We're not gonna beat around the bush here, too much has already been said. Te lo daré.
I think starting with the story behind the subject line is a good idea. Friday. We went out knocking and finding. We picked an area in Coram to knock, so we parked the car and were going through the neighborhood trying to find people to teach. This house we got to was really nice for Coram and had a metal/stone gate all around it. We opened the gate and started to walk up to the door. The door was in this little nook kind of hallway thing and there was another gate getting into that part of the property where you could actually knock the door. This gate was open so we started to walk over to knock this house when we see something move. Sister Spencer was leading the way with me behind and she goes, "oh...it's a dog." Me, with my love of dogs, I get all excited like, "a dog?! oh yay a dog! what kinda dog?!" She quietly goes, "iiiiiiit.....looks, nice..." I turn around to look at Sister Mejía and she is gone. She was out the gate so fast not looking back or anything! I turn back to the dog as it jumps up upon seeing us. I realize it's a Rottweiler and before I could think Sister Spencer was running past me out the gate. She made it nervous so it starts to run at us --mind you the gate behind us is open-- so we ran outta there so fast trying to close the last gate and get away from the house haha...we were just yelling like little girls cause we didn't know if it was still coming after us haha! It didn't follow us quite to the gate and we were fine of course, but that experience got us our cardio in for the day 😆😜😂
As for the second portion, after our little dog experience we went down a different street where there was a Hispanic woman mowing her lawn while listening to Bachata. We went to talk to her and she let us have a little lesson right there with her. She also owns a restaurant (she's from El Salvador --yes, pupusas!!) so she gave us the directions there. We set up a return appointment and then her little girl came out. She asked if we wanted pepinos. We were like, "suuuuure, why not...?" She walks us over to the side of her house where she has all these vines growing along this fence. There were probably five different vegetables growing there! She picked a few and gave them to us, but then just kept piling up more and more. We ended up leaving with our arms and bags just full of these massive cucumbers from the garden. So that was cool.
On Tuesday we were out knocking in the Heatherwood apartments and we found this super cool lady. She let us right in and was anxious to talk with us. She nannies this little boy, who was a major distraction, but we somehow managed to show her the Because of Him video and have a little lesson with her. She told us about her religious experiences and asked when we'd be coming back. Awesome lady.
Saturday we stopped by a member's to share a quick message with her. It was really cool because I was able to give her this analogy for what she's going through by using running hurdles in track. The analogy worked perfectly. Like, literally every little thing fit perfectly. I was able to testify of what we had shared and discussed with her and use this parable if you will where she was then able to better understand and ultimately apply our message, so that was cool! (Yes. I knew my experiences with those devils would come in handy somehow/someday! 😜🙅🏼)
Back to Friday, we tried to find CC after our encounter with the pepino lady but didn't have luck here. We did however find this man outside his home. My sisters had met him before. He's not interested but knows we're servants of God and always says hi or has a little chat with us. We came walking down and he yells, "ah! My angels! God has sent me my angels today, what did I do to deserve such grace?" He had his proud dad moment about his daughter who just graduated in criminal justice, forensics (Aubrey!!) and then insisted we talk for a few. He used to be a stand up comic back in the day, so needless to say, the time was fun. We ended up getting a few pictures with him. He said we reminded him of Charlie's Angels and assigned us all one haha.
We left shortly after visiting with him cause it was getting late. Pero, when we were on our way home for the day we were talking about how training calls were being made and I had felt sick all day. So had Hermana Spencer. We were making all these jokes and laughing, singing loudly with all our windows down when Hermana Spencer yells from behind me, "THE PHONE IS RINGING!!" We all --freaking out-- hurried to roll up the windows, pause the music, and act calm. Sister Spencer hands the phone up and Hermana Mejía answers it with a big ol, "hi President!" I about threw up. She talks for a second with him and then says, "yeah, she's right next to me!" And hands the phone over. So,
I'm training. I'll be blinded back in to Dyker with my trainee tomorrow.
