I have arrived in the campo! Or the country. It's totally different from the city and I love it! There's a lot more walking and it's more hilly and the houses are further apart. They're all made of wood instead of cement and the people are a lot more poorer out here than they were in the city, so the eyes of my understanding are being opened a little bit.
Also with the gospel! Which is how that phrase is actually supposed to be used. I had some fuego studies this week. The first day that I found out my area was a campo area, I felt prompted to read Alma 34 during personal study. Which is a pure gold chapter by the way. And it has a verse in there that says to pray over your campo that the flocks can increase. I think in English it says field or something, but that felt like revelation straight to me to pray over the people in my campo so I can bring them into the fold of God.
I'm already in love with the people here, but it's gonna be a challenge to prepare them for baptism. We extended two baptismal invitations last week and neither one of them were accepted because neither one of the people are married to their spouse. Neither one of the invitations was rejected either; they both agreed to pray about it and talk to their spouses about marriage... but the people here are so poor and getting married is so expensive that it's a really difficult commitment for them to make. I just keep saying 1 Ne 3:7 cuz it's true.
We're planning to extend five more baptismal invitations this week and four out of the five would have to get married to get baptized. So we've got our work cut out for us, but the thing is that I know that people who have genuine faith and understand the gospel will do what it takes to get baptized. So I'm not worried, I just hope these people will have hearts open to accept the gospel this week.
Also my comp Hermana Cook is awesome! I'm follow up training her but honestly she's the most obedient missionary I've met on the mission so far. She sure has the greenie fire and I'm so excited to get to work with her this transfer.
I learned how to shell green beans this week. I try to ask people if I can help with whatever they're doing as often as possible, but usually they say no. But yesterday when we went to visit a new member, his whole family was sitting around a huge bowl of beans shelling them and they said we could help. One of the guys showed me how to do it: you pop the end off then peel the seam all the way down and it just opens. Turns out that this is not a skill I have and even though I tried to do it that way every time, I think I was successful once. Mostly I just used my thumb nail to slice the beans open.
To explain my subject line, I am really lucky that I got such a great comp and a great area. But also I heard somewhere that it's supposed to be lucky if a bird poops on your head because it's so rare. Haha. I got lucky my second day here, so I'm taking it to mean that this transfer is gonna be awesome.
I hope you guys all have a great week! Eat lots of fruits and vegetables cuz they're kind of the best and the lack of them is the only thing I'm sad about about moving to the campo. The one supermercado here has extremely limited food options with basically zero fruits or vegetables. But there are a few fruit stands set up in random places and I will definitely become a regular at each one.
Hermana Cazier
pics!
1. one more with Hna Anderson (and Ian)
2. adios Hna Anderson! It was a party
3. me and Hna Cook
4. again
5. me getting lucky
6. mirror selfie (I spy a plunger)
7. us one more time
8. and if you ever wonder why I usually don't send many pictures, it's because the majority of them turn out like this
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