Milagros

Hola Familia,

This week has been pretty sweet.  Missionary work is sweet.

We had fourth of July this week which was fun.  I mean, it was the same as any other day haha except we talked with more drunk people.  Some members had us over and we ate good ol' barbequed... Fish. haha.  They bought some fish and wrapped it in foil and threw them on the grill and then we ate them with the bones, eyes, scales/fins, and all.  Fun times. It wasn't too bad it was just kinda weird to be eating something that was looking at you.  Definitely an experience. 

 

On Saturday I had such a cool experience.  We went to teach a young family.  We have taught them once before and they seemed decently interested but are Catholic and we were thinking they were just being nice by letting us in because we were super sweaty when we came to the door, haha.  Anyway, they are two parents and three boys: 12, 7, and 5 I believe.  Anyway, we decided to teach them more about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon.  First cool thing of the lesson: I didn't realize until afterwards that I was understanding what they were saying.  I almost forgot they were speaking Spanish, so that was sweet.  Anyway, we were teaching them and then Sister Reina recited the first vision, and the spirit was so incredibly strong.  It was totally silent and everybody was totally focused.  It was incredible.  We taught more and explained that the only way they are going to know if this is true is to read the BOM and pray for themselves.  Then they started telling us that they are really glad we've been coming and teaching them and not trying to force anything on them but are just trying to help them.  They said that many different missionaries from other churches come to their door but all they want to do is argue or force their beliefs on them.  The Dad goes, "But you missionaries are different.  You are respectful and there's just something different when you're here.  It feels different." (In Spanish, of course.)  THAT'S THE SPIRIT! We gently explained how that was the Spirit and all that jazz and then they just started asking tons of questions about our church and beliefs and everything.  I'm not good at storytelling, but I promise it was super duper cool and we could tell they felt the Spirit really strongly.  We invited them to church.. and they came! Yay! They're so solid.  We're praying that things will continue to progress well with them. 

This past week we got to meet our new mission president! He's from Liberty, and is really great.  He does know you, Dad.  We had a meeting with him and we all got to talk to him for about a minute.  He is very excited to be here and to get the work moving even more.  It was really cool because he shared some things that he learned from the apostles at his MTC training two weeks ago.  He emphasized a lot about how much this work is progressing and how important it is for everybody to get with the program so they don't get left behind.  One thing that President Ames quote from Elder Nelson at their conference is, referring to Jeremiah 16:16, something about how the days of hunting behind every rock are finished.  It is now through the ward that we are finding the people.  Something like that.  Point of the story is that the most success comes from referrals from members and less actives/part member families.   I've never realized how much of an effect the members make.  It is always so great having members at lessons because they add a lot of validity to what we're saying and help the investigators understand that we're not weird or whatever.  We had a member come to a lesson this week who used to be Catholic, so he shared with our investigator how he came to know that Catholicism was missing something and how he knew our church had it.  It was a pretty bold lesson but really effective and the Spirit was really strong.  We're always calling members and trying to get them to help us out and trying to get referrals. So my challenge to all of you, this week, is to get involved in missionary work! Woo! As a missionary, I'm going to commit you to that.  Will you become more involved in missionary work by going on splits with the missionaries and giving them referrals? Great. I hope you said yes. If not, I would ask why not and then promise you blessings. Haha.

So I came here to Ft Worth with 9 others who are going to Peru and last week 6 others got their visas and are now in Peru.  That was a tad discouraging but it's all okay because I'm enjoying my time here and actually forget a lot of the time that this isn't even "my mission." I love the people here and excited to see how they progress over the next little bit so I'll just do whatever happens.  But, I am still praying for my visa and having Faith that it'll come.

Love you all tons, Have a great week!
-Hermana Jones