I NEED SOME AIR March 10th, 2010

That little trip to the countryside last week and beautiful day in the park gave me an insatiable need for fresh air and nature. Last P-day we planned to go to the park after email so Sister Simons and I could go running while Sister Prina wrote letters but by the time we got out of email it was POURING RAIN. It was still a treat, though, because I got to wear sweats outside for a total of 3 hours because we had the intention of doing something physical. Oh man, I almost forgot how much I love sweats. I've decided that when I get back home I want to go hike the entire Appalachian trail. After a year and a half of wearing skirts and being in cities I will probably need 6 months at least of the extreme opposite - only nature and sweats. Then I will be ready to live a more equilibrious lifestyle.

So yeah, we weren't able to go running. Then we had a whole day inside for Zone Conference (which, as always was really enlightening...details to follow), then about 3 or so days mostly inside because Sister Simons was sick. Even when we were stuck inside Sister Prina was up doing the charts for our investigators with me, teaching me how to cook various healthy treats (got another good cookie recipe for you Crust) , making phone calls, giving me private voice lessons, etc. Then we had another day inside for Interviews yesterday. And today....we planned on going back out to Ludmilla's to go hiking for Pday, but then it started snowing last night and hasn't stopped since?!?!? Instead, to satiate my craving for fresh air and movement, I read an article in the Ensign during study that related skiing to some gospel principle and we stopped by a book store for a bit and looked through some books with incredible nature pictures. I was inspired by the Ensign article to be better at making up real life personal examples to teach doctrine principles in lessons. It will be good practice for me and help me get more creative. I read something else in the Ensign the other day talking about how creativity is a Godly attribute (he designed the world, us, etc). Mostly looking back at the week what stands out is all the things I have learned from the Ensigns...
I will spare you all my detailed thoughts, though, and just let you explore most of them yourselves. Here one though...
- There is one article (Putting Families First) about a family that started a "Family Club" instead of doing all the extracurricular activities that were causing them all to go crazy and taking a toll on them individually and as a family unit. The story demonstrated that we can have less stress and more joy when we prepare EVERY NEEDFUL THING versus EVERYTHING. I think I am naturally drawn to the latter of the two and then I end up pushing my companions too much and take a toll on them and their patience. But if I really learned to follow the Spirit to know what the needful things to do are, then no one would be drained and sick at the end of the day, but we will still have been diligent in getting what needs to be done done.

Despite all the indoors time, we have taught a few noteworthy lessons too...
Tito and Ludmilla: We found them our very first week of the transfer doing Porta. Ludmilla was the only one home and just peeked her head out the door. She said no to us like 10 times but we just kept talking to her, asking her about herself, etc and after about 10 minutes she finally opened the door all the way. Being in three is pretty useful...If the door is just cracked opened people can't see all three of us and get curious about the mystery voices. After about 15 minutes we were inside talking about the Book of Mormon. After 20 minutes the guy that she lived with came home and after 25 minutes he had scheduled an appointment for us the next day and said he would be in church that Sunday. He has come to church every Sunday since but has not let us come back to teach a lesson because he only wanted a lesson when Ludmilla was around at the same time...which is never. People work soo so much in this city. Especially foreigners. FINALLY on Monday they called at 5 and said we could come over at 7. So we cancelled our other appointments and made it there. We taught the plan of salvation and...I'm not even sure what else to say. Mostly it was just a miracle that we were able to teach them both. Tito is awesome. From Ecuador, has a long pony tail, always kickin it in sweats, super sincere, looks you right in the eyes when he talks and does exactly what he says he is going to do.

Haha, funny language story for the week happened at this lesson...My tag broke, Ludmilla asked if I wanted some glue (cola) and I said, "No, I'm fine, but maybe some water...".

Neyusa: We found her also a couple weeks ago doing door to door during a time of the day that is normally not super productive because doormen are working and won't let you in, plus no one is really home anyway. She was one of the doormen that we went up to to ask for permission to go in...we ended up talking to her for about 30 minutes about the importance of families. She is from Portugal, married to an Italian, and is pretty much an Ensign style mom with an Ensign decorated house. We have taught her two times since then but leave having learned more from her about mothering than she has learned from us about the church. During my study the morning before teaching her the third time, I was lead to two different scriptures from the BOM that I thought would really relate to her...Mormon 2:23-26, a story of moms and families that loved each other and wanted to protect each other but couldn't because they did not have faith in and the strength of the Lord VS Alma 56:45-48 where the children had been taught to have complete faith in the Lord and succeeded in defending themselves because of it. Then, when we planned our lesson, we decided we shouldn't share that because she really just needed a basic Restoration lesson. Turned out when we got there and got into the convo, though, those scriptures were EXACTLY what she needed.

Sister Malinverno: Her last name is translated Badwinter. She is one of the few Italian members in our ward and invited us over for lunch when she noticed Sister Prina singing during sacrament meeting. This woman is obsessed with Opera (but does not sing at all herself) and the second we walked into her house started pulling out piles and piles of opera cds then for the next hour and a half while we ate an Italian style 7+ course meal and taught our lesson we listened to opera in the background. I actually really, really enjoyed it. Sister Prina is always so calm, super genuine with everyone, really dedicated to speaking the language correctly, and an incredibly clear and engaging teacher. I have felt so much more joy and love and enthusiasm for life just having her around me for the past couple of weeks again.

Well, that's about all I have to say.

Love you all, miss you all, hope someday I will get the package from you all...

Sincerely,
Sorella Cuzz