This is Hermana Mathis and Paulsen brought to you by: jumper cables!
Well, no fires this week. Success! Almost... We had an even bigger uh... happening this week. Let's start with our personal favorite story of the week:
It all started when Hermana Mathis decided not to charge our phone Saturday night. (Mistake #1) Come Sunday morning, we were pumped and ready for Game Day unaware of the looming conundrum that lay ahead.
Things were going great. Great ward council. Great timing. Great member interactions. When, all of the sudden, while making our regular Sunday calls to remind people to come to church, the phone sounded informing us that we had neglected to give it its daily nourishment. Fortunately(?), we had a car charger at hand. So, being the brilliant and wise missionaries we are, we decided to charge our phone in the car and finish our calls. This is where mistake #2 takes place: Hermana Paulsen entrusted the keys to Hermana Mathis.
We charged the phone, woke up some drunk Latinos, and in a small way, edified the world. Remember, all was well. Church went swimmingly. Sunday game day (a day to ask for referrals) has proven to be very helpful.
After three hours or so of whipping our team (the members) into shape, we slunk to our car exhausted. Mistake #3: Hermana Paulsen THEN asks where the keys are. Befuddled, we dug through our bags only to realize that... ... Here's the killer (literally): we had left the keys in the ignition with the battery on. All is well, verdad?. Wrongo.
We then walked the walk of shame to our missionary leader to ask him to jump our car. With our cheeks a delicate (or not so very delicate) pink, we were forced to explain how we had killed our car to the group of members still in the parking lot. Lesson learned? We shouldn't become casual about the keys we hold. This life is too short and too precious to abuse the time and talents we have been given.
Ok next story, this one and the ones following to be much shorter and much more uplifting.
On Friday we had planned to do splits. For a couple weeks now a Brazilian member of our branch has been asking us to have family home evening with her and her family but we were never able to get it set up so this week we made a promise to her hat we would. Since she only speaks Portuguese and because Hermana Mathis is the senior companion in our companionship we decided that she would be going to the Portuguese lesson and Hermana Paulsen would go to an English lesson we had set up with another member.
(Switching to Hermana Mathis voice) When I got to the members house NONE of her friends had shown up. So I just sat with them and talked for a half an hour while wiring for their friend to show up. What I wasn't aware of was that this dear sweet couple had invited every Portuguese speaking person they know to
come! So by the time they did show up I was the only Spanish-speaking/American-raised person there! And I was expected to bear testimony of a lesson given in pure Portuguese!
Luckily our members our the best and the lesson went really well. About the time we actually started, Hermana Paulsen and our other member had returned. We watched a seminary video about agency and it was a hit! Everyone participated in the discussion afterwards and they said that they actually could understand everything we had said in Spanish. We feel so humbled. We've also come to the decision that we're are changing our Spanish branch into a Portuguese branch ;)
We had many adventures, teaching JWs, looking for a new apartment, and teaching random people in the street. We even met three generations of men named Jesus the last being born on Christmas Day. It was lots of fun!
We had this amazing lesson with one of our investigators, Eduardo. Sergio, a recent convert, came with us. His testimony was perfect! Eduardo who hadn't come to church beforehand came for the first time. He's right on track for baptism. Sergio, who drove him home, said that Eduardo had a really good experience and loved church.
Life has been an adventure this week. We'd like to end with a testimony that we know that God loves us. All of us. We love you. Got to jet!
Con Amor de Sarasota,
Hermana Paulsen and Hermana Mathis
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