8/11/2014

Well, I feel like I just wrote to you guys because I basically did.

 So we are having a lot of miracles here. We are confronting a lot of desafios too, but we really are seeing the hand of God here, and I love it! So I think I told you about Jely last email. Well on Sunday she came to church WITH HER ENTIRE FAMILY!!!!! It was so exciting :) Her two sons and her husband, who we havent actually ever been able to talk to! It was so awesome to see her there, and I know that she is ready, we just have to make sure we stay there with her, which we will be doing.

So idk if you guys remember Cesar, but hes the investigator that was getting over a lot of addictions and what not, but didnt want to get baptized and stopped coming to church and kind of asked us to stop coming. Well. We saw him on Saturday and we were like hey and went to talk to him and he was so excited to see us and told us that a member had seen him that day and invited him to church, and he was like i think im going to come. And then he said he read the last text that we sent to him that was like even though you dont want to, just know that you are always invited to church and was thinking about that. And then he saw us and was like okay, well im going to go tomorrow. and he came!! all by himself! now granted, he left after the first hour to go to another church, but he told us why he decided not to get baptized, which he hadnt before, he just got defensive and told us basically to stop wasting our time. then he said he wanted to talk to us, but felt bad for how he acted so he didnt want to. so who knows...maybe this time it will work! 

Also, we have this investigator who is a journalist and hes been our investigator for 6 months now. He loves the church and likes going, but he is rather....doubtful of everything. he just has lots and lots of questions and lots of things have happened to him in his life, but he always listens to us and i can see him changing and its amazing. but yesterday in our cita he was like the next time you guys come, ill show you something i wrote as kind of thanking you guys and he said its titled "how to talk to someone with a hard heart" haha.

So that guy carlos from last week...he came to church and liked it and brought his girl friend with him and she really liked everything too! it was so cool to see.

If you guys would like to pray for someone with me, please pray for someone named Xiomara. She is so awesome and pilas, but we just need a little additional heavenly help from God :)

love you guys! have a great week!!! :)

8/6/2014
Dear Family,

Oh heck. Well as you can tell it is now Wednesday and i am just writing because we went to the temple today so we didnt have a pday on monday. its been such a weird week. i feel like the week is just starting but tomorrow is already thursday...my schedule is super messed up!

anyway. Okay. We have found straight up the most golden person ever. Well, up until this point. And we didnt even find him. He came to us really. So a member called us and said his neighbor is interested in learning about the church so we call him and he starts telling us this story. oh goodness gracious. so hes been like super catholic his whole life, like super catholic, even he says that. he speaks english btw (he also asked me if i was from germany or something because i was struggling with my english...how embarassing haha) but anyway so his life started falling apart he said and he had a ton of questions that he realized his church wasnt answering. so he owns a recycling business and they brought in a box of bibles and in this box he found a book of mormon. he said that he doesnt know why but he couldnt throw the book of mormon away. he kept it, but never read it. then he moved a month ago right by our members and found out that they were mormon. these members are super pilas and shared a liahona with him and he was like i read it and i just felt a burning desire to get to know the church better. we met with him and we were like when is best for you? and he was like no, this is important i will arrange my schedule for you guys and were like...haha well okay. and then yeah, he accepted the baptism fecha right there. he was still kind of like well yes, i will, i need to know more but i think so. so were like woohoo! we call him to ask him something else and he is like...yeah, anoteme por esa fecha. like write me down for that day! he is a miracle, and i am so excited to see him progress!

also, we have another investigator jely who weve been working with for the past couple of weeks and we have seen such a growth in her. at first, she was kind of cold towards us when we talked aobut jose smith and what not, but now, she is like SO excited to learn aobut all of this. idk if i already wrote about this but we read to her from 3 nephi 11 and explained to her the way God wants us to get baptized and she was like kind of skeptical and i showed her a picture of a little girl getting baptized and we asked her to be baptized and she didnt answer. she tried handing the picture back to me and started crying and was like i think im believing it. i feel soemthing and idk how to describe it. it was so incredible. we explained that little kids have no need to be baptized, which had been a worry of hers for her son who isnt baptized. it was just such an amazing thing to see such a great change in her. shes a "tough" woman who doesnt cry and the last two citas has started bawling. haha, i love it.

we are truly witnessing miracles and i know its the gospel and the spirit testifying of the truth. I know that the book of mormon changes lives. that if people honestly take the time to study it, they will recognize it as a book of God and will recognize that His church has been restored upon the earth. that we can be saved through the power of the priesthood. it is such an amazing thing to be able to testify of. i love it :) and i love you all! miss you!

Welp, a lot has changed here in the zone! new zone leader, new district leader, new elder in our ward! Its crazy, but its been good!

Its also starated to rain again. It was pretty dry for about a month and then last night we were knocking on a door and i heard this sound and i was like...hna i think thats rain and we look over and you can hear the rain pounding on all the roofs and its getting louder and louder and we were like ahhhhh get your rain jacket and so as im trying to do that, the phone falls out and were scrambling around and acting dumb haha and these people are watching us from across the street and are like hey!  come here so we went inside so we coudl get everything together and we contacted them and talked to them a little and it was super cool because God gave us this perfect finding opportunity with two girls our age and they were like yeah, sure! come back! so we shall see :)

We have this investigator named Jely and we were going to drop her but we went back one more time to tell her and she was SO INTERESTED. like she had a ton of questions about te book of mormon and she was like yeah, i want to read it more and figure out if its true and can i bring my husbadn adn kids to chruch too and were like...um yes, yes you can haha. they didnt end up being able to come but it was still nice because i think next sunday they should be able to.

I have learned a lot that happiness doesnt come from your cirumstances. Sometimes i have the tendency to think that because of my circumstnces, i dont desrve to be happy and its just so not true. I love that God has made this plan so that we are happy. I have learned that a lot this past week, and i htink i am improving a lot to not get so down so quicly. my comp is never upset. in like 3 months, i have seen her upset like 3 times and shes in the beginning of the mission, which is iwhen people are usualy the most upset haha. shes been great for me!

my birthday was good! ate lots of cake and spaghetti from pizza hut! but it was weird not talking to you guys. it felt like a normal day, only now i feel super old. no longer a teenager. oh well, life goes on. 

Well, i love you all and i hope you have great weeks :)