Must Love Puppies

THIS WEEK:

I had a few interesting experiences. The work of salvation..(i think thats what its called in english) is going well. we have ward council every week and at least one or two visits to less actives families with various members from ward council. we went to go see a family and surprise! they have 15 day old english bulldog puppies ( who im obsessed with).

that was on tuesday, and on friday my companion felt a promting that we should go visit the family again. we didnt have too much to do so i said yeah sure. we head down to the house and the mom tells us that the mom of the dogs got hit by a car and died. so now the human mom (who is having various medical problems and in a constant level of pain and discomfort) has to hand feed the puppies every hour, day and night. she also gave us the news that because the dog died, it sparked a whole new set of problems and arguments that ended up in her husband leaving, taking all the money and the phone, leaving here with two kids, her own medical problems and two puppies who eat 17 dollars worth of formula every two days. although it was a sad situation, it was really cool to feel like we were really following the spirit and were able to comfort someone when they really needed it. we also arranged for her two kids to go to church the next day and they were really into it. 

another cool experience we had this week was also based on spiritual promptings. we were on the bus headed back to our sector, but we had 2 hours before our next appointment. we had already done a bunch of contacting in the main part of town, and i felt like we should go up to a little pueblito about 15 minutes outside of town. so we stayed on the bus and got off at the top of this big hill and just started walking down. were knocking doors for about 45 minutes, and nobody has even tried to talk to us. as were walking down i see this somewhat sketchy stairway going up to a little house. i say what the heck, at least the stairs will tone my butt. so we go up to the house and this lady opens the door and immediately lets us in. we sit down in her humble kitchen on plastic lawn chairs, no table, no sink, and a small gas stove on some plywood on some cinderblocks and start to teach her. shes super friendly and her two kids are so freaking cute. shes in  a "union libre" basically a marriage without any legal documents with a guy 10 years older than her whos one of 17 kids. but they fell in love and decided what the heck were gonna live our life and the did. they moved in when she was 17 and and 8 years later they are still going strong. anyways. so about 30 minutes into the lesson i ask her what their last names our so we can pray for them, then it hits me. this family was a street contact almost two months ago, one of my very first days in mitad del mundo. they gave us a rough address but we could never find the house. i ask her if its her and she says "yes i thought you werent going to realize it" apparently she knew the whole time that i didnt remember them, but wasnt going to say anything. she and her husband see us alot downtown, but they were a little bummed we never visited them, and since we never recongized them they thought we didnt want to talk to them. (i guess its alot easier to recognize the only white girl in all of 3 towns than it is to recognize a latino you contacted in the street once) they came to church this week and were gonna go visit them tomorrow. 

we also had another family come to church (also not married, there seems to be a theme here) but the womans brother is a missionary in chile and got baptized a little over a year ago. so while were work to get a few couples married, hopefully we can throw in a few baptismal dates too. butttt transfers are this next week, and i dont feel like im going to stay here. so thats a little bit of a bummer but its the mission life.

HASTA LUEGO