President was beyond happy making all the calls that night. He actually ended up calling back five minutes later and asked for Hermana Spencer as he extended her a call to train as well. Sister Mejía lost it. Saturday morning we had our new trainer meeting. Entonces, me, Hermana Spencer, Hermana Ashford, Elder Brown, Elder Atoa, Elder Cubas (Elder Atoa's old trainee), and Elder Marchant (for
his last two transfers) are just a few of the 23 called trainers that I know. This is gonna be fun :)
We also had a great lesson with a less active teacher Saturday night. We talked about the character of Christ. It was awesome. He is such a great kid. Has a really really rough life, but he's a great kid. We asked if he's gonna go on a mission and he said yes, he thinks so. That was an awesome moment. He is such a stud.
Sunday we said bye to all the members and I got to participate in my first branch/ward council. It didn't go the best, but it was nice to see how they work for future. We also took one of the yw out with us. We got to her house to drop her off and the elders were there. Her mom (our favorite member) had bought car chalk to decorate the elders' car as a prank in times like these, so we did that and left a little note for them.
Last week I also had a really cool experience during personal study. I remember getting to a point here I had no idea what to study. I had been studying for Eliana and was not finding what I wanted. Looking at all the study material that sat in front of me I decided you can never go wrong with the Book of Mormon. I picked it up and started to read from 2 Nephi. Not gonna lie, I had had some frustrations with myself and the progress with the language the last couple days and was
frustrated I didn't know more. I felt like "I'm at five months! I should know this!" 🙄 There was also the stress of possibly training weighing on my mind with the thought that I could have a trainee who spoke even less Spanish than I did and we would just be a mess of a compañerismo. But I read in chapter three and got to verses 18-21 where it talks about the word of God being cried out among the people. Missionary work. Then in verse 21 it says, "Because of their faith their words shall proceed forth out of my mouth unto their brethren who are the fruit of thy loins; and the weakness of their words will I make strong in their faith". I felt so much peace. I am doing my best and I am studying everyday trying to be better. I've seen just in the days since then how much the Lord has blessed me and I've seen great progress in the language from where I once was. Yes, I'm far from perfect at it, but I know I'm doing my best and the Lord has rewarded me for my efforts. The Lord chooses the weak and simple to do His work... "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
(But seriously though, give Him credit where credit's due! He took this thing almost six months ago who only knew the colors of the rainbow and how to count to twenty, and over that time He has taught and guided and strengthened where I can now confidently--depending on the lesson 😜-- teach whole lessons, I can have full conversations, I can speak in whatever tense I want and understand almost everything that is said. Sure, I mess up tenses, or forget grammar/grammar principles here and there, I've only been learning this for six months! So I'm proud of where I'm at. He's done a good job and put in a great deal of effort. He will make my weak Spanish work. He's got this 😄)
Entonces, estamos acá. Almost this time tomorrow I will be going through the subways back home to Brooklyn with a greenie by my side. Hope she's ready to work :) there truly is no greater work in which we could be called to labor. I love you lots, pray for those coming in por favor :) I'm just remembering how nervously excited I was...can't wait for them all to get started!
Have a great week!
Muchísimo amor,
Hermana Karra Gourley
So we've got some selfies...
Car selfies consist of our pass off lesson with the elders for the creepy serenading dude haha.
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Next is the dark one taken in really bad lighting taken right after we got the calls to train
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We have my favorite stop sign in Coram, and a family intersection in
rocky point :)
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The ones of me and sister Ashford and sister Spencer (and one with Elder Brown) were right after the trainer meeting
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The really grainy pictures with the one guy outside are with Wayne. He's awesome haha!
We've got a selfie with Julio --our ward mission leader-- and a picture with our branch president and his wife.
And lastly (I think) is the really grainy and dark picture that's half black. Sister Mejía took that right after we planned/prayed Friday night. We were so stressed, so you can kinda see me and sister Spencer in the background of the black stressing haha.
There's a selfie with Tracy and the elders car (it's our Spanish
elders car by the way) in the dark
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