"You don't sound American anymore"

The street that Jenson lives on.  It was flooded from the rain they had been experiencing

Dear All,

Another week passed and gone. And it was kind of a funny one. Some stories not exactly email appropriate, my companion got peed on by a dog, and we walked a TON. WOO.

So Monday was pretty good, we visited a girl who was supposed to get baptized this week, but wasn't really progressing, and so I was doubting her readiness. So we had a lesson kind of "planchadora" (I'll let you guys hit up the translation there) and so that was kinda fun. Then we went with some recent converts and had the most uncomfortable lesson of my entire mission so far. I can't even express all that happened, so just ask me in a year.

Tuesday we had a Zone Meeting, and then we went to eat with the seafood lady, and thanks to your humble prayers we ate flautas, which are among my favorites. It was a nice relief. The rest of that day was spent visiting person after person that we had appointments with, but that weren't home. Also, we went and visited a member family that's super cool, and they asked me to pray in English. When we finished my companion (who speaks decent English) said to me, "dude you don't sound american anymore" NOOOO that hurt. So I'm gonna dowload a bunch of talks in English so that I can hear a real American accent and get it back. 

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty normal days. Thursday after our Mission Coordination meeting, we took the mission leader to go get hot dogs because there is a hot dog stand next to the church and the lady that owns it wants to read the Book of Mormon. So tips for all missionaries out there: if you need to gain the confidence of your ward mission leader, go grab some hot dogs or tacos or pan dulce or something. It really works.

Friday looked like an amazing day. Apointments every hour on the hour from 11 am to 8 pm, with double appointments at 4 and 5. Plus we had to do a baptismal interview, so we had mini exchanges with the Zone Leaders too. Busy day. But not one of our appointments was home, not even the interviews that we had to do. So that was rough. And it was hot that day too. 

Saturday was pretty much the same, a little bit more success but not much. It was really just a test of dilligence. We had about zero success last week, but for our efforts, the Lord blessed us this morning with a super chosen person. So that was cool. This week is going to be better.

Spiritual experience of the week:

In the mission we have been trying to focus a lot on developing the Gift of Discernment, meaning that we are trying to be able to recognize what people need, their doubts, concerns, questions, everything, without them directly telling us. So we are focusing on teaching the doctrine clearly and simply, making an environment where the spirity can testify, and then trusting that the Lord is going to help us to help his "lost sheep". So we visited a less active family that we reactivated last week, and we both had the feeling that something was wrong. We taught the second half of the Plan of Salvation, the part about where we are going after this life. And as we taught, I began to notice, just from they way they would react to certain words or questions, actually I'm not really sure what it was, but I just knew that they had some problems. And then, all of the sudden, they told us everything. Exactly what we had been thinking. And the lesson that we had taught was exactly what they needed to hear. It was super powerful and it really gave me a testimony even stronger of the love our Father in Heaven has for us. If he lets us, as his imperfect servants, know a little bit of what's going on the hearts of His children, how much more must he know? How much more perfectly will he be able to help us? I love this gospel and everything it teaches us. I testify of its truthfulness.

Los quiero mucho,

Elder Rawlings

We had been bugging Jenson about the lack of pictures he had been sending, so we got a selfie of him writing to us :)