what the heck

The past two weeks have literally been the weirdest two weeks of my life.

So I literally didnt even send an email last week SORRY. ]

So. I was debating on whether or not to tell this first story but like I HAVE TO. Don't worry mom. I'm safe.

So. Last week we invited Lucas to go out with us to get a feel for the mission and test his skills, right? And the poor kid was so excited to use what he's been studying in the mini mtc and....well...

so it was his first time doing street contacting. and this man called out to us and was like "are you guys jehovah's witnesses?" and we were like "nah we're the mormons" and Lucas stops to talk to him a little-just to explain who we are. But when he stopped, the man (Fernando) started crying and said we were sent by God to talk with him because he was needing help really badly and was feeling hopeless and lots of stuff, and invited us in. And Lucas was like "dude we're going to baptize this guy I can feel it."

So we sit down and he's still crying a little, and we start trying to talk to him about how the message we wanted to share with him could help him with whatever his problem-and he tells us that his wife is cheating on him. So we try to tell him about how we can help him with the pain that's causing, but he doesnt let us talk! Lucas was getting really frustrated until he told us he was thinking about killing himself, at which point we tried reaaaaally hard to tell him that we wanted to help him and we know how if he'll let us....at which point he told us he was thinking of killing his wife.

At this point I was thinking "maybe I didn't understand him right" but lucas looks at me and says in english "keep calm" and I'm like oh no.

And then he told us "when she gets home, I'll stop her in the middle of the street in front of a bus and grab her by the neck and cut her into itty bitty pieces and let the bus run over the rest" followed by "I dont want it to happen, but IT WILL."

And lucas was like "sister steele, what should i say?" and I was like "bye??? lets leave??"

at which point his wife came home. holding hands with another man. and fernando started throwing a temper tantrum and it was all very scary so we said bye and ran away very quickly (but not before sister benevente tried to give him a lesson on "its not nice to kill people")

so that was interesting....we stopped working on that street now. but the good news is we havent heard anything about a death like that, so we think Sister Benevente's words "brother, you cant! dont do that!" touched his heart. So that's good!

So. that was the scary crazy of these past two weeks. but the weird crazy was the Rafael story.

We were walking around not knowing where to go because all our appointments fell through when a super old lady stopped us and asked if we knew her grandson Rafael, and we said no, and she cried a little and said "I heard that he hit his head pretty bad and I just want to know that he's ok, but I cant walk there because my legs hurt, can you find him for me?" and we said sure and asked where he lived and she said "on this street i dont know where" and so we went off, a little confused, and decided to just ask around for a Rafael. 

So we find this little boy and we ask him if he knows Rafael and he says "that's my brother! lets go to my house." and we're like "well ok" and follow him. and we ask him "your brother hit his head?" and the boy turned white and was like "...how did you know??"

Arriving at his house, he meet Rafael and his mother, and we say to Rafael "we were talking with your grandma, and she wants to talk to you!" and he and his mom both look suuuuper scared and he's like "my grandma???? you...you were talking to my grandma???" and we're like "yeah, she's worried about you because you hit your head and she told us to come talk to you" and he gets even more scared and he's like "my grandma told you I hit my head?" and we nod and he says "my grandma is dead!" 

so long story short, we discover that the old lady (Maria José) heard that a Rafael hit his head and thought it was HER Rafael but it actually wasnt, and Rafael her grandson is a less active member we'd been lookng for who'd moved so we never managed to find him, and now the Rafael that hit his head and his family are our investigators?? Also we met the other Rafael's sister and her family and we're going to teach them too?? AND it turns out that Maria José is an inactive member too??!?

Other than that, our week was pretty normal. Carol's dad still doesnt want to let her be baptised, nor does he want to return to church any time soon. Jaqueline is the dream investigator because we left a book of mormon with her and the next day she'd read the introduction, all the testimonies at the beginning, the chapter we left her, the first 2-3 chapters of 1st nephi, AND the scriptures in the back of the pamphlet we left her. M and J are making plans to get married so they can be baptised. Yesterday I felt prompted to return to talk with a SUPER COMPLICATED investigator so we'll see how that goes.

its starting to rain so much that my bible has no hope of surviving. Sister Ganuza said it'll only take 5 times of getting caught in the pouring rain for us to learn our lesson and carry an umbrella the whole time

also I discovered this week that I have an alergy-but im not sure of what...we just know that I broke out in hives yesterday after sitting on the floor in a member's house. So either her rug was made of something weird that I'd never seen before, or I've spontaneously develped an alergy of dogs. Who knows? I'm still itchy. I've taken 3 showers since then and I'm still itchy. Pray for me.

-Sister Steele