Week 36: A Little Bit Longer

Greetings!

Pix with the the Bowling Green hermanas! Clockwise from left, Aguilera, Newton, Boden, Reddish, Reidhead and Gomez.

All things are well in the city of Bowling Green, Kentucky! The people we teach are amazing, as always. The missionaries we serve with are so hard-working, kind and conscientious. Hermana Aguilera is growing into a spiritual giant.

I love Hermana Gomez so much. We were in Home MTC together.

A lot happened, but I don’t know how to fit everything into stories. Thankfully, there are a lot of pictures for some reason (?), so for the little I write, there will be much more to see. Which is what many people pay much more attention to in weekly emails.

Having Sister Forbush in the apartment was oodles of fun.

Since I’m going to Guatemala next week, I was prepared to be moved down to Nashville tomorrow, since transfers are happening. You know, so that driving down to the airport isn’t a ridiculous juggling of events. But apparently President Weaver doesn’t care about juggling, because I’ll be staying in Bowling Green until I leave the country! Pretty exciting stuff.

Sister Forbush made German pancakes on exchanges! Low-quality photograph, very high-quality food.

But because I thought I was leaving Bowling Green, we had a ton of lessons with the people we were teaching, and for the most part, I was viewing this week as a last hurrah. And full of hurrahs it was! Hermana Aguilera and I found an atheist and got him interested in reading the Book of Mormon. We did a couple of door approaches, and through it, we found true paz. Allow me to explain.

The nightly calls with the district leaders are always fun.

So we were going over to visit Angel, our most progressing person. We had prepared a lesson to set her on date for baptism, and were visiting her with Hermana Boden and Hermana Forbush, who were together on exchanges. When we got there, however, there were no cars, and no Angel! What rotten luck. So we decided to visit formers in the neighborhood, and to walk to a woman named Cynthia’s house. We had actually tried to call her the week before, and she hadn’t responded. So we got to the house, and inside was a guy named Joey. He was definitely not Cynthia. He was very polite, but also very uninterested. So we wished him well and started to make our way back to the car to meet up with the other sisters and eat the brownies that were awaiting us. As we walked, we saw a woman on her porch, sitting with the cutest baby boy. I figured I might as well go for it, so I said, “Your baby is so cute!” Then she responded in Spanish, then I responded in Spanish, and then she went, “Hermanas!” and invited us on her porch. She gave us water and told us that she used to play soccer with the missionaries who served here before she got pregnant with her youngest baby and COVID happened. Her name is Paz, and she invited us in so that I could play some alabanzas with her on the piano. It was surreal, and I’ve never felt more like a missionary.

Paz invited us into her home so I could accompany her on the piano! So cool!

In Mosiah 26, it reads:

24 For behold, in my name are they called; and if they know me they shall come forth, and shall have a place eternally at my right hand.

I love so much about this simple verse, but what really stands out to me is that middle phrase: “if they know me they shall come forth.” In stake conference this week, the visiting general authority, Elder Martino, talked a little bit about Spanish vocabulary. In Spanish, there are two ways you can say “to know,” and they are the words saber and conocer. Saber implies an intellectual, detached knowledge, whereas conocer is a more personal, intimate connection. When we look at our relationship with knowing Jesus Christ, would we translate that using saber or conocer? If the answer is the latter, the action described in Mosiah 26 applies to us.

Bowling Green 1B on the prowl for people ready to hear the message of the restored gospel.

I love being a missionary. I am so glad that I decided to come forth to the Tennessee Nashville Mission, even if I wasn’t originally the most excited at the prospect. I am so thankful for the people, and for the love, and for my Savior. And I’m thankful for you, too. And hope that you’ll have a fantastic week.

— Atentamente,

Hermana Newton