The Jersey Shore

On Monday for Pday we went to the beach in Seaside Heights with the other missionaries in our zone! It was my first beach trip in 9 months! Yes, it was cold and windy, and I was in sweats instead of a swimsuit, and I couldn't go in the ocean, but it was a beach trip nonetheless, and it was wonderful. It was so great just to feel the sand under my feet. We played Frisbee and ran around and took a lot of pictures. It was definitely one of the best Pdays I've had! I love the Jersey Shore!

Tuesday was St. Patrick's Day, which was just a normal day except we wore green :p

Wednesday we were teaching our investigator Marlena and she randomly asked us if we are allowed to eat fish and we said of course we are. She told us her boyfriend works at a fishery and there was a Jewish lady who was going to buy a fish but then decided not to because it was too expensive. Marlena has fish all the time so she didn't want it and gave it to us. She said it was $66 worth of salmon!! So we've eaten quite a bit of that this week! It totally made our day!

This week we were knocking and a 12-year-old girl and 13-year-old boy answered the door. They had a lot of really good questions and we basically taught them the entire Restoration there on their porch. We gave them each a Book of Mormon and told them to read the introduction. When we went back two days later, they had read the introductions and were able to summarize the story of Joseph Smith to us! We also met their mom and she seemed really nice and totally okay with us coming over to teach her kids so that was great!

Our awesome progressing investigator William is still in the hospital. He would probably be on baptism date by now if it weren't for his accident. But he told us he should be able to come home from the hospital in a couple days so hopefully we will be able to start teaching him again soon!

Thursday we visited the Guerras, an amazing older couple. He is from El Salvador and she is from Cuba. They just got baptized less than two years ago and they got sealed in the temple just a few months ago and now he is the branch's Elders Quorum President! We went with the Roses. The Roses are a senior missionary couple serving in our branch and they help this branch so much. They are amazing. They both served missions in Peru when they were younger (that's actually how they met!) and Elder Rose had a cool government job so they've lived and worked in places like India, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela, and El Salvador. They also served a 3-year humanitarian mission in India. Then Elder Rose was a Stake President in Idaho for 10 years. And now they are here serving another mission. We work with them more than any other missionaries here right now.

The Guerras and the Roses

Thursday was supposed to be the first day of spring, but instead, we got a snowstorm. :(

Yesterday there was an Easter fireside in Spanish at the stake center in East Brunswick. All the Spanish-speaking missionaries in the southern half of the mission went and performed songs and a couple of them bore testimonies. There were also a couple recent converts who bore their testimonies. Our returning member Juan and his investigator wife Elizabeth showed up so we were really excited about that!! It was a really great event.

<3 Hermana Harris