Ley de Castidad

Yes, you read that right. I had the wonderful opportunity of teaching the Law of Chastity for the first time ever as a real missionary....in Spanish...and I had to do it while I was on exchanges! (so I taught it by myself) Luckily it was with Maria and she is quite literally so golden. Her only thing she said she wants to change is to work on her words. Because she calls people stupid sometimes. Legit, this lady is the best. And she came to a baptism we had of an 8-year-old in the ward and then she went to the Cinco de Mayo ward activity later that day. She even bought a new skirt the day before so she can have more things to wear! She gets baptized in less than two weeks can you believe that? My heart is so full. I love her so darn much.

Had to pause a family that we have been working with for a while. I may or may not have cried a little bit in that pause talk? Fun fact: first “pause talk” ever and I was on exchanges. I had a lot of firsts that day. But yeah, it was hard but when they aren't keeping their commitments we have to give them some space to figure out what they really want...And they have family getting baptized this month so hopefully their fam can work some magic on them in the meantime.

So we, Sis Dipietro and their mini missionary, had to go seeking the other day like in the middle of the afternoon because our comps were at MLC and that was the only time we had to get seeking in that day. It got up to like 105 degrees. And we went walking for an hour and a half. SO HOT. Then it was cold and rainy this weekend? Like in the 50s? I am losing the NoDak in me because I broke out a cardi for 50-degree weather. Boo.

So at service this week at the old folk's, some old man saw me and yelled, "Hey, when did Cleopatra walk in?" He said that while I was standing with all of our Elders too. I had to take a lap. Then we went inside to play bingo and he yelled across the room to the man sitting next me, "Hey, how did you get lucky sitting next to her?" And he said back, "I don't know, but I like it!" Glad I am a hit with at least one age group of men.

Big story of the week:

So we have members that live out in Homeland. Which is out in the boonies. Like it takes us almost 30 minutes to get their house for dinner. And you have to take a dirt road off of the highway to get there. Well, the GPS decided to take us on a different dirt road to get there. At first, we were like "whoa, this is fun!" and took a couple of pictures. Then, the road got really narrow and the road started getting worse. Then we got to a big red gate. We were all like crud, because there was no way for me to turn the car around. the road was that narrow. So, it was either drive backwards all the way back down these hills or lowkey break in:

So, we opened the gate and kept going forward. We drove past some mini construction sites and drove passed a man who threw his arms up at us like, "what are you doing here, you don't belong." We didn't. Pretty sure you were on private property. Then we got to this HUGE hill. Like, super steep. And this wasn't a good dirt road, like it was loose sand. I turned to Hermana Chandler and said, "I don't think I can do this." And she said, "We don't have a choice." So I gunned it up that hill in our little wimpy car, and we somehow made it over. Like, with the conditions of the road, the steepness of the hill, and the car we were driving? Should have been impossible. Not to mention we didn't have service, which means if we didn't make it over that hill or if something happened to the car we would have been stranded out there. We were truly watched over. Looking back on this experience I thought to myself, "How often do we say, 'I don't think I can do this'?" Sometimes we don't think we are going to make it. That we don't have the capacity to keep going. Sometimes we don't, but that's why we have a Savior. The enabling power of the Atonement is so unbelievably incredible but we have to UTILIZE this grace in our lives. We can't just sit at the bottom of the hill and doubt. We have to hit the gas pedal and have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to do the rest.




Only two more weeks left in the transfer, which means I am that much closer to finishing training! Love you all!

Love,

Hermana Tonini