"Mira! Alla hay luz!"

Letter from June 11, 2012

As I sit in front of a computer screen each Monday, I search in my mind through all the memories of the past seven days and try to pull something out that might be enjoyable for someone else to read. It's all the same, really...

We went tracting. We spoke Spanish. We assumed someone spoke Spanish when they didn't. We got rejected. We ate some great food. We got really rejected. We made someone else laugh. We learned more about other faiths and beliefs as we testified of our own. We got rained on. We felt the heat of the sun and the humidity in the air as we worked. We gazed occasionally at the planes high in the sky passing above us. We shook off the thought of air planes and got back to work. We were anxious. We are in desperate need of Divine assistance. We told a guy at least fifty times in the same conversation to stop drinking or we couldn't help him. We prayed. Tears of sorrow were wept. Tears of joy were shed. Tears from chopping onions were there at least once. We talked about how to improve. We wondered if miracles could happen for us. We committed to working harder. We woke up wondering how we were going to survive that day feeling so tired! We shook the feeling off. We parted our hair (well, at least I did). We left our apartment. We opened our mouths.

You hear it once you hear it thousand times, right? Though it is true that though we do the same things each week, each one is very unique. The people are different every day; Every door! The ways we get rejected range from the hilarious excuses to straight up door slams. The tone of the dogs barking in the windows ranges from squeaky rat to ferocious grizzly bear (And it's kind of funny when you have a companion who is just a bit afraid of big dogs). Oh, I could go on, but I'll save the rest for later. But for now I want to share one quick experience that at least for me is noteworthy. 

There is a less active family that we visit every so often. They have five kids or so and they are all super shy! The littlest kids will at least glance at us but there is a eight-ish year old who would turn her head and not look at us as she sat on the couch in front of us. She never said anything no matter how hard we tried! Not a word! But just a couple of days ago we went by to see them. It was a bit darker and the kids were outside. I noticed they had a bottle with little glowing things inside. They were catching fireflies! For one I thought it was crazy that not even the little girl was scared to touch a bug, but I decided to join them. By the end of the visit all of the kids were laughing and playing as we would all spot a blinking light and then chase it until we caught it. The girl who never spoke was laughing her head off at me as I tried to catch those little lighting bugs as well as pointing them out by saying, 'Look! Ther's a light!'. When we left I told them I would play with them again the next time we came. I love things like that. When the kids of a family start seeing us awkward white guys in ties as the good guys. It definitely goes better when the kids of a family like you.

With mucho amor and a few glowing lights in a bottle,

Elder Vance