Hey hey!!!
Well this last week has been way good and super busy... that's one thing about the mission that I love and find really cool. The work never stops and there's always so much to do! There's no time to take breaks and there's no time to really think about anything else than teaching and visiting people. There have been a lot of new people popping up everywhere - friends of members and referrals, random people at Church. We're getting so many new people to teach and it's so incredibly exciting!! We had a referral from the mission office the other day that has a ton of potential. It's a Mexican man named Benito in his 50's who lives alone, and he called to get a Book of Mormon. We visited and taught him a little bit and he's already reading quite a bit. It's such a blessing when people will actually take the time to read the Book of Mormon to know the truth of it.
We also had another cool experience with a recent convert's friend. Some of the investigators and recent converts here are just amazing and some of the best missionaries I've ever seen. They're so excited about the Gospel and bring all kinds of friends to Church and everything! This one new investigator, her name is Lorena, is from Veracruz and seems to really like the Church already. She loves to read, which is like the best thing ever for missionaries to hear, and she said that she's going to read the whole book. She has quite the crazy story about her daughter though. Apparently one of her daughters was abducted and they had to pay $20,000 to get her back. I guess she had been gone for 2 months by the time they got her back. But Lorena has been going to Church, reading the Book of Mormon, and likes everything so far - hopefully she sticks with it and everything works out!
We have a baptism this weekend, which I'm super excited for! Wendy is getting baptized and is the mom in a part-member family. She has been really doing well, reading and praying. She is very shy and doesn't like to talk much, so we have to be careful when teaching her to not make her super uncomfortable or anything. But she's been doing a great job of reactivating her husband Helaman (awesome name!) She has been helping him pray and read and come to Church. It's really an amazing feeling to be part of a work like this. We've been able to work with this family and see them grow so much stronger and closer together as they become more involved with the Church and more converted to Jesus Christ.
There's been a lot of commotion in this area, and a lot of people are going through tough times. It definitely humbles people and tests their faith at times, but it can also bring them closer to God. When we realize that everything comes from the Lord, and that He really is always there for us, we'll be a lot more willing to do those simple things that we know we should do. Our ward mission leader is a really on-the-ball guy who wants to get a ton of missionary work done. We have quite a few branch missionaries now (mostly couples) and we're starting to take them out with us more to show them how to teach and to help them be missionaries. They're studying Preach My Gospel and we're starting to train them as missionaries on what to teach and how to teach by the Spirit. If all of this continues, there's going to be growth down here at a ridiculous rate. The Lord has prepared so many people and when we have more missionaries, we are able to find and teach more people! We have plans to do more splits and really increase the number of people and lessons that we teach.
Church was really sweet this week - we had a lot of investigators come, and even more new faces that I've never seen before. I sat by Hermana Amparo, with her son Edward, and it was just so incredibly amazing. He is the most spiritually mature kid I've ever met and is really just helping his mom out in so many ways. There's a bond that you develop with these people that's just really hard to describe. Like there's so much love and charity there - they know how much we care about them and they know how happy and excited we are when they are doing well and are happy. I've also seen their family grow a lot closer, even though the dad is a strict Catholic.
We also had a bunch of less-active families come to Church this week which was surprising. We've been visiting a lot of less-active families and helping them get back in the Church and feel that love and happiness that they felt before. We had a couple full families come, and we could see how much it helped them and how much the members really reached out to show them their love. We've even had some people just come up to us and ask us to be taught! This less-active named Freddy has been working on coming back to Church and asked us to come over and teach him and his non-member wife who has been investigating for a long time. We are so excited!!! It's not too often that these kind of people come up and ask for appointments. That was just super cool, and we've really seen the Lord's hand in the work down here.
We did have an interesting experience with a Jehovah Witness woman the other day. One of our really strong investigators (his name is David - he's just waiting for divorce papers to be finalized to be baptized) was with his girlfriend (a less-active woman named Martha) and her sister when we visited them. She was trying to have a bible study with them and show them the "right" way. When we came over she shut her Bible and just stopped, because she saw us. We talked to all of them for quite a while and then she was trying to convince us of her Church a little bit. We were determined not to Bible bash or anything, so we just talked a little about the Restoration and testified to her of the truth of it. She wasn't willing to hear any of it though, so that didn't really work out, but it was quite the visit. She would entirely avoid the questions we ask and would talk about some crazy random stuff. What was super cool about all of this is what David did. He was totally unfazed by everything she was saying and kept on referring to our Church as the right church or the true church. He kept on inviting her to Church and saying he would pick her up!!! That was so so sweet. He just really impressed me, and he's going to be an awesome member. Hopefully, he will be getting baptized the end of this month.
We also found that softball is a really good fellowship activity - we've had quite a few games the past couple weeks and lots of investigators and less-actives will show up at these games. I'm actually not bad at it either! I hit a home run the other day and scored a couple more! That was pretty exciting. We've also been trying to be a bit more active since we literally sit down almost all day - studying, teaching lessons, sitting in the car, etc. Our area is just too big to ride the bike much, and we don't really have a choice. There's too much to do!! I've also had tons of opportunities to sing now that people know I can sing. We sing at ALL of our lessons - sometimes multiple songs - and it's so sweet because it always brings the Spirit.
But yeah, that's basically what's going on right now! We have a lot of investigators progressing and getting close to baptism, and we have a lot of new ones to teach as well, so we'll see how that goes!!
Hasta la proxima vez!
(Until next time !)
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