"... And we still don't know where the scorpion went, but HP is convinced that it's in her suitcase."

August 25, 2014

Soooo this week didn't go so well either, but we worked so crazy hard to get our investigators to church and have members with us in lessons. And the members are awesome and almost every single lesson we had this week, a member came with us so that was cool.

 But we had ZERO investigators in church! AGAIN. This is literally the hardest thing to get people to do here! And I guess I should have expected it cause this week was stake conference [a stake is made up of several wards in the area and conference is a few times every year] so everyone had to travel to Merida for church and we can't make people pay money to take the bus to Merida for church, but we were actually expecting 2 investigators there who didn't come... And yesterday we went by Lucy's house to see why she didn't come and turns out she really wanted to but couldn't because of another commitment she had and was trying to get out of it, but she was upset that she couldn't come. The good news is the stake conference was beautiful and awesome and we got to stay the night with some Hermanas in Merida who are super fun. But the speakers were  talking about how the members have to help the missionaries and their responsibilities and everything and it was JUST what the ward needed to hear, and that night we got to have ward council finally! So that was so good! And now the ward is excited to help out and organize activities and stuff so yay!

 Pretty sunset in Izamal

Rain in Izamal

Hermana Smith Singin' in the Rain

Fun story, Friday night we're driving home in a taxi and Elder F (the District Leader ) calls and says "Hermana Smith I have some news for you.. you have SPECIAL CHANGES and you are going to Mulsay with Hermana de Leon and you have to be in Merida tomorrow at 8.... AND by now I've learned to never trust your district leader so I was like OK Elder whatever really what do you need? And he wouldn't let it drop! He was so serious so I was like, "What the heck?"  We had to pay the taxi driver so I said  "OK I'll call you back in 5 minutes." So I told HP what EF said, and I don't know if he's joking or not, and she starts freaking out cause she thinks she'll die if I leave and she's left here with a different companion.

 Then we get in the house and I was in the bathroom and I hear HP scream. And she's like Hermana come here!!!!! So I come out and she shows me this huge black scorpion on our table. And I'm not super freaked out 'cause I've seen scorpions before, but HP hasn't and she starts hyperventilating. And I'm not gonna lie, this thing is nasty looking. But we don't know how to kill it or get rid of it cause neither one of us wants to get near it, and it's crawled on the leg of the table making it hard to get at. So I said OK I'm calling EF 'cause we have to call back anyway. So I call him (meanwhile looking up the Spanish word for scorpion) and tell him that there's one in our house. And all this time HP is crawled up in her hammock and almost crying and wants to pray so that the scorpion will die and keeps running from our room to the other room where I'm talking to EF. And then EF is like well I don't know what to do about that, but by the way I was just kidding about your special changes.. so then I give him a mouthful and HP comes running in to see what happened, and I tell her it was a joke and she gets all super mad at EF for freaking us out for nothing. Then she goes back into the room to find that the scorpion disappeared, and comes back in freaking out and standing on her chair. And so that was our stressful night. And we still don't know where the scorpion went, but HP is convinced that it's in her suitcase.

This is Norma Ricalde. We LOVE this family, they're members. She doesn't speak English but she has this bag and I thought it was so funny!

OK well I guess that's all for today. Hope next week I have better news for ya'll!

HS