Santa Ana

This week was a little challenging, the reason why is because it's a little rough learning a new area. The work is literally the same, but the area, terrain, heat, and people are all different

Santa Ana is a tiny little city, it is only 8 by 9 blocks big. That's really small. One thing that really helps us a lot I'd the members. The members are literally goats! Out of the 300 people that live on Santa Ana, about 45 of them are members. They best part is that they give us lunch every single day.🧕🧑‍🔧👩‍⚖️ There has not been one day we did not have a member lunch. We also have a church building in Santa Ana. It's 2 floors, with only 4 classrooms, and a sacrement room. Another thing about Santa Ana is it's completly flat. Not a single hill in sight. Sure I save a lot more energy walking on flat ground instead of hills, but I still lose all my energy from the heat of the sun.🥵🌞 Since it's flat, it gets really really really hot here. On Friday the temperature got up to 105° F. There's also no trees anywhere, which means, NO SHADE.

Other then that stuff the area is super chill. My new little home is an apartment. When I pulled up with my new comp Elder Gheen, I looked at the house and about lost it because of how dirty it was. It is 99.9% manageable. The bathroom was 10.3% manageable. Here's what I mean, it was so dirty that after I get out of the shower, because of the dirt I feel like I didn't shower at all. Luckily I deep cleaned that bad boy!😈 Pur hot water also broke, so that means I get to take cold showers every day. They arnt the worst, I just miss warm showers. We also have 3 little friends that live with us. There names are Tyrone, Juan, and Diego. They are 3 spiders that protect us at night. Sadly we lost one the other day.🥲 he was found on my bed in the morning. He freaked me out and I smashed him. Rest in peace Juan.

Elder Gheen, my new comp is a literal goat. Based on this week, he is my beat and most favorite comp by far. He works hard, is goofy, and always focuses on the good stuff. One of the 2 words he uses the most Is Bots, and Goob. If I am being completely honest, I have no clue what Goob means. I have a general idea, but not the full thing. He's a bike collector, and a dog wrangler. He has 14 dogs back at home. When he finds a bone he likes to bring it with us. He showed me his boke collection the other day. So far he has a bone club, and a complete dog skull. Missionary wise, he loves the grind and his Spanish Is really good. Sometimes his virginian accent shows threw his Spanish. It always makes me laugh.

Let's get into the week shall we!!

Tuesday: Transfers, woke up in Bialet Massé. Caught a bus to Córdoba to meet my new companion. I got to say hi to a bunch if the GOAT missionarys in the field. I also got to reunite with my boy ELDER NEWELL!! I met up with Elder Gheen and we toke a bus to Santa Ana. Usually I like looking out the Windows on bus rides, so I can see all the cool things out there. There was nothing, Straight nothing.

We made it eventually. We went to the house and I got to unpack. After I unpacked, we toke to the streets to go buy some stuff. We passed by 3 Kiosco's. The sad part is there isn't a big grocery store in the area. I also called the fam and ended the day proslyting.

Wednesday: went to Alta Gracia for district council. My Comp is the district leader, so we had to run the thing. Everybody introduced themselves, we talked numbers, and practiced how we can contact better. After that we went to a little store, and bought myself a hat. This hat is a literal miracle. We then put our focus in meeting the members. I met a lot of Cracks, everybody here is super willing to help gather Israel. They are always asking how they can help. We also talked to about half the town, and bad no success.

Thursday: first full normal day of work in this area. In the morning, we locked in on meeting even more members. I also found these waffers, they are really good. They remind of cremax in Mexico. The craziest part of today was meeting Gaston. He is learning about the gospel. We invited him to get baptized today. He told us no because he has to commit some crimes before he can get baptized. I have no clue what crimes, but they said they are pecados grandotes(really big sins). 

Friday: Got to know a bit more of the members. Passed by this one member (Sadly can't remember her name) she had a pet parrot. His name is pancho. He speaks really good Spanish, he also loves biting people. I walked into there house, met the couple living there, then heard a hola, como esta in a really raspy voice. Me thinking it is a kid, turns out it's a bird. He then said, mi nombre es pancho. The rest if that contact he was chasing around their dog trying to bite him. One thing that is really bad here in Santa Ana, is my hair. I can't do my hair because I'm just gonna put a hat on top.

Saturday: Locked in on contacting. Met a few recent converts. Got to 105° F today. I went home red like a tomato. Luckily I had a hat so my neck and face didn't get sunburnt. We ran into 2 kids on the street. We talked to them and got to know them a little bit. They then gave us 2 bombs. They call them bombs here, but they really arnt bombs. They are just those big red popits, but instead of throwing them, you light them with a lighter. They are really loud. Accidentally scared a different kid with them, made him jump really high.

Sunday: woke up and went to church. We passed by a few houses beforehand so that people can get up and actually go. Out of the 3 houses, nobody went. They had me Present a little about myself. It was a fast and testimony meeting, so I decided to bear my testimony too. It went really well. I definently was with the spirit, the gift of tongues is real everybody. After church we did weekly planning. Weekly planning is by far one of the hardest things a missionary has to do. They give you 2 hours to plan your whole week. It does not sound very hard but in the moment it is.

Spiritual Thought

Today I wanna talk about a verse I read in Doctorine and Covenants. Awesomely this verse is also in Come follow me this week. It's D & C 4:

3: Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work;

Really short and sweet verse. When I read it what came to my mind was about how every member of the church should help gather Israel. When we were baptized we made 4 promises with god, them being

1: take upon you the name of Christ

2: serve God and others

3: keep his commandments

4: endure to the end

This verse goes with the secound one. When you make that promise to get baptized and serve God, you are called to his work. We are all gathering Isreal, and we all need to work together. My invitation this week is to share a small message, something short and sweet, to somebody who's not a member. We can all help gather Isreal, step by step and soul by soul.

If you wanna drop me and email, don't be afraid to do it. I may not have time to answer today because I have my first zone Pday of my mission. Here's the email:

Tiago.fuller@missionary.org

Love you all

Peace out my Ninjas