Accion de Gracias

At the Thanksgiving Party

 

Well the dreaded cold has officially come. I can honestly say that I never knew what it truly meant to be cold until this week. Tuesday night was the worst. It was probably 20 degrees, which I have been in before, but the cold is so much worse here on the East Coast because it's humid. So when I walked outside that night it literally felt like I had jumped in a pool of ice water. I'm used to the dry cold that Utah has, but this wet cold is so much worse. PLUS I'm in a walking area, so we are outside in the cold all the time. The only way to survive is layers upon layers upon layers!!

 

So there is this recent convert named Emilio (from Ecuador) . He got baptized 2 days before I got to Union City, so I've been teaching him the recent convert lessons about once a week ever since I got here. For a while we were worried that he would go inactive because there was about 3 weeks in a row where he didn't go to church. But we worked super hard with him and I don't know what it was, but something got him to come back right when he was on the edge of going inactive. Now he's been back 3 Sundays in a row :) Also, Sister Stone challenged him to start reading the Book of Mormon from the beginning and finish by New Years, which is not very much time to read the whole thing. So I was a little skeptical about whether he actually would accept the challenge because he usually isn't very good about reading when we tell him to. BUT, a week later we checked up on his progress and he was already in Mosiah! Ahead of schedule to finish on time! And last time we checked a few days ago he was already in Alma! He told us that his testimony is growing every day as he reads more. It makes me so happy to see how well he is doing compared to just a month ago :)

 

Wednesday we didn't get any teaching time in because there was a meeting in Morristown for all the new missionaries and their trainers. It was weird because I remember being at that same meeting just 12 weeks ago as a new missionary, but this time I was going as a trainer! Time flies...

 

Friday was really awesome. The ward had a big Thanksgiving party with a ton of food. Apparently Hispanics actually do celebrate Thanksgiving, but they call it "Accion de Gracias". The party was super fun and of course lots of good food :) Hispanics know how to throw a party! Also our progressing investigator Diego (from Guatemala) showed up!  So we pulled him aside to teach him a quick lesson and we had Emilio be our last-minute team-up! It was Emilio's first time helping us teach someone else and he did so good!

Sister Galvan, me and Sister Stone - Three Generations

In general the rest of the week was pretty good. We contacted a ton of people and got some pretty solid potentials and new investigators. Hopefully some of these people will start progressing this week!

 

So Sister Stone is always talking about how I am apparently incapable of being mean or getting angry about anything. Yesterday she compared me to Giselle in the movie Enchanted how she tries to be all stern and angry and goes "I'm angry!" and just kinda giggles. Because according to her whenever I get somewhat angry I just laugh and smile and brush it off. I just thought it was really funny because I've never identified with Giselle before but  I do love that movie!

 

These past couples weeks everyone's been talking about Thanksgiving/ Accion de Gracias even though it's still not quite Thanksgiving. But it's awesome because it helps me to be grateful for everything. Even things to complain about, if you try hard enough you can turn it into something to be thankful for. Like this cold weather. At least it's not snowing yet right? :)

 

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving! It'll be weird not being home for it, but don't worry about me. We've already got two different member families feeding us for Thanksgiving, I will be well fed and well taken care of :)

 

<3 Hermana Harris