So, it is the holidays again...good gracious the month of November just
flew by! Before we know it, it is going to be Christmas! Anyway I hope you
all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. This week was pretty good! We didn't get
to talk to many new people this week, however, we had a ton of recent
convert and less active lessons.
We did a referral from headquarters! A sixteen year old boy sent it
in with a request for a Bible. So we got to meet them. They have their own
church that they go to and they had a hard time fully understanding the
importance of the message we had to share. It was a Mexican family and the
kids like English but the Mom didn't speak English as well. I'm not sure
how much of it she understood. However, she knew that we had "a" temple in
Utah and she has seen that before. We taught a mini-restoration lesson and
left a few Book of Mormons. One of the daughters was probably 11 or 12 and
she was just soaking everything in that we said. She asked how she could go
on a mission and such and we told her she had to be a member of the church
she said, "oh, that's gonna be hard." haha so they don't understand everything
exactly and said they had to go to their own church on Sunday. So we have
another appointment set up with them and we will be on exchanges
that day, so it will work out because then the Spanish sisters can get a
feel of how the mom feels about all of it.
We taught one of converts again this week. She had kind of fallen off the face of the
planet for a while but she is now meeting with us regularly and has been
coming to church! She looks great and is even bringing another family to
church with her. She really seems to be turning things around and changing.
She loves church and understands the importance of keeping the
commandments. It has been awesome to see the change in her. She has gone
through a pretty rough time lately and has gotten a divorce. I think that
hard time actually helped her come closer to God though and helped her
recommit.
We also have been having our newly weds teach us the lessons. It has been
going really well. The wife is awesome and does all the extra studies in the
back of the pamphlets and she understands things really well! They are SO
excited about getting sealed in the temple too. They keep asking where they
can buy white clothes and we keep telling them that when it gets close that
people will help them shop for the things they need and that they will take
temple classes to help them be prepared. They are awesome :) We are trying
to get everything lined up for our recent converts to go to the temple to
do baptisms for the dead. It's been a little hard with the change in the
bishopric and stuff to get everyone on the same page so hopefully we will
get that figured out soon!
We had an AWESOME lesson with another investigator this week! So this guys
house is really chaotic and hard to have a lesson in so we finally got
things set up to have a lesson at the church with him. We got another
recent convert to come too so we would have a third female and we had another
guy in the ward go pick him up. Well a few hours prior he said he couldn't
come anymore. I was pretty upset because he has been so flaky lately and we
went to a lot of work to make this lesson at the church work out. So I got a
little frustrated and was really bold and stern with him about him needing
to come (he hasn't been to church in at least 3 months.) Well long story short,
it turns out he was just joking with us! So he came and we taught the gospel of
Jesus Christ and used the footsteps. However, at the beginning we had him stand
at one end and had the picture of Christ at the other and I decided to get him
back for messing with us. So I told him he had to sing "I Am a Child of
God" while skipping to the picture. He kept saying he was shy and he
couldn't do it but I insisted. He said he couldn't skip and he would just
jog and he said he also didn't know the song. So we sang him the first line
and he kept saying he was too shy to do it. At this point I was about to
tell him I was joking and he didn't really have to do it, when all the
sudden he started doing this weird skip/jog/prance thingy singing, "I am a
child of god...I am a child of god." I died I was laughing SO hard. You
should have seen it, this big Mexican who works security, covered in
tattoos and such...and singing while running toward a picture of
Christ. I wish I would have gotten it on camera. Luckily he takes things
well and was a good sport about it. Anyway, after our funny experience we
had a really good lesson and he did not want to leave the church. He said
he felt so good and was so happy to be there. He could feel the spirit so
strong and he basically taught himself and said he knew he needed to come
to church and he wasn't keeping the commandments. Even though he isn't
doing bad things he isn't coming to church so he knows that he could do
better. So it went SO well! However....he didn't come to church on
Sunday...we called him and called him to wake him up (he tells us to) and
he texted us and said he was awake and then when the ride went to get him,
the mom said he was asleep...then we called and called and he wouldn't
answer. AHHH! So frustrating.
Our Thanksgiving was really good too! We had a low key dinner at our ward
mission leader's home. It was fun! We also stopped at a non members house. It was
the home of a lady that wants to feed us so we stopped in there and ate there
as well. This was all like 20 minutes apart too so needless to say, I was
STUFFED! We also had time to just relax as well. We also decorated our
little foam Christmas tree so that was fun! :) We then had an activity with
all the missionaries. We took popcorn and the ZL's took hot chocolate. We
played games like signs and then broke up into little groups and played
board games. It was really fun and nice to just relax and hang out has a
zone family.
We had another lesson this week that went really well!This lady wants to
take things really slow however. She knows a lot already so it is
a little different teaching her. Also her husband was there for the lesson
and he seemed to be a lot more open than in the past and was actually
making comments and such. It was really good! We also had a member there
and they actually live really close to each other. Also the member is a
convert so it was really good for this lady to be able to ask her a lot of
questions about how she changed and how it has helped her family and such.
It was awesome :)
Also our mother/daughter investigators came to church! It was so good! The mom
is on fire and is ready to make that commitment and be baptized, but her daughter
is thinking about it again. She isn't sure. She says that she feels that she just
hasn't gotten that huge affirmation yet. Her mom thinks it has something to
do with some of her friends. So we are trying to help her through her
concerns. It really helped for her to be able to come to church and she is
going to go to mutual this week too so that will be super good! I'm really
excited for them. We are going to go see the Christmas lights with them too
next week. :) It will be fun! Then the week after that, it is transfers....
I kind of hope I get to stay here one more transfer. Then after that, I
will only have 2 transfers left...so I will most likely only have one more
area. That is seriously so crazy. I don't like it. But I really love my companion
and it would be a bummer to get transferred right before Christmas. Plus I really
want to be here for this mom's baptism. I love her and her family so much! :)
So I'm running out of time so I'm going to give my quick thought. I'm sure
you have all heard of the "He is the Gift" initiative so if you haven't...then
I'll attach the link. It is seriously the best thing ever! I love it so
much. The church is putting so much work and money into this so we need to
embrace it and help share it with others! I love that it is all about how
God loves us SO much that he sent his son as the real gift of Christmas. We
need to discover the gift of Christ and the peace that it brings to us.
Once we discover it, then we need to embrace it and make it be a part of
who we are. After that, we should WANT to share it with everyone we can! We
are all sons and daughters of God and he wants us to help others along the
path once we are on it. This is such an easy way to do missionary work so
embrace this and help #SharetheGift! If you don't know much about it, then
talk with the missionaries! They will know :) I love you all and I hope we
all remember the true meaning of the holiday season and help spread the
true joy that comes from knowing that Christ is the real Gift of Christmas.
:) I feel so lucky to be able to be a missionary for 2 Christmas seasons!
What a blessing!
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