But before I get into that, I must share the not-so-gladsome tidings. And that is, that I'm afraid the destroying angel of cambios did not pass over our home last night. I'm staying in Loma 9 and training AgAiN but this time she's a Latina FRESH from the MTC (but I won't meet her til at least tomorrow, so I'm hanging with Hna Esponilla who's also from Honduras). And Hermana Castro is finishing the training of Hermana Hopkin's gringa baby. That's how it is in this mission, just babies havin' babies all the time. I was shocked tho cause on Hermana P-day I literally made a joke that Hna Castro would be finishing her training and here we are.
Anyways! Ah! Baptism! Carlos!
Carlos is... Wow. Where do I start. When we first met Carlos we lowkey wrote him off as a crazy old man who gave us a grocery bag full of mangoes one time but THEN one day we said ¨Hmm maybe we should share a message with Carlos¨ and we were SHOCKED because he immediately understood and remembered everything we taught SO WELL. Literally it was like he was just sitting there, so prepared, just waiting to be invited. We gave him a Book of Mormon on his birthday and he was thrilled and every time we came back he'd have EVERYTHING we left him to read highlighted so he could remember what parts he's read and where to find them and he always reads and rereads the pamphlets and conference talks we give him. I feel like I had a whole bunch more I was gonna say but I forgot it. It's okay. My email will still be here next week if I remember. Also I forgot my camera at his baptism so I took pictures of the pictures on Hermana Castro´s camera (lol sorry I'm TACKY, gowsh) with hopes that she'll send them to me later today if she remembers. But anyways yeah.
I have a story.
One day this past week we started our hour of Cosechas (a finding program where we leave blessings with people and then ask to come back) in an apartment complex that we work in all the time, and for some reason this day a door that has never called my attention before called my attention. So we go up and knock and yell and do all the things and nothing happened so we just looked at each other and said ¨welp I'm pretty sure this isn't even an apartment and nobody lives here and we're fools for trying¨ and we left. But THEN. Fast forward like 5 minutes. We were on a different floor (maybe even a different building?) and this little boy comes up and says "hey you guys knocked on our door 5 minutes ago and we want you to come back" so we follow this boy back to that first door we knocked on (turns out we'd knocked on their back door and that's why it looked so weird) and we came to find out that they were members but they were inactive because the mom lives with her boyfriend and felt like she shouldn't come back to church until they were married but then she started crying and told us that all morning she'd been crying and praying, asking God to send someone to visit that could help her have the courage to come back to church and also maybe leave her a blessing or something and we were SHOCKED because up to this point we hadn't told her that we were literally going around leaving blessings when we knocked on her door.
One day this past week we started our hour of Cosechas (a finding program where we leave blessings with people and then ask to come back) in an apartment complex that we work in all the time, and for some reason this day a door that has never called my attention before called my attention. So we go up and knock and yell and do all the things and nothing happened so we just looked at each other and said ¨welp I'm pretty sure this isn't even an apartment and nobody lives here and we're fools for trying¨ and we left. But THEN. Fast forward like 5 minutes. We were on a different floor (maybe even a different building?) and this little boy comes up and says "hey you guys knocked on our door 5 minutes ago and we want you to come back" so we follow this boy back to that first door we knocked on (turns out we'd knocked on their back door and that's why it looked so weird) and we came to find out that they were members but they were inactive because the mom lives with her boyfriend and felt like she shouldn't come back to church until they were married but then she started crying and told us that all morning she'd been crying and praying, asking God to send someone to visit that could help her have the courage to come back to church and also maybe leave her a blessing or something and we were SHOCKED because up to this point we hadn't told her that we were literally going around leaving blessings when we knocked on her door.
Anyways yeah. I'm so blown away by all the intricacies of God's power and compassion and mercy. There's an article in the April 2019 Liahona called the Widow of Nain [click on April for link] and I just like it really a lot because God was aware of that widow 2000 years ago and God was aware of this woman we found this week and that means that God is aware of you too, my friends. Como. no.
HAGW [Mom translation: Have a Good Week]
Hermana Tolman
Hermana Tolman
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| With Carlos at Church. He was so excited that HE asked US for a picture in front of the chapel. |
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| With Carlos on his birthday. We got him a muffin from a chino and put a candle in it to celebrate. |
My camera was recording without me knowing but it caught this clip of Carlos talking to us and I didn't delete it cause I don't want to forget the funny way that Carlos talks. He's hard for me to understand sometimes cause he's missing some teeth (he calls me "Hermana Poolman" hahaha)
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| Hna Castro always makes fun of me for not knowing how to cook and I always deny it and say she's exaggerating but then she caught this picture of me with a burnt grilled cheese and I'm worried she might be right. |
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| I love the cats but they don't love me back |
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| Cute little pineapple plant |
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