I
AM DEDICATING MYSELF RIGHT NOW TO WRITE EVERY DAY IN MY JOURNAL. YOU
ARE ALL VIRTUAL WITNESSES. My hand's on a Bible. (There's a Bible on my
iPad.) (Roll your eyes, fellow missionaries. That's right. I said iPad. #
Let's start with my Hermana Johnson story of the
week: she just discovered that the word "cockroach" is not "crockroach."
I FEEL SO BAD, my family has poisoned me, I swear, I COULD NOT STOP
LAUGHING when she said "crockroach."
Background: for those of you unfamiliar with the
Thomas family....we're great and all, but I give you a warning--DO NOT
MESS UP ENGLISH. You will be met with ridiculous laughter, and we will
probably not forget about it ever ever ever EVER.
Which brings me to my next topic...MY BRAIN IS
MELTING. I'm serious. This paragraph is mostly intended for the benefit
of my mother...Mom...I'm sorry I've laughed at your English mistakes all
these years. I understand now. IT'S THE STRESS, PEOPLE. I was super
sharp, hardly messed up my words before my mission. But
now...well...let's start from the beginning...
It all started in Olivar. There we were, Hermana
Kenney and I, walking down the hot stretch of road in front of us,
talking about our investigators. (More background information: I was not
very forgiving of Hermana Kenney's English mess-ups either.) Well, we
were talking about how a lesson we just had didn't go very well. Then,
trying to see the bright-side, I said, "but he read his scriptures! At
least he's making pogess."
POGESS.
POGESS.
POGESS.
...hello, where'd you go, "Letter R"?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! I SAID 'POGESS'. And guess who noticed? My lovely companion. Hermana Kenney was dying. Laughing so hard. I TOTALLY DESERVED IT.
That was the first instance. Since then, my stress
level has definitely increased, what with taking on more responsibility,
planning baptisms, learning Spanish, getting Tuberculosis, changing
missions, serving in the blistering heat, training, senior companion,
white-washing, biking, conquering Satan, etc. It gets to you, and
sometimes your brain fails.
Well, I've had two great ones this week. First of
all, I keep accidentally saying, "acartment pomplex." Like,
consistently. Like, "apartment complex" is not even in my vocabulary
anymore.
But, lo, the best is yet to come...the other day we
were sitting in McDonald's for free WiFi, and I'm just looking around,
and I see a poster advertising a deal on hamburgers. So I say, "oh,
look, $3.33 for two duggle cheeseburbers."
?!?@$&*^#(@()$) DUGGLE?!?!?!?!?! DUGGLE!!!!!!!!!!!! I SAID DUGGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Forget the "cheeseburbers," I SAID "DUGGLE."
I blame it on the stress. The point is...sorry, Mom.
 |
| Hermana Thomas and Hermana Homer--they are two peas in a pod...er...in a cape! |
Back to things that actually matter...oh wait, just kidding, more things that don't matter:
Do
you recall when Hermana Kenney and I motivated ourselves to run up 13
flights of stairs by placing snicker bars on every floor? Well, I'm not
sure that we exactly matched that, but this morning Hermana Johnson and I
went on a run....................to get McDonald's breakfast. (I swear,
I am not obsessed with McDonald's.)
We also passed a crazy guy yesterday who started
shouting "STOP COME BACK HERE GIMME YOUR BIKES! I SWEAR THAT GOD JUST
TOLD ME THAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GIVE ME YOUR BIKES I SWEAR IT." We tried
to get clear of him, but we hit a stop light, and he caught up to us.
He was like, "y'all mormons?" We're like, "yep, we are." He says, "aww,
I'm so sorry to hear that, I hope you find the true path one day." So I
said...okay, I shouldn't have said this...I said, "well, I hope the
'true path' doesn't involve shouting and strangers in the streets." So
then he goes off on how Mormons are 'unnatural' and that the fact that
we don't act on our 'natural impulses' is unhealthy, like we should
drink beer and have sexual relations with whoever we want whenever we
want, and I'm like, hmm, you probably believe that because you're not
close to getting married any time soon, huh...anyway, we just smiled and
told him that we think it's more important to obey God, then we biked
away. I probably should have just turned the other cheek but I was like
PREACH IT. I was in a "stand-on-a-soap-box-and-call-
Oh, we had this one day where LITERALLY EVERYTHING
WENT WRONG. I wish I had time to tell you how it went down, but I
couldn't even type it in one letter, so many things went wrong. At one
point, we stopped on our bikes at a stop light, and out of NOWHERE,
Hermana Johnson's bike fell apart. We just looked at each other, like,
SERIOUSLY?!?! and then we both just started laughing. We could not
believe it. But then we were looking for something flexible but firm
enough to replace the bike piece that fell off, and we found something
SO INCREDIBLY PERFECT, I couldn't believe we found this wire-thing just
sitting there! It fit like a glove. Miracle! AND some random old lady
gave us CAKE THAT DAY.
Guys, count your blessings! There are miracles every
day. It would be so cool if you stopped at the end of every day, before
your prayer, and thought of one miracle that happened in those 24
hours. Will you all do that from now on?
As for our investigators, everything is good. :)
Blanca and Alex are so amazing! I'm pretty sure that Alex is back to
church to stay, he even gave a talk at the other sisters' baptism on Saturday! So now we just have to help Blanca gain a testimony so that they can have an eternal family!
We got a hold of this amazing family we found the other day, and they are eager to have us come back! Super awesome!
We
have one person who wants to get baptized, he just has to change a few
things in his life first, mostly...his pride...but he's super super
nice! Will you all pray for him?
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH. I love being a missionary.
I've stopped my count-down, I hate it. I just want to be a full-time
missionary forever.
Keep being awesome. I love you lots and lots.
Love, Hermana TBhomas
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