Herman Beck's Weekly Email - One (wo) Man Band

Last week during our weekly mission-wide zoom call, President Wu ~lovingly~ chastened the crap out of all of us. He added a whole bunch of new rules to our mission too, completely changing the culture of the missionaries here. One of his favorite phrases is to invite us to "rise one level more," and these new standards are part of that. But my favorite rule out of all the new ones is that no one is allowed to use the word, "fetch" ever again. Good riddance👋🏾 I'm hoping the silly finger snap thing all Spanish speaking missionaries do will be the next to go (I do not apologize to all the missionaries on my email list that are offended by that sentence.)

I was finally able to receive my Christmas package from my grandparents!! They were able to send me a pair of good shoes, and I included a picture in my album of my current foot tan to show you just how badly I needed those new shoes 😅 speaking of tan, back home I often received compliments on how easily I was able to tan in the summer time, and I enjoyed being in the sun 24/7 and seeing how dark I could get. Here on the other hand, to be tan is considered very unfortunate and ugly. People always say to me, "¡ay, pobrecita!" (you poor thing) or "pucha, ¡eres negro como yo!" (Shoot, you're black like me!💀) last week one of our friends told me she had a present for me, and pulled out a big tube of SPF 60. I swear I've been wearing sunscreen this whole time...

This week we had to take every single one of our friends off date for baptism. Jimmy, Diego, Carla, Gabriel, Marina, Briana, and Darlín. Marriage, marijuana, and 9am church are kicking our butts. But I still feel really good about the work we've done this week. I know I did everything I could for each person I talked to, I gave it my all every single day. Following an invitation from President Wu, I've started each day by saying, "What a great day to be a missionary!" It truly is a great day to be a missionary. Repeating that phrase has helped me remember my privileges and live each day like it's the last of my mission, it's too short to waste even a second of it by not "cheerfully doing all things that lie in my power" (D&C 123:17). Please pray for our friends, more than anything that they can be motived to act. 

Today is the best day of my mission because I bought a guitar!!!! My biggest regret of my whole life was is bringing my guitar on my mission. I've been searching Alto Hospicio for months now trying to find a guitar to buy, practically every member owns a guitar, but none of them know how to play. I offered one member 20 Luca for his dusty, sticky, never-used guitar and he turned me down! He said he bought it years ago but is too lazy to learn how to play it, but that I can't have it because now it has "sentimental value." I don't think he understands what that phrase means but who am I to judge? (I judged.) Long story short: a member of our branch, Hermana Molina, worked some Facebook Marketplace magic and found a lady who would sell me one. We ended up off-roading in a taxi across the outskirts of Hospicio to get to a super sketchy neighborhood of plywood fort "houses," only to realize it was a scam and have to go off-roading in another taxi to a sketchy warehouse to look at another one. All the while "Hey Ya!" By Outkast was blasting on the radio. That song makes me think of my Europe trip friends :) miss you guys. 

Moral of the story, God is Big. I got a guitar, and life is good!

💙Hermana Beck