Semana 73: Bienvenido al Barrio Verdadero

                                         Welcome to the True Neighborhood

Querida Familia y Amigos,

          Estoy en un barrio de Espanol! I am in a Spanish ward!  Okay, sorry about the skimpy email last week. I will try to make up for it. 

          Last week in Tiger Mountain, Sister Partridge and I had quite a few heart to hearts.  She taught me a lot about communication.  It's okay to talk about how I feel and that it's better to talk about problems than stifle them.  We ended up having a good, successful week.  We taught Brian again and he came to church! He may not have been baptized, but we believe that we were there in that area mostly for him.  We were able to connect with him really well and hopefully one day (hopefully soon) he will decide that he is ready.

          We also learned to overcome many of our fears.  We endured the mountains at night, we learned to talk about hard things, and we learned to love those who are difficult to love.  We ended up singing "The Lord is My Shepherd" in sacrament meeting and apparently we are going to sing it again in front of the mission for our Thanksgiving activity.  Who would have thought that I would ever sing in public?  But here I am!  I also bore my testimony at my last member missionary fireside and I gave my departing testimony at zone conference this week.  La Familia Solis from Seahurst came to the fireside just to see me and they committed me to come back to Seattle with my sisters to see them.  I just love these people.  I was a little emotional at the fireside because there were people there from all the different areas I have served in.  It was like an ending to a good book. There was closure and I was happy.  

La Familia Solis

          I know that my time here is running short.  My brain knows that, but it hasn't informed my heart yet. I still feel like I will be doing this work forever.  But I guess the greatest part is that I have learned so much  about how to be a good member missionary.  Missionaries are set apart to help people be spiritually converted to the gospel (hardest part), but members have a special calling to socially convert people. Gordon B. Hinckley said that people need both to become lasting members in the church.  I realize how much I have grown these past 17 months, I just hope I have grown to be the person that my Father in Heaven wants me to be at this point in my life.

          Well, I am happy to say that now I am in a Spanish ward.  It's the only Spanish ward in this mission so they refer to themselves as "El Barrio Verdadero" or the true ward (kind of like the expression the true church). There is a good mix of South Americans in this ward so I am learning how to understand different accents, especially the Argentine accent!  But I was excited to see that I retained a lot of my Spanish.  I am just trying to give it my all right now.  I am so happy to be back to trailer parks and city although it's not as ghetto as my first area.  We were able to teach many lessons and find many new investigators.  Have I ever told you how much I love Hispanics?  They had a Thanksgiving activity with lots of food!  And the best part was that we had 14 nonmembers there, many of them investigators!  I became a Spanish speaking chatter box!  I even had the opportunity to translate in sacrament meeting....that was kind of rough, but I am glad that I tried. I absolutely love being with Hermana Oliphant and Hermana Collette.

The Trio:  Hermana Oliphant, Hermana Collette & Herman Stoddard

We have already had so many laughs.  I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father to be ending my mission this way.  Especially as a sister training leader.  I have learned something for myself....we truly are much happier when we are serving.  I love being able to know and serve many sisters.  It's hard, but it's the best.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Con Amor,

Hermana Stoddard