Adventures with Sister O'Neill! Week 46

P day Barbeque!

So here's the big news! I AM companions with Sister O'Neill! :D I'm super excited. :D I was hoping to have her as my companion since like...3 transfers ago. And before that actually. But in any case, I'm super pumped. :) She reminds me a lot of Rachel. Not exactly sure why but I feel like she IS Rachel when I'm with her. It's like having my older sister back! :) Sister Contreras is now serving out in Ramona, but I got to see her on Friday...at shots... >_> I uh. Yes. Again. But I told them before it might happen. They said it looked kinda cool cuz my face all of a sudden went all white and then yellow and my lips turned purple or something and so... yeah I guess they enjoyed watching. And the lady gave me a muffin...so that was nice of her. :) 

Oh man. So here are some highlights from this week:

We street contacted this guy named D. He was kinda a major hippie. So is his girlfriend. Her favorite band is one called... zombie...something... and the main singer plays a thys... uhm... I forgot what it's called. That weird instrument that's electronic and you wave your hands or something to make it play? I can't remember. Theramin? (http://www.wired.com/design/2013/10/12-handcrafted-theremins-that-look-like-little-robots/)

 I dunno. Anyway. She also likes... The Octopus Project. (She wasn't there, he was just borrowing her car and she had those stickers on the back.) Anyway. He told us about a vision he had when he was 17 when this tree laughed at him but turns out it wasn't the tree laughing, it was the universe projecting his own laughter back at himself because he realized how futile all the little things in life are. In fact, in this vision he became the tree, and felt this sensation of growing and expanding and protecting...and then looked down and saw ants on crack doing a ballet. That represented all of us running around, so preoccupied with all the little things. Needless to say... it was interesting. And at the end we prayed in a circle holding hands and he definitely did NOT start or end the prayer correctly but it was kinda cool...well, anyway. More stories!

The apartment people had an inspection on the CO2 detectors in our apartments but when they finished they locked the deadbolt...which we do NOT have a key for... so we just climbed in the window. Turns out taking out our screen is incredibly easy. Problem? Probably. But it was kinda fun. :)

We had a lesson with J. and our branch mission leader. In the lesson we asked J. all the baptismal interview questions to see if he had any questions or concerns. When we asked about the word of wisdom he wasn't sure what we were talking about at first, but once we reminded him he was fine, but then our branch mission leader started going on about hot drinks and how you can't drink them because if it's really hot it'll burn your throat. ... >_> So... we might want to have the missionaries in his area go talk to him about that... Good news, J. afterwards told us he knew that what he was saying was wrong, and he understood what the WoW really meant. Sweet!

Oh man. On Saturday we had our District Leader give him is actual baptismal interview. When we got to the church though we kinda had a panic attack because guess what? The church was being set up for a Halloween Dance. So there are zombies and bloody fingers and spiders and mummies and skeletons and Frankenstein (technically Frankenstein's monster, I guess) and cobwebs and tombstones and witches and all kinds of decorations everywhere... not to mention teenage girls dressed in weird, questionable costumes, including a bovine suit, all dancing. Specifically, Bernie-ing. In the hallway. We definitely had some serious doubts about how the interview was going to go down. But the good news is that they didn't start blasting music until a little later. Phew!

Yesterday at the MoBat I took this lady on tour. She told me her good friend is coming here to the MoBat speaking Spanish! She's going into the MTC November 6th, so she'll be here probably in like 2 transfers. Which is probably when I'll go full pros if I go, but if not, I might train her! We'll see I guess. It was so fun though! I loved that tour. :)

Oh! We also had a meeting yesterday with the rest of the district where we totally re-divided the areas. It's going to be super sweet. :) We're expecting miracles miracles miracles!!

So here's the good news and the bad news. The good news is J. wants to be baptized. The bad news is he says he's prayed about it and feels like God wants him to be baptized.......wait for it......drumroll please....... in April. But uh. That just happens to coincide with the fact that he wants Hermana Contreras' dad to baptize him, but he can't baptize her if she attends the baptism, and she happens to finish her mission in April. So then she can attend and her dad can baptize him. ... >_> So we're kinda not sure what to do with him. We're trying to get YSA involved (now that Sister Contreras is in a new area he's open to going to YSA,) so maybe that'll help.

 Oh man. There is other good news tho - he finally told us what his actual doubts/problems/concerns are. So now we know what we need to teach him. Yay! And he said he'll keep reading the Book of Mormon and the Bible daily. So we don't have to worry too much. :)

Well, it's been a full week, to say the least. :) I love being a missionary!

Have a great week!! :D

--Hermana Harris