I had a little tender experience this week. We're teaching this lady who is about 55 or so. She had met with the missionaries before, but it's been a long time. She is living with someone right now and isn't married, so that's a little bit of a challenge. But anyway, when we first met her, we taught her really slowly and simply so that she could understand. She told us that we have to teach her like we would a little kid. She forgets things really easily, so we reviewed the lesson like 5 times haha. But I loved it! When we finished, we taught her how to pray and she said she would pray about the things we had taught her. When we showed up this week, we asked her about how her prayers went and if she remembered how to pray. She got really excited and told us to wait where we were, so we did. She came back with an empty cigarette carton that she had opened up. Inside on the blank part she had written her prayer that she wanted to do. She told us that she wanted to read it to us to see if it was alright and if she had done a good job. I started to get all teary-eyed like a dang girl because it was seriously just the sweetest thing ever. Two young men teaching this woman, who has almost three times our age, how to pray and communicate with her Heavenly Father. I offered the opening prayer and had some hot, salty tears running down my face as we prayed together. Dang, just a real tender moment.
Other than that, we're just working on planting some seeds and finding new people that will progress. It's tough and we are doing a lot of contacting and even more walking, but you KNOW it's worth it, MAS VALE! Mas vale. We've really seen how Satan has destroyed marriage and is making his attack on the family. Basically all of the people here think marriage is for clowns and we just straight testify so hard that families can be together forever.
On Sunday, as you all know, it was Father's Day. Also, Argentina had their match at 7:00 here. But everyone starts preparing a couple hours earlier. Anyway, we were trying to find a way to the colony to have sacrament meeting and we straight up got hung out to dry. We chased down buses and other automobiles, but no one wanted to stop or help us out haha. That and all the people were getting their pre-game on. We finally found a remis and were able to get there on time. We started the meeting off and got to the first hymn. We have a little stereo that we use to play the hymns. While we were singing, the CD started to skip and then turned off. When that bad girl stopped playing music, the only sound was the terrible trio of Elder Vera, Elder Sipple, and Ernesto Flores, leader of the group in the colony. Then, the CD started to play again and just destroyed the timing hahaha it was classic. We just opted to turn it off and hit it up a capella. Then we had the messages! Your boy Elder Sipple was scheduled to speak as well as another member. He always has bailed at the last second, so we were banking hard on his talk this Sunday...and he came in SO clutch! Then Elder Vera gave a talk and we began to wrap things up. I was directing the meeting and announced who would pray. Before the meeting, I had asked one of the young women of the colony to pray and she had agreed. Now, when we finished the closing hymn and needed her most, she sat motionless in the back of the chapel, staring at me as I stared back at her. She moved her hands up and covered her mouth. I'm not sure why. After a sweet, incredibly uncomfortable three minute silence, I stood up and closed the meeting. Hahaha classic colony shenanigans. Closing prayer bailed HARD. One other funny/scary thing is that the natives have been using the same sacrament cups since 1879. Not that many years, but seriously...for a really long time. There are lipstick marks, spiders, dirt, pebbles, bugs and every other type of thing in those dang cups. Yes, we have it in our agendas that we need to bring new cups to the colony.
But YEAH, other than all of that good stuff, things are rockin' here in ARG. We have our mission conference in one week where we get to say goodbye to President and Hermana Heyman. Wild stuff. My companion and I get along really well and we have some good laughs. When I was in the MTC, I was really nervous about getting a latino companion because I thought that I wouldn't be able to communicate and that the cultural differences would make it hard. But it's sooo dang fun and I'm learning a lot of Spanish, so mas vale. Life is good, the Gospel is true. Families are eternal. Shoutsout to all of the dads out there. HMU HMU!
Love,
Elder Sipple
A #TenderMoment in the colony. A cat seeks refuge from the cold on the back of a dog.
Elder Vera (or Elder Banana because he is from Ecuador) and me!
Me on divisions with my Chinese/Hawaiian DL. He is from Sandy
A neat picture in the colony
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