Mexico Week 56 -- Did You Think To Pray?

Dear sweet beautiful family! 

Let’s get these pictures explained! 

This is Adelaida and her daughter Ofelia. They’re less active members, but we have really been working hard with them. They are a sweet family and they went with us to see “Conozca a los Mormones” this week!  She reminds me a lot of Megan and we stopped to buy some cookies before entering the Church.  I bought some and she bought some and then we shared!  Ha! Ha!  Her mom loved the movie! It was a good night!

This is the new teaching record for Trinidad! She’s a new investigator that we found this week and she is incredibly prepared! She told us that the day we talked to her in the street she felt completely overwhelmed and she was losing it, she was losing hope. She said she felt something when we talked to her, and she just had this smile as we taught her. She accepted a baptismal date and wants to learn. We asked her to say the closing prayer and she kneels down and jumps right in, Padre Celestial, praying perfectly! We are so exciting to keep working with her! 

The beautiful lady in red is Mayra ... aka Natalie’s Mexican twin.  She is absolutely hilarious. She jokes just like Natalie and they have about the same age.  She cut my hair today and wants to dye it red.  She’s a doll and she goes to church every once in a while, but the sad part is, she lives in the Elder’s area.  Really, she’s the best! 

This beautiful family is Hermano Mike, his wife Claudia, and their daughter Natalia.  Mike is the one that speaks English! He grew up in the United States.  We visited them on Friday and we invite his wife to participate too. She says sure and sits down, TOTAL SURPRISE!!  We start teaching about how we can be cleansed from sin and faith. Hermano Mike is crying and saying he wants to change and his wife gets a little teary eyed too because they have some pretty strong marriage problems and it was just awesome. Hermano Mike tells us, “Do you understand you’re trying to save one of the devil’s captains, one of his head guys?  You really don’t understand who you’re trying to help.”  I felt completely shocked because Hermano Oscar told us the same thing. It brought back so many memories in that moment ... angry dad, broken marriage, family problems, but so much desire to change.  I love helping people.  I love seeing this hunger and strong desire to turn it around. So we invite them to church and Hermano Mike says I’m definitely going, I need to go to church. His wife says I’ll see what I can do.

We stopped by on Saturday too and Hermano Mike with his firm yes and Hermana Claudia saying that she’ll see what she can do to be there. Sunday morning we arrive at church. It’s 10, then 10:10, then 10:20, then Hermano Mike shows up, with his tie, his wife in skirt and heels, and his 9 year old daughter is a beautiful dress, and we are practically squealing! And then they stay the full 3 hours! They are such a beautiful family, and ahh, we are so excited to be working with them! 

We had our zone conference with President this week, and it was incredible! I feel so blessed to have Presidente Camarillo as our president. He’s a good egg!  We talked a lot about the importance of prayer and how we can better help people develop the habit of sincere prayer.  We practiced a lot and we saw incredibly results in our teaching this week!  Our investigators are praying more and it’s sincere.  They’re asking questions and it’s absolutely awesome! 

This week the church will be starting a new initiative kind of like the Christmas one, “Él el la Dádiva” … but this one is “Gracias a que Él Vive.”  As we watched the video, I felt the Spirit so strongly!  I know that He lives. I fall, but I feel hope, peace, and it’s an incredible feeling. As I watched this video, I felt an impression that there are truly prepared people here, people are looking for Him. I feel that we are going to have some great experiences with this video! Make sure that y’all are sharing it too! 

I don’t remember if I told y’all about Hermano Daniel or not, but he lives super close to us and makes bread, and always gives us free bread.  Ha! Ha!  He’s an investigator that expresses the desire to change, but lacks the acting part, and his family doesn’t really want to participate when we go and it’s been pretty up and down with him. On Saturday we were walking by and I realize his car is out front, I felt like we should visit him. I tell my companion, hey his car’s out front, want to see if he’s home? She’s a little doubtful, because well, he’s almost always home alone and we can’t visit him without another hermana. But we decide to knock and his daughter tells us he’s home.  He comes to the door and tells us his wife is home too. We are completely shocked at this point and start to sing and pray and share a message.  We invite his wife and she says, with a little tone, “No! Gracias” and and shuts the bedroom door. We start talking about prayer and he says he’s been praying a lot because they are thinking about splitting up.  We keep talking and then his wife comes out, and says, well the talk interested me.  Ha! Ha!  We testify of the gospel and how much it blesses families and how much the restored gospel is the only thing that will help them be happy. She tells us that she’s pretty attached to her beliefs and that it will be really hard for her to listen to new things, but she wants to try it.  She wants to listen when we teach her husband and says that eventually she’ll go to church.  It was so awesome!! 

Continuing with prayer stories! We visited our recent convert family. I think they were baptized in Febuary, before I got here.  The dad doesn’t go to church anymore because he’s still drinking coffee and says that the church hasn’t helped him like he thought it would and he feels like he just keeps sinning.  We talked about faith and it was a really special lesson and we ask him to say the closing prayer.  We all kneel down and start to wait.  His littlest daughter says, Dad hurry up I’m tired!  Then his teenagers start laughing, then his wife, “why is this so hard for you!”  And we just keeping waiting!  After about 7 minutes, he starts, Padre Celestial. He prayed for strength to stop drinking coffee, for his family and his job, and he tells Heavenly Father why he’s not going to church and how much he wants to go and prays for strength so that he can go and it was so pretty. We were numb from the waist down, but if we just wait, the spirit touches them and they pray!

It was a week filled with so many experiences!  The truth, it makes me a little nervous that I’m going to hit 15 months.  Where did my mission go? It’s so hard but I love being a missionary.  I love serving the Lord.  I love just being immersed in this.  Send lots of prayers my way so that my last months can be awesome!  Love you guys lots!