written: 7/19/2021
Week 29
A pretty great week! We received more great news that Castro will be moving into Phase 3, meaning that even more gatherings can happen, we have much more freedom, especially on weekends, and we may even be able to begin gathering on Sundays for Sacrament Meeting and 2nd hour classes! Our branch president mentioned in sacrament meeting yesterday that we are going to begin in person meetings and slowly but surely head back to the chapels! He said we could move back phases at any point in time but we are going to use the time we get now to start getting back to normal again! Exciting times!
We were able to have an in person lesson this week! It was only my second in person lesson of my mission and it was a very fun and interesting experience! We were able to teach an amigo from Haiti and a few months ago we had some contact with him and it is very hard sometimes to communicate, because they know Creole, and they are learning Spanish just like us missionaries are! Although there is a language barrier, we still try our best! We brought the Book of Mormon in Creole with him and beforehand invited a member to join us in our lesson. We were wondering who we should get to join us, and after some conversation we decided on one of our awesome members Ulises! Although he definitely doesn't speak Creole, he is super super friendly! We arrived at the house and BOOM, miracle! Our amigo went upstairs and brought back a Creole Book of Mormon he already had and inside was a name and a phone number of.... you guessed it, Ulises! Definitely not a coincidence! Ulises recognized our amigo and they started to have some small conversation. We were able to talk a little bit about the Book of Mormon and read Moroni's promise!
I also had the chance to have exchanges this week with Elder Ronna, our zone leader! It was a really fun experience and he has 22 months in the mission, so I got to learn a lot from him! We had an amazing in person lesson with someone they found on facebook advertising english who ended up asking if they do in person visits for our religion. We went to her house and she was SO ATTENTIVE, never taking her eyes or focus off of us, asking questions, and she kept telling us how she wants to grow her faith and how we can help her. Golden amigo! Elder Ronna cooked up some homemade pancakes for breakfast and we didn't have syrup so we used the next best thing, manjar, which is basically Dulce de Leche and it was super good!
Lastly, we had lots of struggles with our amigos this week and we unfortunately had to see some of our amigos go. It is a really tough experience to see them progress so much and then see the progression halted by doubt or clearly Satan's influence. Satan works incredibly hard on those that are trying to find out about the Restored Gospel and the true Church and it is evident he works even harder when they are super close to the truth or have already felt the Spirit. Elder Baum and I are choosing not to get super discouraged and look forward in faith and trust in the Lord's timing. When we talked to some of the members about this, they echoed the same thing, trust in the Lord's timing and just be there to support them!
In the end, have FAITH!
I may or may not be seeing some penguins today for Pday, so be on the lookout for next week's email if all goes to plan!
Love, Elder Collin Steele
pictures include: Stumbled across Christmas Trees made out of bottles on the way to an appointment; In person lesson with our Haitian brothers; Homemade pancakes topped with manjar; Beans and Rice - we eat a lot of them, and they are actually quite good!
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