Dear family and friends,
So this was by far the worst week of my mission up until now. Monday we went to a members house, Tuesday, I was sick, throwing up. We thought I got something from the food, because Wednesday I was fine, until wednesday night, and was just a little queezy. Thursday I came home early to throw up again, and friday we stayed home littlerally all day, so our numbers were terrible. President Torgan even called to find out how I was doing, and told me jokingly that God only wants healthy leaders and he wants the sick leaders to get better soon. He was stressing out that we wouldn't be a very good example for our zone that week, but in the end, the numbers that president Torgan is worried about we ended up doing well (baptisms, people marked, people in church, and new investigators). We only taught 13 lessons this last week, but still led our zone in number of people marked for baptism and people in Church. We have 1 (basically 2) marked for the 11th and one marked for the 18th, but about 80% of our marked baptisms fall through because the wards don't fellowship people, and they feel like loners at church, and they don't go to the baptisms. That is why our ward list has 800 people but only 60 or so are active. We teach people, bring them to chruch and mark them, and then find out they are already baptized somewhere else too, it is great.
So on sunday morning we went to a house of a family that has told us every week for the last 4 weeks that they would go to church but never have. The mom went to the Gypsie fair, but said she would meet us for sacrament meeting (last meeting), but the kids would go with us. So we got there and knocked on the door, and one of the kids answered the door, and pulled the I am too tired and don't want to go card. We said, that's ok, we can wait. They said they weren't dressed or anything, so we sat down in front of their house and waited. They went in and out and didn't do anything to get ready, but we waited there for about an hour and a half. The mom came back from the fair and saw us and asked if we had been waiting for all that time, we told her we had been, and she said, one minute, I'll get them. (the youngest is 11 and the oldest is 20). She went in there and woke up her kids and told them they were sinning and how rude it is to tell us one thing, and do another, and such. So they all went to church (4 investigators) and then one of our drunk friends showed up again, and told us he didn't like it when we chewed him out for not going to church, so he made it a priority to change, so that will be interesting.
Next monday we have a mission christmas conference, so I won't be writing next monday, probably. President Torgan said the conference starts at 10:37. They have figured out the trains and everything, and the last area should arrive infront of the chruch at 10:35. We will get there probably by 8:30 or so.
Well, the news of the mission is that we got happy p day taken away until president torgan leaves in July. Happy p day is when we can leave our area and travel in our zone and have p day with other missionaries, which is supposed to be once a month, but it never happens anyways.
We were super excited because beef was on sale for once. This last sunday is the first time I have had 'real' meat from a cow in a long time (they substitute pork for everything). It is €1.79 for 500grams. It is generally 4 or 5 euros for a package that size which is roughly 4.50-6 USD. It is interesting to see how happy we are for the little things, a washing machine, beds, beef, and a heater.
We had another strange thing happen to us the other day. We were knocking doors and all of a sudden a lady answered the door. She looked like a whitch, literally. I have seen a little bit of voodu stuff here, but not much. Her eyes were black as night and super shiny. She looked at us as if she was looking into our souls. There was a super dark feeling there and behind her there were little black statues that looked like they came from africa. Right as we said we were sent from Jesus Christ to help her, she stepped forward, put her right and on the door, and just slammed the door hard. We decided she was possesed by a dark spirit, likes satan more than Jesus, and wasn't too interested in the gospel, though we did pray outside her door to help her. She was the first lady that ever slammed a door in our face. Most people just slowly close it and keep saying Excuse me, excuse me.
With love,
Elder Hope
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