This week was awesome as far as teaching goes. I have never had this many member present lessons in my life. It was so amazing-- the members here are great and so supportive and take good care of us! We taught 10 lessons with members, and 12 lessons without (and then one lesson to a Less Active but we had a member with us). Whaaaaa?? We almost had as many lessons WITH members as we did WITHOUT.... That was a miracle and we really saw blessings from having that support for the investigators! :) I am very happy about that!
Well as far as news goes I am not quite sure what to update you on! We have an investigator named Roberto that we have been focusing on a TON this week-- visiting almost every day, and working really hard with him. He has been taught before but doesn't really remember anything from his lessons. I might have written about him in one of my other weekly emails, but he is older, but acts a little bit like a child in his mannerisms. We set him with a date this week, and he said that he really has a desire to work towards baptism. He has a problem with alcohol and looking back, I am not exactly sure if I have ever seen him completely sober. We obviously talk a lot about the Word of Wisdom, but he has been drinking every day for 15 years, so we're praying really hard that he wakes up and realizes that he needs to change.
HE CAME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY!
HE CAME TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY!
...but he came at the wrong time
HE WENT TO GOSPEL PRINCIPLES
...with the wrong ward, completely drunk
WE GOT TO DO A CHURCH TOUR WITH HIM
...and then he left right afterwards, without staying for sacrament meeting...
haha it was quite the interesting Sunday...
But it was still an awesome week! I am pretty sure I wrote about Humbertina and Ezequiel before, and we saw them a TON this week too! Ezequiel had work off so we spent a lot of time with them at their house, we helped Humbertina make enchiladas one day, and taught a couple member present lessons with them too. They know its true!!! And this week we invited them to be baptized... which was reaaaaallly awkward. They told us they were already baptized and so all the promised blessings we had said about baptism already applied to them! So we went over authority again and reminded them about the restoration and they said they knew that was true, but they'd been catholic their whole life-- we had a lot of lengthy discussions with them, and they promised they'd come to church and didnt show up... we will see what we can do this week! Ezequiel went back to work so it will be harder to teach all of them, but we learned a lot about them this past week and I love that family!
Tuesday was a legit day. So in the morning, we went to our 2 set morning appointments and they literally both dropped us. At the doorstep. Back to back... and that was pretty rough. I was disappointed and slightly discouraged, but we walked to go try another couple potentials and no one was home. As we were walking back, there was this guy standing by his fence, so we walked over and talked to him. He thought maybe we were lost because he never sees white girls walking around that area, but we told him that we were the missionaries and he said, "Oh well do you have something you want to teach me right now? Come on in" and opened his fence for us.... so we went in and started talking to him- he had a newborn baby and a 5 year old, and hadn't been to church in years. We showed him the video He Lives and he said, "I have been waiting for something like this" AH WE WERE SO STOKED! But then when we asked him when we could come back he said, oh actually I don't live here... sooooo we had to give his referral away :( (Blessings for other missionaries-- its okay) Then his dad came out of the house and starts giving us all this fruit, and we start talking to him. He was a Pentecostal Pastor!! So we taught him for a while after his son left and he had a LOT of questions, but was also very impressed with our belief and faith and missions and everything. He acknowledged all these things that our churches have in common and asked if we could come back and talk to him more!!!! SO WE ARE NOW OFFICIALLY TEACHING A PENTECOSTAL PASTOR!!! hahah that oughta confuse his congregation...."ummmm so Church this Sunday will be moved to the chapel around the corner....The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. See you over there"
Anyways that was just a cool experience how Heavenly Father can take a hard experience and turn it into a blessing :)
THEN GLORIA AND OFELIA!!! The members of the reorganized LDS church (Community of Christ) we went over there to teach them that same day and Ofelia (the older one, Gloria's mom that has been part of the Community of Christ since she got married--over 40 years probably) she told us how much she loved when we came over and how great she felt when we shared our message with her. She told us about a dream she had before she joined the Community of Christ where she got baptized all in white, and then that was how she knew that the church was true and that she should be baptized. but In real life when she got to her baptism, that wasn't the way it looked. She was at the side of a river and the missionary person asked her if she was ready-- she was just in her normal clothes and went and got baptized (or something like that) basically it was crazy that this dream she had before she joined the church was how she decided to join, and then the way her baptism really looked didn't even match her dream. Sooooo pretty much she dreamed about being baptized in our church-- I think that Heavenly Father was just preparing her for coming to know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am excited to see where they continue to progress to. We had an awesome Noche de Hogar planned with our bishop and his wife and them, but they were sick that day (hopefully legit and not just making that up) But I am so happy with them!!! :) Gloria is so genuinely interested in what we have to say and she reads when we give her commitments! Yay for commitment-keepers!!
OKAY the last person I want to tell you about it Rosario!! So I met her for the first time this week, and it had been a LONG time since missionaries had talked to her! SHE HAS BEEN AN INVESTIGATOR FOR AROUND 30 YEARS or so-- She has the craziest story!! Basically she lives a mormon lifestyle but just was never baptized... she was super close to baptizm about a year and a half ago, but then she brought her granddaughter to church and she cried through the whole thing and told her grandma she didn't like it....so Rosario stopped going? Soemthing like that but then when we saw her she said, "I always stopped taking the missinoaries lessons, but they never stopped coming to me. I have been praying to be guided to the right church, and the missionaries always come back to me. I think it might be Heavenly Father trying to point me in this direction" Ahhhhhhhhh yeaaaaaaaahhhh. We told her that she was ready, she knew enough and we were here to help her continue to prepare. It wasn't coincidence that we went to her house (she wasn't in our plans to go visit, but our appointment that was by her house cancelled so we stopped by) MAN it was so awesome! I will for sure keep you updated with her!! She is golden and I am so excited to keep teaching her :) Her mom is a less active so we are going to be working to get them both back to church!
It has been such a great week :) I am kind of freaking out that my halfway mark is coming up so soon, but I am learning and growing and loving and serving every day and it just feels like this is what life is supposed to be! I love being a missionary! There are definitely still struggles, but those just get swallowed up in blessings!!! For example I got a letter from Marco this week and he is doing AMAZING and told me all about blessings HE has received and how grateful he is for the gospel and how much he loves to read and go to church and the temple and I am so happy! The church is SO true. IT BRINGS HAPPINESS AND CHANGES LIVES! I love the mission! I love you all! Thank you for your support and love and encouragement!!!
Have a great week!!
Love, Hermana Rogers
Have a great week!!
Love, Hermana Rogers
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