Word of the Week: Brujas (Witches)

(She sent this letter today since they were adventuring yesterday for their P-day. kp) This was an adventure of a week that ended with a bang! Anything new?: My companion. Her name is Hna. Diaz and she is from a province north of my mission called Las Riojas. She is about 30 years old and has about 2 less transfers than me. It should be fun to practice more of my Spanish! Anything Exciting?: We went on the coolest adventure yesterday for p-day. We got up at the crack of dawn, got on a bus (standing room only---double decked Greyhound-like bus) and sat in stairwells and isles for 3 hours until we got to a city called Malargüe where we played on a jungle gym for a few minutes then met up with our little tour group. We took a SUV to a little restuarant that does tours of the marine fossils nearby. Super cool! Our guide showed us how if you hit the rocks together and then smell them, they smell like gasoline! (fossil fuels in action...so cool!). Then we drove through the middle of no where and ended up at the caves where we got fitted for helmets and then led to the mouth of the cave. There, we hiked around through little crevices and crawled on hands and knees, walked up tippy ladders and had a blast! Our guide was practicing his English because I couldn't translate for my companion the whole time because we were walking in a single file line, and fitting through small holes and I was worried about my safefy before her ability to understand how the caves were formed....it was a blast! On the bus ride back to San Rafael, the bus was nearly empty so we slept for about an hour, then asked the little attendant to put in a movie (our president told us to watch them if we want)...so we watched a Brazilian movie the was dubbed over in Spanish...it was good until the end when it got weird...and we got off :). Quite the adventure all around! Anything Scary?: Hna. Anderson tripped and really tweaked her leg/knee/ankle situation as we were leaving the caves yesterday...freaked me out! She has knee and ankle problems as it is, so we were all a little worried, but thankfully we were done with the tours and we sat on the bus all the way back to San Rafael where she got a blessing and is MUCH improved today....yay! The weather really was weird this week. Tuesday was a hail storm....hail that was about the size of really big grapes. thankfully, we had just gotten to the house of a member and waited the storm over (about 20 minutes) with them. For the following 3 days, it was cold here...enough that we had to wear jackets! Now it's nice and HOT again...lovely. Snow seems so weird....but in a couple of months...I'll be wishing for the heat again. (they have a word for "hail" and another word "piedras" which literally means stones, referring to tennis ball sized hail stones....) This week we found some really neat people! We found a little family who were taught by elders years ago. They are Colombian and don't belong to a specific religion, but rather are spiritual. As they were sharing their beliefs with us, it was if they were already members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, minus the fact that they believe in re-incarnation. They even looked at the Del Parson painting of Christ in the red robe and said that they have a copy of it hanging in one of their "temples" in Colombia, where their family lives and directs their religious group. I had to just laugh inside. All the churches use our artwork and LOVE it...it's hilarious! Lorena is an artists and loves reading and history (creepy, right... :) My Argentine eqivalent, just 15 years older). Her husband Luis told us straight out when we started talking that he totally believes the Joseph Smith story and in modern day prophets. I had to just about pick my jaw up off the floor! It was crazy...you don't hear that too often around here in Catholic-land. As we taught them, they were very intent and asked great questions! It was an awesome lesson and they are great people. They even went and listened to General Conference years ago with the missionaries and really enjoyed, particularly the choir! We also taught a mom (Silvana) and her daughter (Paula). We were knocking doors on Sunday night and Paula let us right in. We sat down and started talking to her and after saying the prayer together to start, she excused herself to go and get her mom so she could listen too. Come to find out, Hermanas taught their family YEARS ago when Paula was 8 (she is currently 23). She was planning on getting baptized, but got scared (being so young) and never did. They have had a hard life, but have tried to stay close to the Lord. They have had miraculous experiences in their lives as well. Paula's sister has epilepsy and one day, when she suddenly started having convulsions, her brother tried to help her and then he too, fell and started having convulsions. He had never had problems like that before, but something apparently triggered and he became epileptic...weird situation, right!??! Anyway, the daughter started taking medication and overnight was "healed" and has been fine since on the medication. The son on the other hand, still has problems and the medication doesn't work for him. Paula was sincere in saying that it was a miracle from the Lord that her sister was healed and is able to live a normal life. As we taught them, we talked about starting over and being able to start a new life and leave all the hard things and difficult experiences in their lives behind and starting fresh. Paula jumped at the idea and when I asked her what she would do differently if she were able to start over, she gave a genuine response of someone who wants to changes and just said, "everything." She talked about setting new goals and not making the same mistakes...they happily accepted the invitation to prepare themselves to be baptized in March. Actually, Paula asked us when we were having a baptismal service! I LOVE IT! We also taught another really cool woman named Elida. She is a lawyer and talked about in her work how she defends people because she believes that they are right and how she tests/tries people to determine if they are right and if he/she is someone she is willing to represent. I learned a great lesson in that moment and while teaching her: Preach My Gospel talks about listening intently and not focusing on what you need to or should say next. That has been a challenge, particularly in learning another language because I can't just speak free-willy...but I sat there and really focused on what she said, and it was the most beautiful set up to invite her to "test and try" the Book of Mormon to know if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true "right" church and if she needs to get baptized. Because I was listening, I was able to try her understand, her career into the Gospel in such a way that she easily committed to read the Book of Mormon to find out. It was such a cool experience and a little moment with the Spirit communicating to me to "JUST LISTEN." It's never easy, but when I clear my mind and focus on the person and their words, the words always come to my head of what I need to say. When I'm worried about what question they might ask next and if I will have the Spanish words to respond, it never turns out quite as good. She was about to start reading the part we left her before we left, and when we told her she could read it alone when she had some peace and quiet, she told us she'd read it as soon as we left! BEAUTIFUL! She told us she would read it all and then re-evaluate... :) Transfers are Wednesday and I will be staying here in San Rafael and sending Hna. Anderson to a Latin Companion (President calls her the "La-tinga" because she is from Buenos Aires but has the personality and English skills to be half American). She is pretty nervous, but she'll have a blast and will learn A LOT! Love to you all, Hna. Pelton