Thank you all so much for your wonderful letters! Alyssa: I loved the book so much and I miss you too!! You are the best family ever. :)
This week has been filled with a lot of hard work and milagros (miracles)! Me and Sister Brooks have been working hard and seeing a lot of blessings. Let's talk about some of them!
- First, let's discuss my Spanish. In school and in the MTC, Spanish was not easy for me. At all. I really thought that I just wasn't good at learning a language, that it just wasn't in my skill set. But out in the field, studying by myself and with a companion, taking suggestions and paying attention and practicing and learning, I have been able to learn so much and very fast. It really is the gift of tongues. I mentioned this this week because I have been very comfortable in my Spanish for the last while, but this week in a lesson I was listening to a member share a story and I wondered why she was sharing it in English until I realized that she was in reality speaking Spanish. I didn't even notice! Understanding was the hardest thing for me out here that took me the longest, and it is awesome to see the fruits of hard work and faith. I still have SO much to learn and do in learning this language, but I have come so far with the help of the Lord. He qualifies who He calls!
-Second, wow. We had two finding miracles this week. Last week in our district meeting, our district leader organized a great meeting about finding (tracting) and how we should try to teach when we are talking to people. At the end of the meeting, he stood up and said, "Thanks for making this meeting so good. As I was listening to the trainings, I felt inspired to make this district goal for next week - I know that we can all get 72 contacts (the standard of excellence for the mission) during the week and 3 lessons from those contacts." We all agreed to work on that goal for the next week (which was this week that just ended). We had a few days before the week actually started, but me and Sister Brooks really tried to apply what we had learned. We taught lessons on the spot and contacted better and more efficiently. We felt that we had learned/applied what we needed to from the meeting, but the week of our goal hadn't even started! So this last week we had to schedule a lot more finding time than we normally would have to contact 72 people.
Saturday was a dicey day to start off with with Lindsey's wedding at all, and I really wanted to have a good attitude, but it was difficult because we had I think 6 hours of the day to just contact people. We were going and going and had 3 pretty bad ones right close to each other (where they talk for a long time, but aren't interested at all/don't believe in religion). We were discouraged, but we ended up in the back of an apartment complex decently close to our house. We knocked on a bunch of doors with very little success, and we had about had it. We knocked on one and heard someone come to the door, but they didn't answer. We walked down the stairs and were halfway to the next stairwell when we heard the door open. We came back quickly to find a man looking out of the door with a little girl. We introduced ourselves, but he quickly stopped us with a "I'm sorry - I don't speak English." We asked him if he spoke Spanish, and to our elation he said yes! We re-introduced ourselves and he invited us in. He said that his name was G. and that he recently moved here from Colombia. We met his two young daughters and mother-in-law, F, who were all living in the apartment. We sat down to give one of the best lessons I have been in in my whole mission. It was a moment that I pictured missionary life being like before I came - They were attentive and excited, with questions and smiles, and they were very excited to receive a Book of Mormon. We invited G. to be baptized, but I am not sure he quite understood what that would mean so we will have to talk about that again soon. We are going to meet with them twice this week, one when his wife will be home from work. It was a miracle to find this family. We are so excited about them. Also, yesterday we were doing a last plug for tracting to reach our goal. We were knocking this neighborhood and about to leave, but Hermana Brooks said we should stay. The next house we knocked was an incredibly prepared guy named J. He had just moved here from Connecticut, and knew that we were messengers from God. I am pretty sure he will get baptized! We taught him the whole first lesson on his porch and he loved it. The YSA Elders will start teaching him this week. Anyway, I loved the inspired goal that our district leader set. Without it, we would not have put aside so much time and we wouldn't have found these people who were so prepared for the message of the gospel. BEING A MISSIONARY IS THE BEST!!!!!!!
I really do love it. The Lord blesses me so much, even when I don't deserve it. He knows the days that are hard for me, and He understands and blesses me because I try to do my best. I love the ward here and I love Spanish and I love Preach my Gospel. I love you too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have the best week ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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