It's definitely been a solid week and yesterday was a very satisfying Sunday! We were surprised to have 10 people come to church, and we had a solid number in each one of our wards! So first of all we go to our Spanish branch, which has been doing a lot better recently. The attendance has been way down but yesterday was a good day and Maribel's family came to church (she's actually getting baptized this Friday!). The rest of her family will definitely follow, but in the meantime she's setting the example and just consistently amazes us. So how we met her was actually kind of funny. It was through our awesome ward missionary Sister Leos, and she just lives a couple houses down from her. But what's funny is that Sister Leos didn't even know her before she brought the sister missionaries over! She basically said, "Hi neighbor, I just really felt like I should come over here and share the gospel with you. Here are some of my friends that want to share a message with you." So they taught her, didn't think she would progress at all, and now she's incredibly solid and getting baptized! She has already faced so much opposition but she's unfazed. Goodness, we're excited.
And then we went to 9th ward, where we were super happy and pretty surprised to see Damaris and her little girls at church! Damaris had never gone before, and we had been really struggling for a long time to get her there. But we had a really good lesson with her this week, and the bishop and his wife (who's the primary president - it worked out perfectly) were there. They were awesome fellowshippers, they hit it off, and I've never seen Damaris so happy. We talked to her a little bit after church and she told us that this is the church she had been looking for. We asked her what her favorite part about church was and of course she said... relief society!! Seriously, every female investigator we have just absolutely loves relief society. It's always their favorite part about church. And when we saw her come out there were all these ladies that were hugging her and giving her information, telling her how happy they were she was there and that they would see her next week. They really took her in and it was just incredible. The girls loved primary and it was just sweet.
And speaking of primary, we got to be special guests for the 4th ward primary yesterday. They wanted us to talk about the blessings of serving a mission, and it was so much fun. We asked all of the kids who was going to serve a mission and they all raised their hands, including a couple of the kids that we're teaching! Maureen, our native american investigator, is getting baptized this Saturday and she's just incredible. She's consistent in reading, going to church, and doing everything all by herself. I guess when she reads she gets in the zone and her cousin says that no one can talk to her. She's focused on that reading and nothing else. And when they announced the baptism in sacrament meeting, a 9-year old kid we're teaching leaned over to his mom and said, "I want to get baptized!" He definitely didn't say that in our first lesson, so that was way good to hear. I love our English wards. And it looks like I'll be doing a musical number next Sunday, so that'll be good.
We did have a pretty interesting experience this week though...so Thursday we came to the library here to work on our mormon.org profiles and as we were trying to upload our pictures, all of the lights and computers shut off all of a sudden and we were left in darkness. We went outside, thinking it might have been something here that just tripped but found out that it happened all over Yuma! Even with all of the stoplights and everything. When we talked to more people, we found out that it extended not only into California, but also into Mexico, Nevada, a lot of Arizona, New Mexico... It was pretty big. So everywhere we went people were outside their houses, because they had no air conditioning inside. We thought this was perfect! We've been struggling to find people outside to talk with, so we just figured this was Heavenly Father intervening and making it possible :) They're stuck there, because they don't want to go into their hot houses! So we got to talk to quite a few people. So that went on from like 3:00 to later on in the night. Luckily it wasn't for too long, but people definitely realized how important it was to be prepared! I don't think anyone still knows exactly what happened, but we heard it all came from one worker somewhere in Arizona.
So there was that, and then last Monday it rained!!! I have never missed or loved the rain so much in my life! There was this big storm and a wall of dust, but after that passed there was just a lot of rain for a little while. We stayed out, got soaked, and played in it like a bunch of little kids, and it was pretty sweet. I really enjoyed it. That has only happened 2 or 3 times during all of my time in Yuma (which is fairly substantial). All kinds of people that see me are so surprised that I'm still here! Everyone is asking if I'm just moving my stuff down here - I definitely feel part of our branch "family" here! That's for sure.
Oh and then another thing that was pretty cool was randomly visiting a recent convert on her birthday. So there's this 88-year old lady named Josephine that got baptized just before we took over ninth ward and she's the nicest lady ever. She lives in Somerton, which is a little out of our way, and we never really go down there. But Friday we randomly did go down there, and found out that it was her birthday and she was SO happy to have company on her birthday. She lives alone, so she loves having people over. She's quite the chatterbox...we were there for quite a while, but glad that she wasn't alone for her birthday.
So yep, good things are happening and we're excited like always! We found some more promising investigators and we hope to continue to have success! People are definitely beginning to trust us more in the wards and it's resulting in a lot more missionary work and a lot more excitement. Missionary work is pretty sweet! Love you all! Hasta luego!
~ Elder Carlson
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