Week 10: Fasting, Pig Skin, Lamb of God and Guitars

Yet another amazing week here in Oklahoma. Every day here is different and crazy and a complete joy. I want to start of by saying that I love my mission. A lot of people that we talk to out here are blown away that we would leave behind everything to come out and teach people about Christ. Then they ask us if we get paid. Of course we say nope! And then we tell them that we pay to be out here! And for everyone who wants to know, it is worth every single penny!!!! There is no where else I would rather be than right where I am. So some cool/fun things that happened this week.

This is Isabella

So this week Hermana Snowden and I decided to turn our investigators over to the Lord.. By this, I mean that we fasted for our investigators and then went and visited all of them and talked to them about the importance of church. We taught and testified and invited every one of out investigators to come to church this Sunday.  This was a huge test of my faith. I really had to trust the Lord that he would have the people who were ready to progress would come to church.  MARIA MENDEZ CAME TO CHURCH!!!!!!!! Man when she walked in my heart literally jumped out of my chest!!! Maria is this sweet lady in her mid to late 20s. She is from Guatemala. She has two little boys and is one of the sweetest ladies ever. She can't read which makes things a little difficult, but she was at church! She loved it too! .

We are teachinh Geniva too! and I am so excited! We had an awesome lesson with her and we are hoping that not this Saturday, but the next she will be baptized!

Fun food story. At Hermana Campos' house she fed us these delicious beans and rice and then on the side there was this weird hot sauce thing called chicharon. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I ate it anyways. It actually wasn't too bad! It was really spicy so I had to mix it into my beans. But afterwards Elder Steed asked me if I liked it and I said yes. and then he told me that it was fried pig skin in hot sauce...... Yup I ate fried pig skin and liked it!

The local diner "The Hungry Frog"

This is what humidity does to my hair!

We went to Jose Garcia's house this week. We couldn't go into his apartment because we didn't have another female, so we just talked on the doorstep. We got talking about music and he pulls out his guitar... And he sang to us right there on the doorstep!! haha it was hilarious! he sang us songs about Jesus that he had written. All the neighborhood kids gathered around and we were all dancing and singing as Jose played his guitar. That was so much fun.

Another crazy story.... Tuesday we went to visit Maria Sanchez. She had a friend over, so we started talking to her. She was suuuuper religious. We were talking about the bible and she (Maria's friend) kept talking about a prayer in your heart. We were like! Yeah! we always have a prayer in our heart! But the lady was like no, no, no... We could not understand what she was saying to us. Then all of a sudden she said that she was going to give us a blessing... One of the weirdest experiences of my life. She put one hand on my head and one on my back and then started chanting these words in Spanish that I didn't understand. Then she started getting louder and louder until she was yelling and at the same time was shaking me back and forth. Yup. So I received a Pentecostal blessing this week. Pretty crazy!

We helped at the Red Cross Carnival and it was so much fun!!

Last night we got to go to a Lamb of God production at the church. It was so amazing. It was a full orchestra and a choir who sang about the life of Christ. It was ... I don't even know what words to use to describe it. Number one, it was so amazing to hear a full orchestra sound. My Zone Leader, Elder Duffin, was playing the cello in it. (Jealous!) and so for a couple moments I was vicariously playing the cello through him. haha The songs were all so amazing and the spirit was so strong. One thing that I learned/realized from the performance was that Christ had the choice to not be crucified. He could have saved his own life. But because he loves us, because he loves me, he voluntarily chose to suffer and die for me. That is so amazing. We owe Christ everything that we have and are. I am so grateful for him. i know that he lives and I am so grateful to have this time in my life to serve him 24/7.

Thanks to everyone for their support! I love you all so much!!!!!

Hermana Hilton