Bashers B Cray

October 11, 2023

another week has passed which means another email!

We went on exchanges this saturday with the STLs from Thousand Oaks! Sister Mansfield is actually the coolest! The day was filled with spicy juice, fangirling over taylor swift, guitar ballads, and almost being attacked by a duck. We got to have a lesson with the cutest, sweetest, oldest ladies ever! Sylvia and terri are so adorable! Apparently how the visits go every time is we sit in the hottest room in the house, Terri makes us spicy juice and we give Sylvia a talk to read out loud to us for the next 45 minutes. Except she talks so so soft and so incredibly slow. we couldnt hear her at all! But it was the best visit ever! And best part if the whole day was i didnt have to ride a bike at all!

Also im pretty positive my spanish is actually getting worse so thats fun. It's been kicking my butt for realz so

We did an entire mission wide zoom (so probably about 150+ missionaries) for all the new baby missionaries to bear their testimonies and i had to go very first which was so nerve wracking! But never pass up an opportunity to share your testimony! And it was so sweet and encouraging to see everyone smiling so genuinely at me!

Came across my first basher! We were at the park and had a really awesome lesson with our friend José! After the lesson, a sweet older latino gentleman walked by so we said hello! He was very misleading and super nice at first and then we quickly learned he was a JW and proceeded to command us to recite scriptures from the Bible. And when we couldnt in spanish he said a lot of rude things and basically told us we werent real missionaries and we didnt love Jesus Christ. Which kind of irked me and we tried to explain to him that we were still learning spanish. then he told us our testimonies werent true or real and i stopped my companion mid sentence and just said "no im sorry sir we're trying to have a discussion and respect you, but youre not respecting us so we're done. Have a good day". In "perfect spanish" according to my companion. And then not 5 minutes later i forgot how to say we are missionaries for the church of jesus christ so i dont really know whats happening. Gift of tongues is weird

Also your testimony is yours. Own it and dont let anyone take it from you.

Discovered probably the most spirit provoking song ive ever heard in my entire life and ive listened to it about 20+ times in 3 days. Send me an email if you wanna hear it ;)

Our friends are doing so good! Marcos is praying about a baptism date so continue to keep all of them in your prayers! They all fill my soul with so much joy!

Pensamiento espiritual:

I listened to a different really good song called "By Name" by Micah Tyler and i wanted to share the song and the lyrics cause they hit really hard, it says

"i dont call you by your darkest secret

I dont call you by your loneliness

The reason you hide away from the light,

They could never make me love you less

I dont call you by your broken family

I dont call you by what you cant change

The past like a cloud can chase you around

but hear my voice whisper through the rain

I know your story i wrote every line, planned every step that youll take.

Lift up your head and believe what i say

I dont call you by your guilt or shame,

I call you by name.