Life is Like a Piñata??? 🎉

 

Hola a todos! 

Another week here in Kennewick SP4! We have had kind of an interesting week (as always, I"m not quite sure I've ever had a normal week here in my tiny sorta sketchy area, but it's all good). 

First off, it is SUMMER! And that means that everyone we teach gives us FRUIT! And currently it is cherry season and I am so freaking excited! There are 2 kinds of cherries that grow out in the orchards here: the dark cherries (I think they might be Bing Cherries, but I'm not 100% sure) and Rainer cherries! And Rainer cherries are my favorite and we got a whole bunch of them this week from our friends Armando and then from Yolima! We had so many of the dark cherries though last week that on Monday we made cherry jam and it is so good! So Hermana Hollingsworth and I are debating now making some Rainer Cherry jam. The flavor is pretty different with those cherries so not sure how it'll turn out but I'm excited for the experiment. 

We had lots of tiny milagros around gardening this week! As we were leaving Blanca's house one day this man named Mike waved us over and was just basically like, "Hi sisters, I" m not a member of your church but I"m brother Mike and do you think you could help me with something?" Well we were like of course! So he gave us a tour around his tiny house showing us his garden and asked us if we could come back the next day to pull weeds. And we were like awesome, we can totally do that! So we went back the next day and met his 6 toed cat named Hemingway, and she really liked me which was very fun, and then we pulled weeds and tried to not let the spiders crawl all over us. But it was really sweet to be able to serve him and then to talk with his neighbor Bones who owns one of the most interesting cars I've ever seen and he still drives it even though he's in a wheelchair. He's got this long scraggly white beard and is just about the most interesting person I've ever had a conversation with. So that was pretty wild between the 2 of the,m. 

Then our friend Armando went and toured us around his garden later that week! Which is huge because he would never let us come over to his house because he didn't want anyone to know he was taking the lessons from us and learning. But he is now talking with everyone about the gospel and the difference it's making in his life and is determined to start helping teach his family. And we are just so proud of him because he really is doing so good and is going to be baptized in the next few weeks! I think he's finally got it figured out as long as he can just keep pushing, he's going to do soooooooo good! And he came to church yesterday without telling us and HUGE MILAGRO he already knows Hermana Perez! So they just sat and chatted and it was so precious. 

I really have such an appreciation this week for the small and simple miracles that Heavenly Father gives us to help us see the world through his eyes. And through cherries, and flowers, and gardens, and strawberries, I really have seen how mindful He is of the small and simple things in our lives. As Armando would say, "Life is like a piñata. Except for instead of going for candy, you go for blessings!"

Jaja, he's great. 

Espero que todo vaya bien y su semana fuera muy emocionante!  

Hermana Blackburn 

About the pictures: 

- the flowers are from Armando's garden! Aren't they just beautiful! 

- And yes, that is Bones's car and it is fantastic. I hope you can get a sense of his personality by just looking at that gem 

- Jam and the cherries Armando gave us

- super awkward picture of our elderes and us before they all left because of transfers. Élder Gaytán is in his original assignment in El Salvador and Élder Solbel was transferred down to Boardman! So muy triste, but we have Élder Eyring still and his new companion Élder Insero is awesoooooooome!