Week 11 - August 30

 Hola todos!!! Esta semana fue super largo y mucho paso! :)

So much has happened that I'm not sure where to start. So last week I
talked about Eder and about Brando a lot. We were so excited about
Brando, although a bit nervous that he was doing things for the wrong
reasons. But he was progressing-reading the Book of Mormon, praying,
trying to strengthen his relationship with God, so we were hoping he
was doing it for God and not for us. After we emailed last week,
Hermana Starling called President Brough and asked him about what we
should do and if we should continue to teach him. President said we
should continue teaching him for a week and then see what happened by
the end of the week. Unfortunately, that didn't last long.... The next
day, we were on Facebook contacting people, and Brando messaged
Hermana Starling. He said "I have a question....." So of course we
were like, "Oh what is it?" His question was "Is it a sin to like a
Mormon?" We didn't know what to do, so we called President Brough
again and asked. He said that we should tell him that it isn't a sin
to like a Mormon but that since she is a missionary it is
inappropriate. He told us we would have to stop teaching him and that
Elders would take over...... Our "golden" investigator was gone....
And we don't actually think he is willing to meet with the Elders. It
really hurt Hermana Starling to find out that he was doing it mainly
for us.  He is an amazing guy with so much potential, and we thought
he was so ready to change and receive the gospel. We are praying that
one day he will realize that life is more about having fun in the
moment, and that God really can be a guide in his life. But at least a seed was planted and we hope one day he will remember the things we
taught, when it is more of a priority for him.

To make things better (sarcasm), on the same day, we dropped our other
awesome investigator, Eder. He was just so close to having everything
click that it was also really sad to drop him. The reason we did was
because he kept missing appointments and was ignoring our Facebook
messages. So I guess we dropped each other.  We went from 3
investigators to 1 in the matter of a few hours.

We are always trying to find more people to teach, but after that, we
were even more in need of people to teach. We were praying that we
would be able to find people that are prepared to receive our message.
Each night, we had been calling about 5-10 "potential investigators"
in our area book and either asking them if they were interested or
leaving them a message. We also planned on dropping people who weren't
interested and setting up appointments with those who were. On Tuesday
night I called and left about 5 messages in Spanish on people's
phones. About half an hour later, we got a call from one of the people
we left a message with!!! He said he got our message and wanted to
meet with us! We were so excited!! His name is Daniel. We set up an
appointment with him for Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we went to an apartment complex called Colonial Oaks.
There are a lot of people from different countries that live there, so
it's a great place to talk with people who speak Spanish! We went and
knocked on a few doors of people who had talked to missionaries
before. The first one turned out to be the apartment of someone
different than who we had record of. But guess what?! She spoke
Spanish!! And she was really quite nice. We took her information down
and set up an appointment with her for the next day! We weren't sure
what to expect, but were very hopeful that she would be willing to
receive our message. Her name is Josephina and is middle-aged (I'm
horrible with guessing ages). We continued to knock on more doors
without a ton more success, but we were able to invite people to learn
more which is always good.

Then we went our appointment with DANIEL. Daniel is Cuban. Cubans are
fabulous and I love them. Unfortunately, I can't really understand
what they say to me. Especially Daniel. He talks really really really
fast. At times, I can't even figure out what words he says let alone
what the words mean! Haha so good thing Hermana Starling is a pro. But
anyway, we sat on a bench outside (we can't go in the houses of men
without a woman there) and taught him about the restoration. He seemed
really accepting of all of it. He said he believes in God and Christ
and nobody else. So we had that in common, which was a good starting
point. He also shared some experiences with God and talked about how
no one else in his family believes the things he does ( I can't be
sure that's what he said, but from what Hermana Starling and I and the
Spirit concluded together, it's bound to be right ;D). So we gave him
a Book of Mormon and asked him if he would read it and pray to find
out if it is true. He said he would be willing to do that. Oh and did
I mention that it was pouring buckets on our heads at this point????
Yeah we were very wet, but were we going to let that stop us? Since
when did rain stop us? Never. :) We were very happy at the end of the
lesson because of the miracles the Lord was providing for us. We hoped
Daniel would prove to be someone searching for the truth in his life.

We then went and taught Jose and Roger what to say at the doctor in
Engish. It was super fun because their cousins Maria and Milton who
they live with joined in and we helped them too. We pretended we were
the doctors and they were the patients and they had to respond to
questions in English and tell us about their symptoms, etc. It was
actually really fun. We wanted to show up wearing doctor's outfits,
but a combination of lack of planning and lack of time made that
impossible.

When we got home that night, we closed our planning session with a
prayer. As I prayed, I asked that someday we would be able to talk
with some of the people whose doors we had knocked on during the day.
Literally right after the words were out of my mouth, the phone rang
and it was someone whose door we had knocked on that day. He was like
"My friend told me you passed by today"... Etc. So we set up an
appointment with him. So that was a miracle. We were feeling a lot
better at the end of Wednesday because of all the tender mercies we
had seen. It was incredible to see how the Lord really wants His
children to hear the gospel, and when we have faith He prepares a way
for us to cross paths.

Thursday we taught Josephina and she loved what we taught her. She
said she believes in God but doesn't go to church. It seemed like our
message rang true with her. We invited her to read the Book of Mormon
and pray about it.

