April
27, 2015- Translating a Meeting
Dear Family and Friends
This week we taught two lessons to Tortino.
We met him a couple of weeks ago as we were walking through a trailer
park. He was standing outside the community’s
Laundromat and smoking. We talked to him
and he said we could talk with him sometime, so got his address and phone
number. When we came by again, we couldn't
find his trailer. This week as we were
walking through the same trailer park, when we saw a guy walking on the street
ahead with a bunch of laundry, when we realized it was Tortino. He recognized
us and came over to greet us. He
was super happy to see us, and asked us when we were going to come over to
visit him. We told him that we hadn’t
been able to find his trailer so he showed us were it was. We had an awesome first lesson with him and
he thought everything was bien chevere (fabulous). When we came by on Thursday,
and he was outside on his porch reading the Book of Mormon! We were able to
teach him yesterday as well, and he's really excited about everything. He told
us he's going to come to church on Sunday.
On Monday night we had a FHE
with Fabricio where we watched a movie called The Testaments. He made us some
smoothies with a fruit in it called naranjia, which is a fruit that only grows
in the Andes Mountains in Ecuador. It
was really good!
Wednesday, we ate dinner with a member
family from Brazil. They were speaking Portuguese to us and we'd speak Spanish
back to them. Portuguese and Spanish are similar so you can generally understand
each other but some words are so different that they are not even close. It was
pretty cool though.
Elder Bradshaw and I are trying to
repair our relationship with Martin and Lani, because it has been awkward ever
since Martin told us he's not interested in the church anymore. It is sad because
we are so close to them. We had the
chance on Thursday to go to work with Martin. It was tons of fun. We helped him put new
flooring in a house in Chesapeake.
Friday night, one of the English
wards invited our branch to eat some tacos with them. The food was pretty good,
but tacos made by Chelays (non Latinos) just aren't the same compared to genuine
Latino style tacos. There was a talent show afterwards and there was this a
funny skit where a couple lip synced a bunch of songs from the 90s.
On Saturday, we helped the
Sabillon family tear down some walls in their trailer. Afterwards they fed us papusas. Papusas just never get old; they're just too
good.
We met some guys from Guatemala who had
recently crossed the border. They told
us some crazy stories about crossing the desert for four days without food. They walked at night and then had to hide in
the bushes during the day so that the Border Control helicopters flying around
wouldn't see them. I just love hearing people's stories of crossing the border.
They are so crazy and they always are cracking jokes when they are telling their
tale.
On Sunday, we had Stake Conference.
On Saturday night, there was a
special Women's Conference, which included 5 stakes from all over Virginia and
North Carolina. A bunch of general authorities came including Bonnie L
Oscarson, the YW General President, Linda S. Reeves, the 2nd Counselor in the
General Relief Society presidency and the new 2nd counselor in the General
Primary presidency. My companion and I were there because we were asked to
to translate the meeting into Spanish. It
was a bit awkward being the only males there, but the talks were
really good.
Hope everyone has a great week!
Elder Cannon
Elder Bradshaw, Linda S. Reeves, Me
