Atalaya Week 8! Flashes, Miracles, and Baptisms

Hola amigos!
This week was quite the week.

Monday passed by nice and calm, we made chocolate chip cookies :).

Tuesday, we were having a nice little district meeting talking about everything we learned from the broadcast with Elder Bednar and at the end, the elders' phone started ringing so Elder Quezada (my district leader) looked at it and just from his face we all knew it was the assistants calling. Anyway, he answered and he was freaking out a bit and then he said "Oh, my companion? Yeah, here you go." and handed the phone to Elder Sales. Everyone looked at Elder Sales then at everyone else and we all smiled because we knew there was a flash (when someone gets transferred and it's not at the usual time of transfers - also called an emergency transfer by some) and Elder Sales was leaving. However, he was very calm and collected (especially for only having 3 and a half months in the mission) which made the rest of us start to laugh because Elder Quezada was kind of freaking out. So yeah, Elder Sales told us he was going to Mercedes and needed to be in the offices at 3 that afternoon and Elder Quezada would receive his new companion. So now from the missionaries in the Atalaya ward that were there when I first arrived, I'm the only one left!

Wednesday, our gas was shut off and we have a gas stove and a gas water heater . . . We called the dueña and she said she would look into it.

Thursday we had a Family Home Evening with the Familia Diaz and made tacos! They all thought they were pretty spicy and Hermana Villanueva and I were both thinking that there was no spice to them at all because we're accustomed (is that a thing?) to spicy. Well, we got home that night and while we were planning for Friday someone knocked on our door. We live in a building that you have to enter with a key from the street and then there's all the apartments inside so we were a little startled. We peeked out of the hole in the door that's for peeking and it was our dueña. She told us that the people that lived in the pension before us had a debt that needed to be settled and that's why they cut the gas. She told us that we needed to go to San Justo and pay the debt then when we come to pay rent she would discount us the amount we payed for the gas.

Bueno, so Friday we went to San Justo to the gas company and stood in line for what felt like forever to find out that the debt was about 350 pesos more than we thought and also that the person whose name is on the bill needs to be there to sign to reconnect the gas. We called our landlady and she called the person who's in charge of her then she told us that we needed to be at the gas company at 2 that afternoon. It was only about 11:30 or 12 at this point. Anyway, we called the senior missionary who's in charge of the pensions and told him what was happening and he told us to go to the bank and take out the money we needed and just stay in San Justo until 2. We did that and the lady came and signed what she needed to, then we had to stand in another line for forever to pay the debt and the reconnection fee. We got to the front of the line and the man told us that we had no debt on the account, that it had been paid that day and we just needed to pay the reconnection fee. Well, we paid that and they told us that there would be a man coming by Saturday between 8 and 3 to reconnect the gas and that we needed to be there to let him in. We had a baptism coming up on Saturday and needed to spend a couple hours in the chapel in the morning to fill the font, but we couldn't leave. SO we called Elder Quezada to ask if he and Elder Cook could do it. You know what Elder Quezada said? Something along the lines of "Oh Hermanas, we have to be in the offices tomorrow morning for a flash" Haha Elder Quezada, not funny anymore (at least twice a week when he calls he tries to convince Hermana Villanueva that there's a flash and she's going somewhere else because she's had few already in her mission.) But really there was. Elder Quezada was receiving his third companion that week

Saturday: We didn't have time to wait around until three, but we did it anyway! Aaannd the man never came. However, this is when the miracles come in to play. When Elder Quezada and Elder Araya got back they went to fill the font for us and a member had already come and filled it (but with cold water) so they drained it halfway and didn't have time to fill it before their next cita so they went to their cita and returned to the chapel and finished filling it for us. I am so grateful that they did that for us because we did not have time.

Also on Saturday while we were waiting for the man to come we needed to make lunch and also we were making chocolate chip cookies for the baptism but we needed chocolate. We went to a Chino that's about two blocks away from our pension and while we were standing in line the hombre that works in the carniceria in the back of the store passed us then turned around and said "chicas, vengan". [girls, come] We didn't feel the Spirit telling us not to follow him down the aisle so we followed and he handed us a matahambre and said, "Esto es por ustedes. Yo soy miembro en San Justo y mi hija y esposa van a la capilla cada semana. Hace mucho que yo no asisto porque trabajo los domingos pero cada vez que pasen por aqui vengan y yo dare algo." [This is for you. I am a member in San Justo and my daughter and wife go to the chapel each week. Long ago I do not attend for work on Sundays but every time I pass by here I come and give you something.] The meat was already cooked and we just needed to heat it up in the microwave. It truly was a miracle!

Then yesterday we had a lesson with this young man and I invited him to be baptized and he said "si. Es una cosa muy buena, no? Nunca me bautice y yo quiero." [Yes. It is a very good thing , no? I never baptized and I want.] He has a fecha [date] for the 9th of April and he told us at the end of the lesson to note it in his Libro de Mormon so he didn't forget!

Sorry I didn't have time to translate the quotes into English! [Translation provided by Kaitlin's mom through Google Translate] I love you all!
-Hermana Cheever