October 13, 2014
Nooooo I just had like half my letter typed and accidentally
erased it all!!! I will try to remember what I said!
Hello all, loves and kisses from Salta!
We couldn't see Jorge and Gema this week. We had an appt but
he's a cop and got called in to work. Please keep praying for them, we are pretty
sure he is the future temple president of Huaico. [To answer Mom's question,] I watched half of conference
in Spanish and half in English.
This week we went for the first time to what is now the
furthest part of our area, random houses kind of spread apart along a highway
that pretty much goes all the way to Chile, and we aren't sure how far our area
goes, because I don't think there are more missionaries over there. But anyways,
literally every house along this highway is the house of less active members of
the church. We were able to teach some lessons. It's hard for them to go to
church though because they are families and I don't think they have cars, only
dirt bikes, and the church is pretty far away.
Also this week there was a crazyyyy storm! It was rell [Hooke family slang for "real"] hot
and my comp and I had just bought ice cream bars when it started pouring and
wind-ing like crazy. We went to the house of a member who luckily lived around
the corne,r and it started to hail like half the size of golf balls or bigger!
We called a remis (like a taxi) to take us home because it was already night,
but no one would go out in the storm. But Bro Rodriguez was valiant and drove
us home! It was pretty exciting.
Friday
we had zone training and we learned a lot about being diligent not only
physically but spiritually, and when we applied what we learned I could feel
SUCH a difference in our contacts [interactions with people].
Yesterday we met with the Cidudad del Milagro Ward for the
first time and it was WONDERFUL! Everyone was so welcoming to our little group
of people and it was mind blowing to see things running like a well-oiled
machine where people actually do their callings. For example, before [when we met with just our small group] we would
have Correlation Meeting with just the bishop and missionaries, and yesterday we actually
had Ward Council with the Primary [children's group] president, Relief Society [women's group] president, lots of people! And people who actually do
things! Like when we mentioned that Hno Aguero needs to have more fellowship
with the members (no he didn't end up getting baptized this week, and he is
traveling next week), a man immediately offered to go with us to a lesson. It's
amazing when the members do things, like 50 percent of our responsibilities are
gone now--ok not 50 percent, but it's SO much better when the members do things. Moral of the story: do things to help the missionaries; it makes their lives
better!
We were able to see some miracles this week in finding
people who God has really prepared to hear the gospel. We have been having
trouble, though, with investigators actually progressing, following through with
their commitments, etc, and actually becoming converted, and I think what we
need to do is read with them more. We will see how this helps, but I felt pretty
strongly that this is what we need to do.
A random story, we were trying to find a reference (referral) and her
brother was home and invited us in. My comp was so eager to get in any door
that she went in and I was left wondering what in the world we were doing.
Clearly there was like a birthday party or something going on, with a bunch of
people and like 20 bottles of wine on the table. But my comp proceeded to go
around the table learning names and attempted to teach part of a lesson. It was
very funny, and a very unorthodox environment for a lesson, but I guess it was
good because apparently just before we arrived they had been talking about God
and families, and my comp shared a scripture that answered their questions.
Oh also, randomly my comp said that she wants to start
running and for me to train her. She asked how long it will take before she can
run without getting tired and be in better shape. I said 3 weeks. After the
first day, I changed my mind--it will take a lot more than 3 weeks. Haha, but we
have been running pretty much every morning and it's a fun change. I've even
taught her drills and strides and stuff, it's pretty fun. There's always random
dogs running by us too. It's like the good ole days with the team, haha.
Wellll I love you and pray for you, and believe it or not I
even miss you! But I'm learning and improving and growing a lot.
Mil besitos [a thousand little kisses],
Hna Hooke
