I was walking down the street laughing so hard I almost had to stop with Hna Wong and Hna Wolferts. As I struggled for breath I thought "that would make a great story!" but then I realized you wouldn't even understand. Not if I didn't explain 5 or 6 things about how Mexico is and what my life here actually looks like. But you know what the worst part is? I can't even remember what we were laughing about. Or what I would have had to explain! So I decided that I am going to try and start doing better in telling you guys all the funny or interesting stories I tell members at lunch when we sit down and swap mission stories.
1. The Razor In The Tree
One day a few weeks ago, I was walking down the street talking on the phone with one of the elders, when all of a sudden, almost as if of its own accord, my hand reached out and hit a nearby tree. I have no idea why I did this. Everything here is dirty and I usually try to avoid touching anything, but I smacked this tree with all most all my strength. Next I almost screamed, but I also try to avoid being loud on the street, (we get enough attention as it is) so I just stopped talking for a moment and told the Elder we would call him back later. When I jerked my hand back from the tree out fell a diamond shaped razor about the size of my nail. I looked down at my hand and sure enough I was bleeding. It wasn't too bad though and there was nothing I could really do so we just went on with our day. In fact I even forgot about it til a few days later my arm started to hurt really bad. I was complaining about it to Hna Wolferts "It has been hurting for 2 days now" I said "It feels like I got a tetanus shot" "Didn't you get stabbed by a dirty razor on the street"? she asked. At THAT point I got freaked out and we had a long disscussion debating whether or not I had Tetanus or AIDS or both but it turns out I am fine :)
2. Contacting and the Second Coming
As missionaries sometimes we talk about how at the judgment day we will stand in front of the people who rejected us and testify that we tried to teach them the true and living gospel but they wouldn't listen or accept us. We also talk about the people who will stand in front of us at the last day and say " You walked past me every day! I was looking for the gospel and you never contacted me"!!! A few months ago I was street contacting With Hna Villalobos and she LOVES to teach people about the resurrection right off the bat. Mostly because she assumes it is common ground so she starts off with that and then when the say they don't believe in the resurrection she gets all animated and starts pounding her bible. Anyways we were talking to this lady who said she believed in Jesus Christ and in Heavenly Father but not in the resurrection or in a life after this one. She kept triyng to leave but Hna Villalobos grabbed her hands and wouldn't let her go. It ended with me grabbing Hna Villalobos and testifying that "Yes, indeed Christ would come again to this earth," to which the lady replied "All right, when Christ comes again you guys come and find me and then I will join your church." It was all I could do to keep from laughing. In that moment all I could think was "if only she knew" but instead I told her "Yes, when he comes you will know. And every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus in the Christ."
3. Jose
This past week one of our appointments fell through, and our back-up plan, and our plan C, so we started contacting. We were about to contact a door and Hna Wolferts said WE should pretend we are looking for Jose and see what happens. we all laughed and joked about how Jose really might be the most mexican name, and knocked the door. To Hna Wong and my surprise Hna Wolferts started in with "Se encuentra Jose?" With the most sincere and earnest voice I have ever heard, the man at the door responded "No, Lo siento, no esta. No ha regresado de su trabajo todavia" Hna Wolferts and I about lost it. It was all we could do to keep in our giggles which left Wong to ask the follow-up questions (when will he be back, etc) We then contacted him, taught him about prophets, gave him a Folleto [pamphlet] and set up a return appointment. It was great :)
4. Ensename Ingles! o Predicame la palabra de Dios!
[Teach me English! or Preach to me the Word of God!]
There are lots of people who yell at us on the street but there is this one corner of our street that we pass almost every night and on one side are all the drunk guys. If you cross the street there are all the pot heads, so we walk fast and pick which side to walk on by which is less populated. Anyways, one night there was almost nobody on the drunk side so here go Hna Crichton y yo walking as fast as we can, and the guys in the other side start screaming at us "HELLO! HELLO! Ensename ingles! I want to learn english!" We were pretty far past them, but I yelled over my shoulder "Vayan-se a la capilla Sabado a las 12!" and they all shut up. It was great.
Or another time this group of 3 muscular guys, ages 17-21, were walking towards us and totally eyeing Hna Wolferts. One of them nodded at his friend and I was expecting him to say something gross about gueras but instead he said "Ella me dio una folleto." I was laughing so hard we had to stop for a second.
Or one time I was with Hna Crichton we walked past this group of school kids all making fun of us for not speaking spanish "They can't understand us. Those stupid white girls just speak english" and I whipped around and said " Yo hablo espanol, como esta?" they were all so stunned that none of them said anything. So I smiled and said "Tengan un buen dia!" and left
lots of stuff happens. Usually I don't respond at all but it is nice every once and a while ,when people yell at you "Angels! Angels! Predicame el palabra de Dios" o "Evangelisame" to yell back "Vayan se a la capilla Domingos a las 11"
So I didn't tell you guys all the stories I made notes of to tell you, but I hope you started to get a better feel for the real Mexico, DF
Peace out, Hna LAmbert
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