Oranges and Lemons

We had the best service opportunity this week. I felt, last Sunday, that I should go and sit by this recent convert in our ward before relief society and just tell her how impressed I was with her faith and diligence in keeping her covenants. As I got up to go play the prelude music afterwards, she stopped me and said, "I have something to share! There are 2 fruit trees in my backyard that are just loaded with fruit and I need to pick it all and give it away. Will you help me?"

HA! Sometimes God inspires us to do things not to help others but so that we ourselves can receive blessings. It was the best morning of my life. We spent about an hour picking oranges and lemons, eating as we went. Lemon-picking is quite a beautiful experience. As you get all tangled up in the tree, you start to realize that the air actually smells like perfume, and your hands smell like....pine and lemon! and then later your hair smells sweet and fresh. These lemons were so ripe that we could eat them raw without even wincing. What a sweet blessing.

 

We got to go eat dinner again last night with our dear investigators.  This time it was pupusas. So many pupusas. But don't worry. I have mastered the art of avoiding Hispanic pressure to eat too much. I just eat my food REAL slow, and while they are all partying and shoveling down more they don't notice and then they bring out another plateful of pupusas and they say "ALL of these are for you sisters! Eat more! Come on! How many are you at?" and I just laugh and say, "Yeah! Pupusas!" and then they leave again and never know that I snuck away with a perfectly normal amount of food. heh heh heh.

But the real point of the story is, it is just super sweet to be loved so much. As we sat there eating, first all the little girls gathered around us just to ask us questions about our lives and tell us all about theirs. Then, the older daughter came and planted herself next to me just to listen and chat. Then the mother came and sat down in the middle of her daughters and we all just talked and laughed and joked. It felt like a family reunion, and I really felt like I was with my family. The mother once said to us, "You girls have become really special to us. You are a part of our family now. I know that God puts people in our lives for a reason." And that is going to stick with me forever.

Louetta is still doing great. The investigators are still investigating, and we are trying really hard to teach them according to their specific needs and help them progress. Stake conference was all about how the members and missionaries need to work together, and we are excited to see members start inviting more friends to listen, even though they are already doing a fantastic job. We finally convinced our other investigators daughter to come to mutual last night. I have never so blatantly tried to convince someone to do something on my mission. We were pretty much begging her to come, and with every reason she could think of not to we were like, "Yeah.....but just come!!!! If you don't come we'll bring it to you!!!" but I think she is secretly really excited, and the father is going to come too so that we can have a lesson with him at the church. So please if you could remember to pray that everything will go well on Tuesday and she will get scooped up by the kids, that would work wonders for the father.

Have a wonderful week,

Hermana Carter