So this week has been crazy and wonderful! Some highlights: 9-20-14
Tuesday: One year cake!
Wednesday: Hermana Albornoz and I began our branch's mission
program of "Embarked in the Work of Salvation"! We made a huge
poster, swimming in glitter for days, and prepared a branch calendar of the
branch activities that we are going to begin. We're thinking about campfire
nights on the river, cake competitions, game nights...anything we can to unite
the branch! (If your ward or branch had any cool activities, let me know! We'd
love to put them into play!)
Thursday: Moved to our old house that has a bajillion mirrors.
Any Narcissist would love it. There are mirrors every way you turn. Made
our way out to a tiny town to visit a lady named Rosa. We talked about the law
of chastity and how civil union just doesn´t cut it. Her friend, Carlos, stayed
a bit and decided he and his wife will stop living together and get
married so they can better obey God's commandments. Eek! They also gave us like
a thousand mandarins. And they were delicious. We missed the last bus that
passes through Catarama and God gave us another little miracle with a
Evangelist pastor stopped and gave us a lift. God is SO aware of our needs.
Friday: Moved back to our old house, due to miscommunication.
That leaves the Narcissist house to the incoming Elders, hahaha Also, we
painted our branch president's house and ate five times over. We passed by
Gustavo, our investigator that has read the Book of Mormon three times and the
Doctrine and Covenants and the Gospel Principles book and is finally preparing
for baptism (yay!) and shared some pinapple cake for his birthday.
And....SUNDAY!
Hermana Albornoz, our ward mission leader and I all shared talks
about the Work of Salvation. Although we had very little time to prepare, I
feel that Heavenly Father really guided our thoughts and spiritual insights.
Hermana Albornoz talked about Finding People to Teach, I talked about Retaining
Recent Converts and Brother Veloz talked about Resucing the Less Actives. In my
talk, I felt impressed to share the story of Tony. The little, blind Chinese
woman in our ward that walked past the church one day, sat in on a sacrament
meeting (and does not speak any English), felt the Spirit and decided to be
baptized. Because my mother was a faithful visiting teacher and friend, always
stopping by Tony's house in the mornings to bring her to church and memorzing
bits and pieces of Chinese to communicate with her, Tony is active and
strengthening her testimony every day.
In the second hour, we felt impressed to share the Restoration
with the Gospel Principles class. Everyone had a pamphlet to read and they all
participated. Our GOLDEN investigators, the Vinces family (who ALL came to
church!) were all very attentive and the Spirit was strong. After church, they
all accepted to prepare for baptism this 11th of October!
The third hour, we joined the Relief Society and the Priesthood
and trained them in how to share the gospel. We even did practices with the
members (us pretending to be their neighbors or friends) using the
"Family: A Proclamation" pamphlets! And all of the members are more
excited to get involved in the work! Hermana Albornoz and I had barely briefed
our plan for this training, but the Lord helped us so much! We were needed the
entire day in meetings and I felt like my brain was going to fry from
over-usage and too much multi-.tasking. But as always, the Lord was aware of my
needs and sent immediate comfort and basically...super natural abilities.
I am so grateful to have a God that knows our needs.
when feeling discouraged or down or overwhelmed...pray. It
workds miracles.
Hermana
Scott
