Anyway we celebrated the new year by...sleeping. Man we were tired and of course we had to be in bed by 10:30 so that's always fun. Although I was woken up several times by all the fireworks and parties going on at midnight. That was lovely.
This week we taught a Samoan family everyday. They are recent converts and we have been teaching the daughter. She is 16 and didn't take the lessons with the rest of the family. However, she listened much of the time from her room and thought about it and decided she wanted to take the lessons as well. She is cute. So we put her on date for this coming Saturday a couple weeks ago so we have been teaching them everyday to get everything in that we need to. She is really excited to be baptized. We took her and her cousin to the temple visitors center this weekend to watch the Joseph Smith Movie. They LOVED it. They took pictures of anything and everything. We also did a family walk through that they really enjoyed. It was good to take just her and let her feel the spirit of everything on her own because her mom is really protective so its good to be able to let her experience things on her own and for herself. She really wanted to be able to go inside the temple, but knew she couldn't at that time. So we need to get her involved in family history to go to the temple and do the baptisms for the dead after she is baptized. So we are excited for that this weekend!
Also we took this other guy to the temple lights this week too. He enjoyed that and also took pictures of EVERYTHING. People are so cute. They get so excited about all of it. So that is really good :) We started teaching him when I first got here and he has been reading the Book of Mormon. He's pretty far already too. It's awesome to see people take these things into their lives and do the work for themselves to find out if it is true. He is really into UFO's and lights in the sky and such so he is interesting to talk to. He sees a lot of biblical evidence too he says, so its interesting. He also came to church this week for the first time so that was good. I think he felt a little awkward, but who wouldn't their first time at church! That is why we have to be super on top of things and make sure we are very welcoming to visitors :)
There are so many families here who are so poor. The circumstances are even worse than my previous area because NO ONE has money. In my other area we had a few nice housing developments in our ward, but the rest of the ward was really run down. However, people could help each other because they had money to spare and help others. Here, NO ONE has money and most of them need help. So it's really heartbreaking and sad to see people who are almost homeless and have nothing. We visited a lady this week who is sick and just got out of jail for shoplifting to try to get things for her kids. They literally have nothing. So we went shopping and bought them some food and left it on their doorstep. We figured anything would help. However, fail on our part....we got caught! We hid around the corner to make sure they opened the door, but they walked down the stairs and found us!!! Who does that!? You are supposed to just take the bags. But we didn't even hear the door open and all the sudden they found us and it was a little awkward. haha oh well. It is the thought that counts I guess. We tried. Hopefully it helps them though.
We also talked to a really nice homeless man outside Walmart when we went to buy that food and we didn't have any money to give him so we bought him a sandwich to give him when we came out. Fail again...he was gone when we came out! We were sad we didn't get to give it to him.
I swear I am bad luck because the church building got vandalized here the other day. Someone got in somehow and broke into the fire extinguishers and sprayed them all over the overflow of the gym as well as some classrooms. They also go into the library and just threw a bunch of stuff everywhere. The geniuses also photocopied their hand. Aren't they smart. So that was a bummer deal. 3 out of the 4 zones I have been in have all been vandalized and broken into. It's so stupid. Why would anyone want to mess with God's house! It's like they want to be damned or something. Sometimes people aren't very smart.
We visit a lot of recent converts that I am trying to get to know as well. So we visited this lady. She is super sweet and just hit her year mark of being a member. She is struggling right now a lot, but she has a super strong testimony. She came to church this week and bore her testimony and it was really good. She even brought her 16 year old cousin! Her cousin was with her this week when we visited and she felt the spirit so she brought her to church. She felt the spirit there too so we hope to start teaching her soon :)
Speaking of fast and testimony meeting, it was amazing! I have never seen anything like it in my whole life. When they opened it up for testimonies, people flooded the stand. Most of the center choir seats were filled with people waiting to bear their testimonies. If you didn't get up in the beginning and go sit on the stand, you didn't get to have a turn to bear your testimony. Sacrament went a half hour longer than it is supposed to. It was crazy! I was just baffled. So this ward may be poor, but they are also very poor in spirit and just very full of love for their Savior. It was a really cool thing to witness. So that is my thought for this week. We should all be as anxious as the people here to share our testimonies and our love for the Savior. Next time there is a silent moment in testimony meeting, don't keep putting it off, but get up right away and share what you know to be true. It doesn't have to be long or fancy, it just needs to be heartfelt :) So I invite all of you to bear your testimony this next fast Sunday and after that, go into each fast Sunday with the determination to bear your testimony if there is a dead moment and if the spirit prompts you to do so. You will strengthen others testimonies, and it will strengthen your testimony as well :) I hope you all have a great week! Happy 2015!
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