Friday, we were able to have an online lesson over Facebook messenger
which was amazing! It was very weird and different for us because we
had never done it before, but it was also awesome to be able to talk
with Hermana Starling about what we wanted to say and what videos we
could share to bring the spirit. We also were able to pray through the
voice recording feature. Technology is SUCH a blessing. God's work is
going to start moving so fast once more missions have the chance to
use Facebook. It's really exciting to be a missionary at this exciting
time!!!!

On Saturday, Hermana Starling was super sick. So we stayed inside
pretty much all day. Which was really hard on her because we had to
cancel like 3 appointments in the morning. But we both had a good nap
and ate some crackers and cheese.

In the evening, Hermana Starling was feeling better so we met with
Daniel again and taught him the rest of the Restoration. We emphasized
receiving answers to prayers and how God really does listen to us and
wants to help us. As I told him the first vision, he seemed like he
really felt the Spirit. He was really accepting, especially after we
clarified that we don't worship Joseph Smith, we just respect him as
the prophet who the gospel was restored through. He said he knows God
answers prayers and that he listens to his prayers. We invited him
again to read the Book of Mormon since he hadn't last time. We also
invited him to church and were THIS CLOSE (picture my fingers really
close together) to having him agree to come, and then he backed out
and said "Oh I will come next week". We weren't sure what to think
because he seemed like he believed the things we were talking about,
but wasn't willing to come to church with us. We do know it's a big
change and is scary so hopefully he will be able to come next week.

Sunday was fine because the people who were speaking gave us their
talks before Sacrament meeting and we were able to find the scriptures
in Spanish and translate much more smoothly. Well, all I did was find
the scriptures. Hermana Starling did the translating. But I translated
the prayer! Go team. :) And then in Sunday school I managed to follow
what was happening in the lesson and translated for a woman in Relief
Society. Thank goodness people are patient and understand how hard it
is to learn a language. The lady was very sweet and although I'm not
sure she learned much from the lesson, at least she knew I was trying
and that I loved her. So that was good.

We tried to set up a family home evening with the Perez family and
Daniel on Monday. Daniel told us he would come and everything and we
were so excited. Hermano Perez called and got his phone number so he
could coordinate with Daniel for what time to pick him up. About 10
min later, we found out Daniel had backed out. We were so sad. We went
over to his house and talked him and he said he had work at the time
it was supposed to happen, but he sure didn't look like he was going
to work. We set up an appointment for tonight and we are going to tell
him we can't keep teaching him if he doesn't do things we invite him
to do, like reading and praying and going to church etc. If he hasn't
read by tonight, we will tell him to let us know when he has read and
we will set up another appointment. It's sad, but there isn't much we
can do if he doesn't have the desire to act on his faith.

I slammed my finger in the door at the church sometime during the
week. It HURT! But I remained calm and said to my companion who hadn't
noticed that my finger was stuck, "Will you open the door?" I think I
said it quite frantically, but I didn't even scream. Except for in my
head. Anyway, the moral of the story is it didn't turn any cool colors
:( But it still hurts if I push on it too hard. So we don't think it's
broken. Maybe just bruised? All ye doctors out there, what is my
diagnosis?

So on Sunday we were in a trailer park TWEing and just bearing our
testimonies to everyone we met. We came across a guy and he started
asking a lot of questions. We answered them to the best of our
abilities and the answers made sense to him. Then he seemed willing to
listen so we asked him if he had like ten minutes to listen to a
lesson. We taught him about the Restoration of the Gospel and about
the story of Joseph Smith. We said a prayer right there in the street
and then taught him. The spirit was definitely there and then when we
got to the part where Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father appeared to
Joseph Smith, the wind picked up a ton and we had to move closer to
him and talk really loud so he could hear. He was like "Wow, seems
like Satan doesn't want me to hear this or something." We were like
"Exactly!" Something always seems to happen at that part when we are
teaching. Without fail, because Satan knows how powerful the story is
and how much potential it has to change lives. Luckily we got our
point across and he seemed pretty interested and a lot of his
questions were answered. We set a return appointment and friended him
on Facebook so that was awesome!! We are so excited to teach him again
because he seems so ready for the truth and he has been asking all the
right questions. I will keep you updated :)

Monday we had a new missionary training with President Brough and the
Assistants to the President. We talked a lot about baptism. The Spirit
was so strong and I learned a lot of great things from it, but one of
my favorite things I learned was about expectations. We talked about
how if we expect that we will baptize people, then we will. Maybe it
won't happen right away or in the way we expect, but it will happen.
We also talked about the importance of having desires to baptize.
Because that is really our purpose as missionaries. We don't want to
baptize because it's a number and we get some kind of recognition for
doing it or because we feel good when we have success. We want to
baptize because baptism is the way someone enters into the Kingdom of
God. It is a SAVING ORDINANCE. Without baptism, you cannot return to
live with God again. With baptism, you can start on the path to living
in the presence of God for eternity with your family. We know how
important baptism is in God's plan and how much He wants His children
to return to live with Him. We want people to be baptized because we
love them and want them to be happy now and forever.  So we will
baptize. In the month of October we have a mission goal that every
companionship will baptize at least one person. And we are going to do
that. God will provide a way.

I love you all. I am so sorry this is so long. It was a crazy week :)
Let me know what's going on in Utah :)