TOSTONES DE Mi MANO (Tostones From My Hand)

WOAH, qué es lo que hay?!

Sorry for the Tuesday email. Our P-day this week is Tuesday because our whole mission had a special conference with Elder Nielsen (he's in the Presidency of the Quorum of the Seventy) and Elder Gavarret (also in the Quorum of the Seventy, but he's the president over the Caribbean area). So that's why my P-day is on Tuesday. We had an amazing conference with them yesterday. It was super good and super cool. I love to meet those guys in person. To be honest, I thought they'd be all cocky and power-hungry and scary because, well, they're super high up in the church. But they're just normal people, honestly better because they're super humble. I really liked them. They had super good insights on things. We talked a lot about why we need a church so we could explain to our amigos why we need to go to church and attend a church. It was super good, super cool. If you are curious about it, message me and I'll give you a lesson on it. :)

Well...last week I was making some tostones. For those of you who don't know, it's a very big thing here in Puerto Rico. It's basically like French fries but with plantains, and you smoosh it into a little disc so it's like a cookie French fry made from plantains. Super yummy. We eat them a lot, and you can make them very easily. If you want to try, you should. Super yummy. Anyways, what happened was the oil in the pan was heating up a lot and started smoking really, really bad. And you know, I'm a new missionary, I don't want to start a fire. So what does my brain think? Dump it down the drain. Then I'm like, no, don't, you'll melt the pipes. And then I thought to just cool it off with water first (if you've listened to the talk "You are Receiving Revelation, Now Act On It" by Loren Dalton, it's on YouTube, super good talk, highly, highly recommend). Essentially, if you don't listen to it, here's a breakdown really fast: God talks to us any way He wants, but we learn in Alma 37:6, "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Satan and the Holy Ghost are spirits, so they talk to us through our spirits. But the problem is we've been in the earthly bodies, so we don't understand that well. So we need to see it in a physical way. So how does it come? As your own thoughts, a positive thought, and that is revelation. But we take credit too often. The Holy Ghost, though, wants us to know it's Him, and Satan wants us to think they're thoughts from ourselves. Hence the double thought or the thought that, "No, that's just my own thought, I don't need to go call my friend I haven't thought about for 4 years that just randomly popped into my head while folding laundry randomly." Do you get it? The adversary is the second voice. He comes right on the heels of the first voice because he needs to talk us out of the prompting from the Holy Ghost. Also, the adversary uses logic, and he is really good at it. Satan is smart, he knows all. He was the first to volunteer in heaven. He is smart, he knows how to get us. But guess who doesn't need logic? God. God doesn't need logic. Did it make sense to swallow a man in a whale or build an ark on dry ground or appear to a 14-year-old to restore a church or to talk to a prophet in a fire? God doesn't need logic. Hence, the first thought not making sense a lot of the time because God doesn't need logic. Satan is smart; he uses logic and always presents himself as the first person to make us think it's him. He's usually the second voice. Anyway, this makes a lot of sense because if you have read the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price (Moses 1:11), it talks about how Moses saw God with not his physical eyes but his spiritual eyes. So it makes sense that the spirit talks to our spirit. Anyways, the talk talks about how positive thoughts come from the Holy Ghost, and the second thought is always the adversary. Seriously, go listen to the talk; it is so good, and you will learn a lot. It's called "You Are Receiving Revelation, Now Act On It" by Loren Dalton. I have only found it on YouTube, so go there! Back to the story, remember how I said I had a thought of dumping it down the drain and cooling it off? I didn't want to start an oil fire because they don't get out with water, and I knew that three seconds ago. Anyways, the first voice says, "Pour it down the drain and restart." Two seconds later, bing, "Don't do that; it will melt the pipes." (It doesn't make sense; the pipes are metal, not plastic, but Satan made me think so.) So I was like crap, what do I do? Bing, add water to it. So I go to the sink, turn on the water, and put the oil in the water. Pppppsssoooosh, an explosion of steam and oil flying everywhere, a huge puddle on the ground, and I mean a huge puddle. Now here's where it gets good: the whole ground and sink have oil everywhere, but only five tiny drops got on me (yes, I got oil burns), first-degree though and very tiny. Anyways, I know for a fact an angel saved me and my hand. There was oil everywhere, and the second after it happened, just like I talked about, I got a prompting bing, "An angel saved you." And I am very grateful for guardian angels; I can't even describe it. I swear I felt something on my hand and holding my body. I know for 100 percent certainty there was an angel there. I was protected and had a miracle from seriously injuring my hand. The moral of the story is the adversary is good; he wants missionaries to fail, and we need to act on the first prompting, never listen to the second.

