Hola Family and Friends!!!
Hope you all have had a fun week! Time is flying right? Another week has come and gone. Lots happened this week! Conferences, meetings, more meetings and all of it was super awesome.
I'll start with the conference on Friday. It was President and Sister Kusch's last multi-zone conference for their missions, so it was a conference mixed with a little bit of sadness and excitement for new changes also. They both seemed super calm about saying goodbye. It is so clear to see that they have given everything of themselves during their missions. After THREE years of serving they have supervised about 600 missionaries in the mission. Crazy right? It's been such a blessing to have had such supportive leaders like them throughout the mission. They treat us like their own kids! And they do their best to show us their love and appreciation. I really do love them and am grateful for all they have taught me. I love how President Kusch started off the conference, he said "Cada misionero es un milagro" ["Every missionary is a miracle"]. He also explained to us that a truly successful missionary is one who has learned to feel, recognize, and act on the promptings of the Spirit. Then he repeated again, each missionary is a miracle. That is so cool. Success isn't always what we think it is.
Yesterday we went to visit an active family in our ward. Well, semi-active. the mom of the family doesn't come to church. We don't know why yet, but we felt like we needed to go by and get to know them better. What's more, we've felt like visiting them the past couple of days and yesterday morning at church the dad of the family gave a talk. So we definitely had to go by.
We spent some time in their home trying to connect a Mormon message video on their laptop. The one we wanted to watch didn't work...Awkward. So we watched the ultra sad video of the mommy blogger that learned to endure after being severely burned in a plane crash.....yeah... maybe not the first option for a family we don't really know well with little kids. But it was the only one that worked and it has a GREAT message about enduring challenges and trials. It even talks about the beauty of motherhood too. We tried to make it work. We asked the kids how they felt about the video afterward. Each one started off by saying, "Well, it was really sad but..."
Ha-ha.
They got it though. The mom was pretty quiet. We didn't want to have a lesson of "hi nice to meet you, why don't you go to church" because we didn't want her to feel pressured at all or to think that we were only there to get her to church. We felt like we just needed to get to know her. She told us, the video was really sad (haha) but it is true that when we trust God, our trials are bearable. Her husband then thanked us for coming and said, "It's interesting how without even knowing it, you shared exactly what we needed to hear."
:')
I'm content when plans fall through or when we do something accidently instead, because we move out of the way so that things can work out like they need to. Does that make any sense?
Well, before we left Hermana Q pulled out her nifty cootie catcher/inspired question generator to ask for references from the family. The kids picked random numbers which opened up to the question "Who do you know who LOVES enchiladas and is not a member of the church?"
(Super inspired right?)
Then the dad and kids shout out Brother E! The dad says, "One of my employees used to listen to the missionaries. He was about to get baptized but he has to get married first. He and his girlfriend have gone to church a bunch of times and want to get married and want to get baptized. My son will show you where they live okay?"
:O
OKAY!!
We went straight to their house and a young man and a familiar faced young woman come out.
"HEY YOU, we know you!"
We had met this young woman two days before in the conference with President, she helped serve the food to us after the conference. What the heck. The whole time we thought she was a member. They both almost immediately told us, "We want to be baptized but we know we have to get married first."
:O
"We just need to get our paperwork in order. We know the church is true. We also don't want to get baptized just to get baptized and then become less active. We want to do this right."
:O
They are so super awesome. They accepted the invitation to pray for God to open the way so that they can get married and baptized at the end of June. We are also praying for them! We know that for those who love God, all things work together for their good. It was such a miracle to meet them. They are ready! They want the gospel! I am so excited for them and to start teaching them.
Uhh...and talking about escogidos (or golden investigators), we met an awesome family who are sooo ready for the gospel. The biggest challenge will be for Brother A to find a new job so that he can rest on Sunday and go to church.
He is so super cool.
He is a reference from missionaries that met him a little while ago. When he said the prayer...
WOOOW. Just like a member!
We asked him if he could meet the Savior in that very moment what is the first thing he would say or ask him. His immediate response was, "I would ask for forgiveness."
He says that his past is a burden to him and weighs down on his conscience. When we talked about baptism, they loved the idea of being able to be cleansed from their sins. Brother A accepted, but his work will make it nearly impossible for him to come to church, but not impossible for him to keep learning about the gospel and gain a testimony of the Book of Mormon. So we are excited to start teaching him and his family. We know that the Lord will prepare the way for him to keep each and every one of the commandments.
