Monday, August 9th Letter

Hello Dear Family and Friends,


Y'all need to keep followering the gaspul(gospel). Ha ha ha. I just though I would start with something funny. Honestly, I don't hear the Texas accent hardly ever. Because I am a spanish speaking missionary all I hear is Spanish. We have Spanish speaking people from all over. From Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, etc. Right now there seems to be an influx of Colombia natives. So I am still working hard on my Espanol. The language is beautiful. But I will have to say I go home every night and my head aches from the studying. Study, Study, Study. I am working really hard at becoming more acquainted with the scriptures. I know that contexts pretty well. But I am not very good at remembering where things are. My companion is though. I am glad she is so good at espanol and references. I can learn things great things from her. She seems to depend on me a lot on what I feel we should teach. I don't think she has a lot of confidence in her ability to recognize the spirit. This is why we have companions. Everyone has different strengths. Together we can effectively invite others to come unto Christ.

This week has been very interesting. My companion says that everything we have been doing is not normal for the mission. On P-day last Monday we barely had time to wash our clothes and shop. We ended up helping a member learn to sew. So I am sorry to those of you I haven't written yet. I promise I am working on it and will get to you. So for the past 2 p-days in a row I haven't had a P-day to recover. It has been very wearisome. But now that we are getting into the schedule of normal missionary work it isn't so overwhelming. Just God testing me I guess. Another weird thing that happened this week that was not normal was that we didn't have a car. Someone hit the car and dented the bumper. This was before I came into the field. But this week we had to take the car in to have it fixed. We cover a large area. And we had to walk everywhere. We couldn't have as many appointments because we had to use that time to walk. Everyone thought we were crazy. I heard many times "you know that this week is the hottest week of the year. What are you doing outside?" In Texas they don't know what sidewalks are. There are never any sidewalks here. It made walking even more difficult.

But we had a cool experience. We were knocking doors. We came up to this woman with two kids. They were just getting out of their car. We came up to her and she asked us what we were doing out in this heat. We explained who we were and she invited us to come in. We cooled off for a little while and talked to her about herself. She had a ton of questions about missionaries. We told her about what missionaries were. She was shocked that there would be people who would give up so much time to share the message of Jesus Christ. She invited us to come back. Since we are only suppose to teach in Spanish we asked if we could have the Elders come by with us to teach her about our message. She said we could come back. We went back on Friday and gave her the first lesson on the Restoration. She committed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. I just adore this woman. She is a single mom. Her kids are like 7 and 6. She has such a funny sense of humor, and we really click. But we have to give her over to the Elders. I hope they do a good job. But after the lesson they gave I think they will do a fabulous job.

The church is true. I love you all. Everyone needs to read Ether 12:3-4. 3 is what I do. 4 is what we all should do. I know that Jesus Christ is my anchor. As we strengthen our faith in him the waves of the world are easier to handle. So I pray all of you are continually building your faith through; attending church, reading in your scriptures, and praying. I love this Gospel and all of you. God be with you all until we meet again.

Love,
Hermana Alaina Mills

P.S. Good Luck Mom with Eric's homecoming. I would so help you if I could. I know how much work it is. I am praying for you.