Monday, September 15, 2014

Awesome Investigators

Hola Familia!! 

So I'll start this email, I loved hearing from all yall!!! Seriously it made me SO happy! :) 

This week was CRAZY I don't even know what happened! It went by SO FAST! I cant even believe it! So we didnt beat our record of 29 lessons..... we only got 25 this week. BUT Hemana Perez was sick one day so I think that is still pretty good :) I really honestly don't know how to summarize a whole week of incredible stories into one email- if anyone has suggestions, I am open! 

But for now, I will just talk about SOME of our investigators!! 
HUGO IS THE BOMB. He never ceases to amaze us! I can't express how incredible he is, but I will try. So basically, his family is in Mexico, and he came here to work for them. He has a wife and 2 kids that he doesnt get to see. Hard right?! He is the one last Sunday that bore his testimony about how he wants to make it a goal to be baptized. YEAH. When we gave him the Book of Mormon, we didn't really have a chance to explain it very well, so we were expecting to have to go into detail in our next lesson. Nope!! He took the Restoration pamphlet, read the whole thing, and answered the questions and studied all the scriptures in the back! (People DONT DO THAT) He is SO amazing!! And when he reads, he really applies things to himself and understands everything! He rocks. September 28 will be his baptism :) 

DARLY and her family are AMAZING! Its her and Oscar (who doesn't quite listen to our lessons yet) living together with their kids. Angi is a teenager, Isaac, Coralia and Oscarito are all younger than 12. The kids (besides Oscarito-he's only 5) have all been baptized. Darly was going to, but apparently she didn't know about the whole being married thing, so she can't be baptized yet. We don't know what Oscar's deal is, but he won't marry her, even though they've lived together forever and are raising their family..... I don't get it. BUT Darly really is AMAZING and has been SO prepared by the Lord. She pretty much could teach us. She has such a light and joy in her life and she wants to be baptized SO badly!!! We're working on it! 

DANIEL is a 14 year old in a part-member family, and he is also working towards a baptismal date. His mom is a member, and his dad would be a member, but he can't work out divorce papers or something confusing like that. He's legally married to some woman in El Salvador who won't sign the papers because she wants to still be legal in America? (Dad I don't get this legal stuff haha) 
Anyways! So we had a date set with Daniel for yesterday actually, but last week his parents freaked out at us and told us he wasnt ready. They told us he would be baptized November 21.......uh what?? So we are hoping they change their mind soon. 

PORFILIO has been taught all the lessons by multiple multiple missionaies and is SO close to baptism and has almost been baptized multiple other times, but he won't give up coffee. He has been in our planners for a backup appointment multiple times but we didnt know where he lived. One day we were driving through a neighborhood and Hermana Perez felt like she needed to turn around so she did. Sure enough, we passed by Porfilio as he was getting out of his car. Miracle!! And now we have a date set with him! October 12 is the day we are working towards! 

Okay Gilberto also has a date! He is fantastic and we love him but he won't do the things we ask him to do. We are workin with it!! 

Thats our investigators with a date set right now :) They are GREAT GREAT people :) And they are so helpful with me and the struggles of communication haha I had an emotional meltdown in the middle of one of the lessons with Hugo and Gilberto, but they were super encouraging haha it was great. 

So the embarrassing story of the week I already emailed to dad, but I will make it easier on Cassie. I was in Principios del Evangelio with all our investigators, and the teacher, who speaks only Spanish, says "Quien en este clase tiene hijos?" (or something like that... the question was, Who in this class has kids?) In my mind, I heard amigos... "Who has friends in this class?" So I start thinking, well I have to raise my hand because all my investigators are my friends! So I proudly raised my hand and the teacher started laughing at me.... Then my investigators started laughing at me....Then the class started laughing at me... So yeah. It was a little embarrassing. Then Hermana Perez says, "Hermana. You definitely don't have kids...put your hand down". Yea that happened. It was super funny. ;) 

ALSO one of the less-actives in our ward, Inocencio. He is this 87 year old goofball haha he acts like he is 7 years old. We were in a lesson and asked him 70 times to say the closing prayer... he refused a bunch of times then finally agreed to say it. He started it off normally, then prayed that Hermana Perez would shut her mouth!! So we all laughed, then asked him to start again. He started normal, then stopped talking. We waited with our eyes closed for a while, and he poked Hermana Perez in the head! Another time, after he'd started normal and stopped talking, we found him holding a chile pepper up to Hermana Perez's mouth. Another time he started SINGING. He is loco haha ;) 

Anyways, its been a crazy week. I have learned a lot about how hard missionary work is, but also about how important it is to get over myself. I got SUPER stressed this week. I was really discouraged and negative... but I learned a lot about gratitude, positivity, and trusting in the Lord. It was a good week! And I am counting my blessings every day because there are plenty of them! :) Channelview Texas is the promised land! I love it :) 

Hope you all have a great week! I love you!! :) 
Sincerely, Hermana Rogers

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