Hi family! First of all, thank you for your prayers this week.
We've been praying hard too to find success. Last week was the lowest
of the low, and this week has exploded with miracles. I know that your
prayers helped us to have success.
The highlight of the week--we had 4 investigators at church! These
are four new people we found on Monday night this week. Leslie and
Flor are cousins, and Flor has two boys named Michael and Jesus that are
8 and 10. We taught them the message of the restoration and about the
Book of Mormon and they were super excited! Flor was fascinated that
there were scriptures about Christ in the Americas. They are so awesome
and really prepared. We invited them to church and they said they'd
come but they'd drive themselves. Sister Osborn and I were panicking
all morning waiting for them to arrive. They left late, and then got
lost. We were praying hard that they'd keep going and not give up and
turn around, and then 5 minutes before sacrament meeting started, they
pulled up in the parking lot! It was truly a miracle. We've been
struggling a LOT to get people to church, and then we had this family
come. It was amazing, and definitely an answer to many prayers, both
mine and yours, I'm sure. We'll be teaching them again tonight, so
hopefully all goes well!
Other highlight of the week--I went back to Richmond for an
exchange! It was sad to see that some of my recent converts are
struggling and are not active right now. It's truly painful to see them
make decisions that won't make them happy. The temptation to beat
myself up for not "teaching them right" or not fulfilling all of their
needs as a missionary is definitely there, but in the end, it's their
decision to live the gospel or not. That's why the atonement is
there--so we can get back on track when we wander off, which we all do
to some degree. But it is still sad to see people I've come to love so
much struggling as new members. Imagine how our Heavenly Father feels
when we don't do what we know is right! But the sadness of seeing some
converts not progress is a stark contrast to the enormous joy of seeing
converts who ARE solid and still progressing, namely, the AVILES
FAMILY! It was so good to see them again. The oldest girl just got
back from her first YW camp and the mom is calling the whole ward to
repentance and getting them to do visiting teaching. The littlest girl
shared her testimony of the plan of salvation with a lady in the library
this week, and they are reading the Book of Mormon every day and going
to church. It was so FILLING to see them and to see that they are truly
converted and are enduring, even through trials. They are so special
and it was a huge blessing to see them for a few minutes when I went
back to Richmond.
Things are going well with exchanges. This week I left the area 3
times in a row, 2 of them back-to-back, so I lived out of a suitcase for
a few days. It's a huge blessing to meet the sisters, be in their
areas, and be in this calling. And it's a huge blessing to have a
companion that is a wonderful example and a rock-solid missionary. I
love Sister Osborn so much and it's sometimes hard to have to share my
companion with other missionaries 3 days out of the week! :) She's
wonderful and we have lots of fun together and I love working hard with
her. Just being her companion is one of the greatest blessings I've
received from serving a mission.
Anyway, I hope you have a great week! Time is FLYING, as always. I'll hit 10 months this week! AAAAAAHHHH! Scary.
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