Maybe I'll just start at "Sunday" this week, because that's what I remember best!
Well, J___, who will be baptized this week (the member's joke
about her as "the third missionary" because she's our age and is always
with us at church and activities :)), and M___, who is Korean but
speaks English super well (we had a good lesson on Saturday with her and
R___, a brother who has recently found Christ and the Spirit again,
they're good friends from family home evening (magic happens there!). She seems to understand the Spirit a little better, which is a step up;
she doesn't have much of a concept of God and is a little skeptical,
though wants to know at the same time, anyway), and ___, a sister who
the Pihl's met at the army base (she's been watching the missionaries
come in and out for about three years, and a couple weeks ago met them on
the train and told them she wanted to come to church, brought her
sister last week and husband this week (though unfortunately, neither of
the speak English, so it's a little hard for them at the English
branch...) -- all three of them came to church this week! (How's that for a
run on sentence! I've discovered I'm a very circular talker. I start
in one place, get off subject explaining, add in a couple of opinions,
and then bring it full circle to the original point. I've met a couple
more circular talkers like me here :) though unfortunately, circle
talkers like us require a lot of time...)
And then we went to the post service on Camp Casey, a short
sacrament meeting for soldiers who can't get off to base to come to the
full meeting (usually they keep them on the base for a while so they
don't run off and get in trouble in the "ville" or other sketchy places
that I've never been nor want to go...), where S___ didn't come (pout.
She promise for like, the past three months :() and spaghetti dinner
after! We do that every Sunday now, the B___ family heads it up, Sister B___, wearing her tiara and blue mascara and apron, cooks all the
soldiers spaghetti and "rollsticks", and the kids decorate a surprise
dessert for us and make everyone eat it before the spaghetti's done :)
(a real blessing, because without spaghetti dinner, it's really hard for
us to eat on Sunday, since we are about an hour away from our area~).
We had a great lesson with J___ and Sister B___ about the gospel of
Jesus Christ~ I'm so thankful for the "perfect brightness of hope" in
the gospel.
Also, A___ was baptized either yesterday or today! Hehe, I'm not
exactly sure :) She's a very special person that most people don't
really understand. Originally a kind of smart, mean, funny shell about her
personality, but a very hesitantly, drivenly, sincere and deep inside.
She's one not to put in a box. We've all been working with her for
months; she doesn't want formal lessons, but through her own personal
study, and finally fasting, she went from no concept of God to, finally,
baptism. But technically, it's a secret - she and the Pihls went all
the way out to the coast to be baptized in the sea. It is a very
special, private event for her. I'm so happy. She's one who will stick
it out till the end~ It's amazing to see the change the Spirit has
worked in her over the past few months~
And then we headed over to S___'s house to help her out with her
wedding! It was really interesting being in the middle of it; it was a
little hard because we were needed to help things run semi-smoothly and
keep things under control, but we were never briefed on how things were
going to play out~ but anyway! After a lot of stress with late
photographers and dresses and bridesmaids that didn't show up and such
(African timing is significantly later than normal; if they say they'll
be there in # minutes, times it by 2 and add 5 more minutes
:)), we got there! I don't have my cord for you today, but I wish you
could see the costumes - Bright, colorful dresses, matching man's
clothes, head wraps, etc - maybe google "Nigerian wedding clothes"?
Friends kept throwing money at them, and there's a special ceremony with
a kola nut, and a cup (a little drama in the back room, "no, we CAN'T
use wine! We don't drink!!! Go S___! ) They came in dancing and we
were prepped for costume changes. Lots of members from the ward came. We
saw a lot of S___'s friend that we've either taught a little or asked
to teach them, it was great.
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