HOLA!!!!
Well I guess it was kind of a false alarm last week. That 5% chance that I wouldn't train is apparently what's going to happen. We just found out a couple days ago that Elder Cuthbertson and I are staying together here and that they're going to do a little swapping in the mission. Apparently they're splitting up a random Spanish companionship and having one stay there to train in that area and one is coming here to train in Somerton (a fairly small town just outside of Yuma). So we are going to have 6 missionaries in our little Spanish branch and in the past few weeks our zone has gone from 10 missionaries and 1 district to 16 missionaries in 2 districts! President Howes said he knows there's a lot of work to do here and that Yuma's ready for some big progress. He said it wasn't that I couldn't train or wouldn't do good, but that there's been so many changes in our zone lately, and that he thinks it would be better if we stayed together. So for now, my address is the same and I'm still with Elder Cuthbertson.
We did have a good week though! Lorena Ruiz got baptized last Friday and it was a super good baptism. Elder Cuthbertson baptized her, and I sang a duet with another spanish elder here. She's way solid, and knows more about religion and the Bible than anyone I've taught so far. She's super perceptive and recognizes how persecuted the Church is and that the true Church of Jesus Christ has always been rejected and persecuted. She said whenever she was going through rough times she would have a dream about her grandma (only member in family) and the Book of Mormon. It was pretty sweet, and we were excited for her baptism. She never once had doubts or second thoughts about it, which definitely isn't common here.
And Sunday was awesome because we had 3 confirmations!! Rene and Nathalie Barraza, and then Lorena were all confirmed and the branch was way excited and kind of surprised to see so many. Nathalie really wanted me to confirm her, and told me I could do it any language I wanted. I told her I was going to do it in Arabic but in the end I decided on Spanish :) It was way cool and I felt the Spirit super strong. My Spanish must not have been terrible because a lot of members were coming up, complimenting me, and asking if my Spanish was getting better or if it was the Spirit. I told them I'm pretty sure my Spanish is getting better but it's always the Spirit. We've really been working with the Barraza parents to get them baptized, because their kids are so strong in the Church and really want it for their parents. They were all at Church, and the dad told us when he gets baptized he wants to be 100%, doing everything, not missing a day of Church, and really give it his all. So apparently he wants to finish his baseball league since he's a coach and they have a couple weeks of games that are on Sunday. We're working hard on the mom is ready whenever he decides to go through with it.
I'm on exchanges with Elder Green right now again, and it's been way cool. It's always funny though, since he's so lost at all these Spanish places we go. He has no idea what's going on and just nods his head and acts like he does. We visited Maria Hernandez last night and she was talking about how excited she was to get her kids to Church and baptized!! These kind of visits are the best, and she brought them to the last baptism so they could see how it would be when they get baptized. Hopefully that can happen way soon! She's also trying to bring friends to Church and wants to talk to anyone who is having doubts or second thoughts about baptism. She is just so awesome, and it was cool to take the lead on the lesson and really talk to her.
Apparently there was a fire the other night and the firemen were banging on our door between 12 and 1 in the morning. I didn't wake up of course, but eventually I got up and saw like 3 fire trucks outside and like all the people who live in the Camelot apartments outside. They had evacuated everyone but I had just barely woken up when they told everyone they could go back inside. I was just ahead of the game... So that was a little bit exciting.
Oh, and it's been pretty sweet - we've been riding bikes all the past couple days and it's been a welcome break. I hate riding in the car everywhere and we get to talk to more people when we're out on bikes as well as get a little bit of a workout. Our white shirts get kind of nasty but we definitely feel like we're doing more work and I love riding bikes! So yeah, we've been really working on finding people, since there's been a lot of people baptized lately and we're needing more people to teach. We'll see how it goes this week. I'm excited and loving it!!
Hasta luego! Nos vemos!
No comments:
Post a Comment