Quintero is another heaven. God has given us the ability to love without really knowing another nor really knowing why. I have realized that that is the most important thing on a mission, learning how to truly love someone that one did not know before. We have been teaching hermanita Rebeca, a nine year old that lives with her mom (an incredibly beautiful and kind single mom that should be the main character of a Sundance film) and her little brother, Jonathan (an incredibly energetic seven year old who tries to kiss my cheek every time he sees us). They live in a blue house with a wood door engraved in circles. Rebeca doesn't want to get baptized now because the elders that were here before told her that she would only be under the water for the amount of time it took her to say a prayer. I think they were trying to help her, but she got scared ... whoops. Her mom works every Sunday, and so she and Jonathan wake up on their own every single Sunday and get ready by theirselves in order to go to church. This Sunday she wore a blue dress and had jewels in her hair. They sat next to us and were absolutely slightly terrible. I felt like a mother, giving them paper and pencils and hymn books and being slightly stressed until they went to sing a primary song and I felt like crying just seeing them singing. They are so good and I felt so grateful for being a part of their lives, for however small of a moment it may be.
Other good things about Quintero: 1) the bishop is absolutely HILARIOUS. Like, one of those old Italian grandfathers that is a little over-protective of his daughters. He treats us like his daughters, driving us to our appointments, yelling at us outside of our house to see how we are doing. He is an English teacher in elementary school and always sends us texts in English. His daughter married an American that she served with on her mission (it just about killed him), and she lives in Utah! So he already has plans to visit our family this April. Get excited. 2) the second counselor is an intelligent, artsy man. At lunch we talked about the anthropology of the Book of Mormon and then we ate pumpkin (it's the one dessert I don't really like here — pumpkin steamed with some kind of juice and sugar. Yucatecans are so funny sometimes). 3) Our neighbors are all families and are always super interested in all of the missionaries that have lived next to them. The only down-side: one of our neighbors likes to sit on the top of his roof with his friend and blast Mexican love songs, starting at one in the morning until 6. No es bueno. We are excited to be here for another change (there were changes last night, but we are staying together — yay!). We have to create a perfect area, because all of the sister missionaries will be coming to our area to work with us every week. We still don't really know how this is going to work, but we are just going to do what they tell us. Trying to get over the fear of having to have a perfect area and trying to trust that God will make it happen.
We talked a lot about home this week. The second counselor taught us about how the majority of the people that convert to the Church are those that find it while they are away from home, and that those that have always been a part of the Church usually find their true conversion while away the place where they started. It made me think about home — I thought about my conversion as I have been away from you these past (almost) fourteen months. I wonder if we find our real eternal home while we are away from our earthly one because we have to find out where we really came from and who we really are without the four walls that we grew up in —we discover God and our origin, we discover our heavenly home and the person we have to become in order to get there. Finding home while being aways from home. I am grateful that my earthly home and eternal one will be the same, filled with the same people.
Hope that all is lovely and bright on Yale, thinking of you always.
love,
Hermana Rhondeau
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