Here's my story number two about this week. So we do street contact a lot. We go out for two hours every day and do it one day. In the beginning of this month, we met this guy named Miguel, and he was very lonely. We kind of just talked to him and got to know him and became his friend. We talked to him for like an hour just to be his friend, and he told us he was very lonely and lived alone. His children are in the States, and he got divorced a while ago. Anyways, he lives alone and is super lonely. Anyways, he never gave us his phone number because I don't know why, but he just didn't and wouldn't let us have his number. He said to come back to his house, so for the past three weeks, two times a week, we have been trying to come back and share the plan of salvation with him. But he hasn't been home. We probably tried to go visit five times, and he hasn't been there. So on Sunday, we were done with studies, and we go, "Where should we go contact?" and I said, "I don't know, let's pray about it." So we did, and bing, "Go see Miguel; he will be there." Then the second voice I told you you need to watch out for it and always listen to the first voice. Bing, "No, he won't be there. We've tried five times, and he hasn't been there." Like I said, Satan uses logic and makes you feel like you were thinking it. Anyways, I just got another thought, and it was like, "You are receiving revelation, Loren Dalton," and I thought about this talk and the first voice and how we receive revelation. And I was like, "No, don't listen to the second voice. Go see Miguel." So I tell my companion we need to go see Miguel, and he's like, "Who's Miguel?" He doesn't even remember him. I'm like, "Let me drive," and we got in, and I drove us to his house with no map, and then he was there, just like that first voice said. BAM! We taught him for one hour and a half about the plan of salvation, and it was freaking awesome. Anyways, I don't know how he's going to do or if he will ever join the church. He's not like a golden investigator or anything. I just know he took the Book of Mormon from us, and he likes our company. I know God and the Holy Ghost needed us to go visit again, and who knows why? Truthfully, I don't, and like I said, he's not super into religion. But maybe he just needs a friend and has been praying to feel God's love, and I hope we shared that with him. I feel a lot of love for Miguel; he's a super good guy. Every time we visit him, he gives us cold water and a chair. He's a good man.

The moral of the story is: 1) always listen to the first voice, and 2) you are receiving revelation, so act on it. Don't learn the hard way like me. Also, go listen to that talk; it's super good and really entertaining.

We had Conferencia de Zona esta semana; it was so sick. I got to meet more missionaries, so that's freaking fun. And my mission president is awesome; I love President Skinner a lot. It's always cool to learn about awesome things to help you be a better missionary, especially as the greenie, lol.

We got tennis rackets and a few balls last week, and now our workouts are tennis. Tennis is freaking so sick; it's so fun to play tennis. I actually love tennis so much. I tried to serve it as hard as I could and hit it over the fence, and my comp had to run a little bit down the road, like probably 200 yards.

We were driving this week to an area to street contact, and it was pretty good. But as we were on the 2, which is the same thing as State Street, it's not a highway, it's just a main road, and we were driving on the road, and some car saw us and followed us for 12 minutes into a neighborhood. And we finally get to the little suburban area, and she starts honking, and we are like, "Did we cut this lady off and piss her off or something?" Then we pull over because she keeps honking, and she's Puerto Rican, and they drive like crazies, and it's insane. She tried to pull up in front of us and stop us, idek. Then we pull over, and she goes, "You guys are missionaries!" We were so confused. Then she goes, "I saw you on the 2 the other day, then I saw you again, and God told me I needed to tell you that He loves you." She's Jehovah's Witness, but we got her number, and she is way too excited to call us and text us. But she was moving this week from Hatillo to Arecibo, so she said we can help her paint her house this week or next! Also, she doesn't know that God didn't just want her to tell us He loves us; He wants her to be baptized. Let's go! She doesn't know what she got into.

We went to Hermana Carmen's house again this week, and her blind neighbor Barney was there again. He's literally so funny. He told us that we're going to lose Carmen's salvation because she's no fun; she doesn't drink coffee anymore. He told us that she's no longer observing the Sabbath day on Saturday, and that's wrong. But all I heard was that Carmen's listening and progressing. Hopefully, she will say yes to baptism this week. Then Barney told us that we Mormons believe in a different Jesus. I was like, "I don't know what Jesus you believe in, but I don't want to know either. I like my Jesus," lol.

On Friday, the power goes out. It goes out a lot, like only for 15 minutes to 5 hours depending on the day. The power went out, and it's literally 8 am, so the sun is out. And Elder Christensen is such a dork. He's been begging all of last week for the power to go out, and it didn't surprisingly for one whole week. Anyways, he was begging because he wanted to use his glow sticks. He really wanted to use his glow sticks. So at 8 am, instead of opening the windows, he shut them and shut the door so we could use his glow sticks, lol. Later that night, we were calling the district for nightly call to make sure we are all home and safe, and we were telling Elder Seneca about this. And I go, and he pulled 2 greens out of the can. Do you know the odds of that? And at the same time, in sync, we go, "That's a 1 in 30." It was so funny; you have to be there to know.

Speaking of the power being out, on Sunday, we went to make a pizza, and we put it in the oven, and the power went out. So then we had a pizza in the oven for about 15 minutes, and then it turned back on. Anyways, just funny.

Statistics:

2 burritos from Taco Maker, 6 total on the mission.

Learned 200 Spanish words.

Met 12 homeless people who told us crazy stories. One guy told us we were out of our league and we should go to Miami. Then he proceeded to ask us in English if we know French or German, and we said no. Then he said, "Me neither," like what?

Then another guy brought up every conspiracy: Twin Towers and how Bush did it, how the jet streams shoot chemicals on us to make us brain dead, how the doctors inject us with rat poison in the hospital. He brought up the death of JFK, how the earth was flat, and that the moon landing was fake. Then he said the Rockefellers are going to hell and that Bill Gates is evil (which is true). He went on to this whole thing about how his COVID shot is causing population control. Yeah, he is a little bit weird, but I do agree that Bill Gates is evil!

Also, if any of you want to send me a package to make me look cool at zone conference:

Urb. Jardines de Caparra

500 Calle Marginal Norte

Bayamon PR 00959

Puerto Rico

ALSO, IF YOU'RE A TEENAGE GIRL, PLEASE SEND ME A BREAKUP LETTER. THEY HAVE SUCH GOOD TRADING VALUE HERE. I COULD GET SO MUCH STUFF. I NEED A DEAR JOHN LETTER. WHY DID I LEAVE THE MISSION SINGLE?