1) The work is picking up here. We are trying to gain the confidence of the members. We are trying to serve them and love them and help in any way we can. And we keep seeing improvements with each day.
2) We were also warned a few minutes before conference by President that he 'might' call on my companion and I to share an experience that I shared last week (of the family we taught with the restoration video.)
Ahh... the nerve!!
He did call on us like he said he 'might'. I thought I was going to pass out. Ha-ha. But I guess hearing myself share that experience out loud was a tender mercy. I realize that compared to God, man is nothing...because we are not the reason why people feel the church is true. It's the Spirit's work, most of the time, we just get in the way. BUT at the same time, we are still everything to God.
3) I am in the same zone as one of my favorite former companions!!! WOO!! I just saw another of my favorites on Friday too...I just wanted to cry from so much happiness. It feels like seeing family whenever I run into old companions.
4) The latter companion informed me that one of our former investigators was given a calling in the Young Men's as a counselor and goes to the mutual activities each week. This is a big deal to us because before he was baptized Hermana C and I always talked about how we wanted him to be the Young Men's president after getting baptized -- Dream semi-realized!!-- ha-ha
5) After speaking Spanglish most of the mission, Pure English is practically impossible to speak. For real though, so during conference, one of the elders asked President a question but said in English "I have two questions, they are both docturnal". Like Doctrinal, but now doctrinal doesn't exist in his English vocabulary, so it's docturnal........ Life is real hard.
6) Yesterday there was another great talk given in church where he talked about not being afraid of living the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, "No tengas temor de ofender el diablo." Or, "Don't be afraid of offending the devil."
Live like you believe, yo.
7) We are teaching a ridiculously cute little girl and her family. The mom, Sister A, can't read but wants her kids to have all the advantages in the world to be more successful than she has been in her life. She wants her kids to go to church and be good people. They are so great! The little girl came to church yesterday with another member and when she saw us, she bolted down the hallway and yelled "HERMANAS!" and gave us hugs! She came for primary!! Woo hoo! She tells us that she is going to be a doctor one day, that she is going to teach her mom how to read, and when we asked her what she likes to do, she said, "clean around the house and help my mom make tortillas by hand." CUTE!
8) We were given a very very special reference from a member who told us that she hates giving out references to missionaries because they never follow up with those people.
*gulp*
Besides, the reference is someone whose husband left her when she suffered from cancer, whose niece committed suicide, and then her own son committed suicide two months afterward. We went by to visit this woman, and she seemed so happy outwardly, but as we talked for a moment her eyes welled up with tears and everything came out. She is afraid of growing close to God because each time she has, she has experienced some tragedy in her life. We talked to her a little about the power of the Atonement and how the gospel will help her heal. She has a strong character, but she gave us hugs and thanked us for coming by and welcomed us to come by again this upcoming week. So we'll see what happens!
9) We went to a very quiet residential neighborhood and went looking for a few members and future investigators. As we went by, there was a lonely convenience store in the center of a cul-de-sac, and a woman was seated smiling at us. We asked her for directions and hurried off on our way. Then the Spirit stirred my soul. hahaha.
She was a little lady completely alone, just happened to be nice, just happened to be open to us and curious about what we were doing and I. DIDN'T. CONTACT. HER.
Then my companion says, well, she was super cute! Then we both stopped in our tracks and ran back. We talked with this woman, Sister C, and she said that she wasn't interested. We asked her about her family and made small talk. She told us that her husband left her and died in another country while she was in Mexico, and her children live somewhere close by in the state, but she doesn't know where because her children refuse to talk to her.
Whew.
She says, "I'm struggling with the pain of loneliness."
Then my super inspired comp offers her a Book of Mormon. We opened it to the back and taught her how to read it using the guide in the back. I was flipping through the pages trying to find a topic that might interest her or help her, then I flip open to the word paz, or peace. My companion and I said PAZ at the same time when we were trying to find a topic for her. Sister C had the biggest smile on her face and asked us if we could pass by her business every time we were there so we could talk and teach her about the Book of Mormon.
Woo!!
She is the perfect wife candidate for a recent convert in our ward too!! We are going to try to introduce them to each other this week. We are the sister missionary match makers.
10) Life is just good here. I love being a missionary.
Hope you all have a great week.
Love you all - you are in my thoughts and prayers.
Con MUCHO amor,
Hermana Fernelius
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