1/2 a Baptism, Full Tray of Cookies

Speaking of cookies, I'm pretty sure I cured myself of my peanut allergy, because I've been eating Reese's Pieces and peanut butter cookies all week (much to the dismay of my companion. Don't worry she knows where my Epi-pen is at all times). So pretty much I'm living the life I've always wished I could live 😂 now if I could just cure myself of my animal allergies...unfortunately no matter how many stray cats I cuddle I keep coming home sneezing ☹ 

Other than pushing the boundaries of my allergies, I've discovered this week that I also love biking as a missionary! We biked about 12 miles on Tuesday and I've decided that the trick to it is to be prepared to be embarrassed. Not only is it a process to figure out how to ride in a skirt (mine got stuck in my tire and ripped), but it's also super fun to be riding, see a person on the street, yell good morning to them, and then hit the brakes and do a nice little awkward backup to ask if you can share something with them. 👌 Biking is seriously so fun. As President Hall says: the happiest missionaries bike. And it's so true. We didn't bike all day, but we biked all morning and found that we were pumped for the rest of the day. I honestly couldn't stop smiling.

Sundays are miracle days! We seriously have at least one miracle every Sunday. This past week we've been trying to set up an FHE with one of Hermana Bent's recent converts and her daughter who we're teaching but we haven't been able to get in contact with them. We wanted to have it with another family in the ward but Saturday night our plans for that fell apart, so we went to church on Sunday knowing that if we wanted to have the noche de hogar (FHE) we had to find a family that day at church who could do it last minute and is also friends with Sandra, the recent convert/has kids the same age as Annie, her daughter. We went to church with one family in mind and planned to talk to them, but they didn't end up coming to church. And Sandra didn't come to church either so we forgot about the whole thing. Until the end of church when one of the members came up to us as everyone was leaving and said "Hey my family is having a noche de hogar with some of our friends tomorrow and we were wondering if you had any families you're teaching that you want to invite." I LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE FOLLOW SPIRITUAL PROMPTINGS. He has no idea how much he blessed our lives.

We also had a baptism yesterday. We've been teaching a little boy named Eugenio whose parents are members but they asked us to teach him the missionary lessons because they wanted him to understand the importance of his decision to be baptized. So it only counts as a half baptism, but it's still way rewarding to see someone you've taught get baptized! It was actually SUPER stressful because I had to give the talk on the Gift of the Holy Ghost in Spanish and I was freaking out, but when it was all over the family gave us all their leftover cookies so we have even more cookies to eat, besides the peanut butter ones we made, and most of them won't kill me 👍

We get a surprising amount of food, and not even just from members. There's a lady that lives in the apartment across from us and one day we asked her if we could borrow a cup of milk. She came back out with a GIANT glass of milk. So naturally we had to repay her, so we made her some cookies and left them on her doorstep a few days later. Well, last week she knocked on our door at about 9:45 at night (side note: it's actually super creepy when people knock on our door at night) and gave us a bowl of this delicious ice cream creation on the plate that we gave her the cookies on. And then the next night she knocked on our door at about the same time and gave us a GIANT plate of rice and meat and homemade cucumber ranch stuff. She told us that she just recently quit her job so she just cooks all the time and she thought we might want some lunch for the next day because she knows we're out all day. She's like our mom, it's so sweet. We now have three of her dishes so if anyone has any ideas of what we can make her to step it up, please let me know (I'm thinking empanadas and quiche). I love nice people.

Still trying to figure out how to send videos, because we've got some really funny ones. But for now here are some pictures of fun things we find on people's doorsteps, the stickers one of the kids we're teaching put all over my arm during the lesson, and Hermana Bent's favorite daily planning outfit 😂

- Hermana Thunell