Things are Looking Good! :)

Welcome to Beaver....Things are looking Good!                                 ‏                    6-10-13

Dear Familia…

Hahaha mom funny to hear about all your run ins with people at Kirin’s Farewell. I am so happy for her I can’t believe she is going. You know, it’s funny cause we have 2-3 farewells EVERY Sunday for the past 3 months and so every week I get to reflect on when I left…wow! I’m pretty sure my talk was “baby” to what I would say now. I hear these young men give amazing and powerful talks and I think wow! I don’t think I was that strong when I left. I think of who I am now and all the things I have learned and I hope that when I come home people can tell I’ve grown and changed and become closer to the person Our Heavenly Father would want me to be : ) I know she will learn so many things I hope she gives it a chance. It’s hard. It’s way hard…but if you stick with it and you let the Lord help you through it all…you will feel better than ever! I hope she allows this experience to strengthen her.

Geeesh! Everyone is traveling like crazy around there! How did L&C get to go to CO? What is B&K doing in GA??? I hope they all stay safe! Glad you got my cards…I was worried they wouldn’t get to you.

Mom… I am so glad to be out here. I love it! It’s so fun and exciting to see all the changes and be the forefront of it all. It’s amazing to see how much Utah can change! My thoughts about this place were waaaay wrong hahaha this place needs lots of help! ;} Crazy to hear how backed up the missionary system is.

Beaver is actually in the process of getting MORE new missionaries. We are trying to figure out how to put them in here, but we are trying to work it out that they would do “Reactivation” work. We have a ward that is almost 80% inactive. CRAZY! If you saw Beaver you would probably think…where in the world would you put more missionaries, but I guess it’s needed. That will be cool to see what happens.

This has been a much better week! We just had Bishop’s son funeral this morning and now we are all on the mend. Hopefully no more “news” for a while!

For the past month, Sister Rodriguez and I have been working with a family of 4 who started with zero knowledge of God or Jesus Christ.(Did I tell you about them?)  It’s been interesting to watch them accept the basics and finally accept that there is a God and they understand who Jesus Christ is now. We finally were able to teach them about the Restoration of the Gospel. Thelma the mom realized “Wow, so that why there are so many churches!” We also talked about how we have a Prophet here and now who helps us today. Thelma then says “Well, that would have been good to know! We have a live prophet to help us. Great!” Sister Rodriguez and I just chuckled. Her openness to everything and her hope for all these good things is just so fun to watch.  To see her realize that we aren’t here alone- but really we are here with guidance, makes us so happy! Thelma’s boys are also enjoying scouts and every lesson they come with something new they either learned at scouts or at church. It’s so cool! This last lesson we also talked to Thelma about their prayers and how they felt they were going. She mentioned that they have been taking turns to pray over meals every night and she said she has seen that bring a difference into her home. We told her every time they say a prayer they are inviting the Holy Ghost to be in their home. With all the knowledge they have now and their open hearts, we had to invite them to be baptized! We put them on date for July 6th. Not only will we have a baptism for this family but we’ll also have to plan a wedding : ) hahaha We are excited and hope that no matter what comes their way, they will have the strength to follow Jesus Christ fully.

Chevo is also another Spanish investigator we are working with. We have been working on getting him to pray and talk to Heavenly Father and for some reason he just really struggled with it. There came a moment in the lesson I felt really bold and bore my testimony of prayer in Spanish. He looked at me and said, “Okay…I will pray!” I surprised him with my Spanish haha … but this week we found out he struggles with Word of Wisdom and has for several years. He has a great desire to quit, but he said every time he tries bad things happen to him so he gives up and goes back to smoking and then things get better. We talked to him about the power of Satan and how we have to overcome him. We are better than him. Chevo is on date for the end of this month so we are praying he gets enough strength to overcome his smoking so he can get baptized. Chevo has met with missionaries years ago and they tried to baptize him, but he didn’t show up because he said he didn’t feel ready, but now he thinks he can be ready and do it the right way.

Well you know Robert is baptized :) we are so excited for him! We visited him this week to check on him and also to start New Member Lessons with him. We went planning on teaching him about the priesthood and his roles now as a priesthood holder. When we got there… Sister Rodriguez and I were amazed at who we were looking at! Robert was a whole new person! The things he was saying, the faith he had and the strength he showed was amazing. He is realizing that the Holy Ghost is what he had been longing for all of his life. He said I will never do anything to lose him! He said he’s been reading his Book of Mormon differently also and as he is out in the world he feels different he feels like he can actually handle all the things life throws at him. We’ve never seen him with this much strength. In our lesson he started talking about going to the temple and he was looking forward to a year from now. We asked him if he knew he could go now and BOY… you’d thought we gave him a $100! We began to talk about Baptisms for the Dead and the importance of it…he said he has 17 names ready to put into “Family Search” and is ready to go to S.t George to do the work. We are now planning Roberts “second date” we call it and take him to the temple! I thought I was happy to see him get baptized, but to see him go to the temple and do the same ordinances for his relatives, wooooooooow,  that will be a whole new story!!!! J

Remember Claudia? The old lady I’ve been teaching since Dec. We met with her this week. She has been struggling with her smoking again and doesn’t think she can make it to baptism. We are working on trying to see her get baptized before transfers…. That will be another day I will be so excited my heart might jump out! :)

We have 2 baptisms this week!!!!! woohooo!!

Well that’s all for now! I hope y’all have a great week and stay safe! Love ya!

Ooooh mom! Someone from Beaver is going to be going to Mesa! They are bringing a box down for me! I will be giving them all your info to contact you so you can meet up with them. I need to send it because I don’t need my winter stuff and can’t transfer it. Sooooo please be on a look for someone calling you about a box…they said they will be down there on or around the 28th! : )

And I shouldn’t tell you this…but be on the lookout for something in the mail. I don’t want it to get lost! ;)

Mom…. I love you like alllllll the flowers I see each day! They are beautiful but make me sneeze 100x a day. This lady also invited us to help plant her flower gardens…I thought of you and missed those times we did it together.

Ta ta for now!

Xooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxo

Remember, you don’t need a name tag to be a missionary!