Word of the Week: “Morcilla” (Blood sausage)

As my word of the week might suggest, this was a unique week here in San Luis—to say the least. Hna. Goddard and I had a great cultural fill as we learned how to make homemade alfajores (traditional sandwich cookie with dulce de leche) and then tried some morcilla. The Godoy family is a ward member family that was recently reactived and who recently went to the temple in Santiago, Chile to be sealed as a family. They are really sweet and have huge hearts. Hna. Godoy, is a great cook, so we asked her to teach us of her delicious ways. This week, we went over to their house one evening and she taught us how to make alfajores. Early in the week we ate lunch with them and planned it all out. I love eating lunch with them because we always have the most random conversations. This week, we talked about going hunting and fishing. Needless to say, Hna. Goddard and I learned a whole bunch of new words, particularly in regards to native Argentine wildlife, thanks to the aid of Google Image Search. Thank goodness for modern technology. We also had fun watching them find their house and the local church building on Google Earth. During this fun hunting/animal conversation, the topic of weird foods eating on our mission came up. I told them of how I had never eaten anything weird in the course of my mission, only a little bit of cow stomach in soup. I told them that I wanted to try just a little bit of this blood sausage stuff because lots of people had said it was good. After a few bites, I was done and had had my fill. It wasn’t disgusting, but it was not something I would ever crave in my life. Check that one off of the life to-do list. We also were invited to have dinner with the Serra Family from Amppya (my first area). Hno. Serra is in the stake presidency here and they are an amazing family! They have become another family to me. When we got there, while they were finishing cooking, Hna. Goddard and I taught Martina (their 11 year old daughter) how to play Phase 10. It was just like being at home! We joked all throughout dinner and planned what Augustina and I are going to do (their 16 year old daughter) when she comes to stay in Utah for 3 months from December to February. It was hard to say goodbye to them, not knowing if I will ever see them again. What a blessing they have been to me not only over the course of my mission, but in my life. It’s amazing to think that I’ve lived my entire life until now without knowing these people who have changed who I am. I makes one wonder what other people are out there that we are supposed to meet… This week, Evelyn didn’t do much progressing. She finished reading 1 Nephi and has been praying and asking the Lord if she should get baptized on the 17th, but essentially she has cold feet. She is ready and very prepared, but just too nervous to take the step. To make matters worse, we went by Sunday morning to help her get to church with all her little kids, and she wasn’t feeling good, so she didn’t get to church. We were really sad, but had to remind ourselves of our role as missionaries and the importance of Evelyn’s personal agency. In other investigator news, ZOE IS GETTING BAPTIZED! This has been such a huge miracle! (knock on wood). Last week, Hna. Goddard and I made a study calendar for Zoe to get her exciting for her baptism and to help her feel more personally prepared. I was a little nervous that it wouldn’t work like we wanted, but this week, it worked like a charm! If not better than we had hoped! Zoe has been faithfully reading her scriptures everyday and answering the study question along with each verse. She is excited to share what she’s read with us and her little sister is just as excited and she’s not even getting baptized. I feel like we are a part of their family now. I love it! Whenever we get up to leave, Mia (the little sister) runs over to me, wraps her arms around me and whines saying that she doesn’t want me to go. We then give each other butterfly kisses (with our eyelashes) instead of the usual Argentine beso and then the separation isn’t as traumatizing. J This week was particularly miraculous, not just with Zoe’s progressing, but that of her entire family. Marcela, Zoe’s mother, is a returned missionary who is unofficially married to a non-member man as of the past 11 years or so. She kind of went inactive, but was reactivated by some hermanas last year. Zoe was taught by MULTIPLE missionaries over the past 2 years, and has never been committed to getting baptized (until now that is). Marcela just looked at me this week and told me that the most important thing I have done in my mission is help her daughter get baptized because it has been quite the challenge. Marcela has been telling everyone of the change that has occurred in their family over the past month, especially the change in Zoe. This week, they had a family crisis when they family dog (Balto) got lost when the gate to their house wasn’t closed all the way and she escaped. This is the family dog they bought for Zoe when she was 3 years old and is another member of their fanily. Reuben (the dad) spent all day looking for the dog, he even sacrificed a day of work to find her with no success. When he got back to their house late Friday night after searching all day, he saw Zoe’s scriptures open on the table and sat down and started flipping through them. With everyone asleep, Reuben went outside to the patio and knelt down to pray (keep in mind that he is not a member). He told us how he just cried to the Lord that He guide him to where the dog was, that he would find her alive because his daughters were so devastated by the loss. He told us later that he’s never prayed so sincerely or so fervently in his entire life. With tears in his eyes, as he told just Hna. Goddard, Zoe and I of this experience, he testified that he knows that God answers the prayers of the sincere in heart. The next morning, after praying, Reuben got up and went straight out to look for the dog some more. He ended up by Wal-Mart where a man asked him how he was doing. Reuben replied and told him that he wasn’t doing so great because he had lost a family member and that two little girls were horribly sad. This man offered to let Reuben make an announcement on the radio about their lost dog and within 5 minutes, all sorts of phone calls started coming in. Within a little more time, Reuben found their dog with the help of the people of the community. We were at their house when Reuben brought Balto back home. He came back inside a few minutes later and asked to imterrupt our lesson to share his experience with us. I was so touched by his sincerity, this big man who normally just says hi and bye to us, who impatiently waits for us to finish our spiritual thought when we have lunch with him and his family. For some, this may not seem like that miraculous of an experience, but I know that the Lord heard the prayer of His son and is softening his heart so one day, Reuben will join his daughter in the waters of baptism. The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways. To sum things up, the Lord truly prepares the hearts of His children. Not only has He been preparing Zoe to get baptized now and the hearts of her family members to see such miracles, but He has been preparing me and Hna. Goddard to be effective tools in reaching Zoe when no other set of missionaries could. Everything that has happened to me through the course of my mission and up until now in my life has made me who the Lord needed to be so Zoe could be ready to get baptized. Her mom told us about how Zoe was saying that she wants to serve a misson now and that she’s already planning so she can be spiritually prepared for that step in her life. Woohoo! Love to you all, Hna. Pelton