualization because it's been ingrained into my memory from every music teacher I've ever had, but I didn't recognize its application in missionary work.  Just visualizing that you are going to meet a new investigator today, or visualizing giving out a Book of Mormon can have an extreme impact on the work.  So I tried it today.  I visualized myself talking with everyone who came into my path, and handing out a Mormons Bog.  GUESS WHAT.  IT WORKED.  I was more eager to talk with people, and we gave out a Mormons Bog to a nice lady who is quite positive.  So my spiritual/growth invitation to you all this week is to try visualizing.  Visualize yourself having a good week.  Visualize yourself getting a lot out of your scripture study.  Even visualize yourself writing me an email.  Anything you want to accomplish or change about your situation can be visualized and then acted upon to happen.  God made our bodies and minds able to accomplish incomprehensible tasks, so use every resource you can to learn and grow.  And never forget to thank Him for the numerous blessings in your life.  

Also quick funny story - we spontaneously decided to go bowling today.  In our church clothes.  With 37 other senior citizens.  It was a hoot. 

Jeg elsker jer og virkelig håb at I har en rigtig godt uge! Kirken er sande, og Jesus Kristus er vores Frelser.  

Søster Esplin
raya.esplin@myldsmail.net










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