Conference was AMAZING. Loved it.

4-2-2012
Familia,

Well, its been another week. Not too much exciting happened this one, but I'll see if I can come up with some stories for you.

First of all. Conference was AMAZING. Loved it. I can't believe I used to try to sit where Dad couldn't see me sleeping. :P I definitely got a lot out of it this time around. We watched it in the stake center on Saturday and in our building on Sunday. And something cool- in other church buildings the English broadcast is in the Chapel on a big old projector, and the Spanish broadcast on a tiny tv in some cramped room somewhere. Not in the Chicago stake center! Spanish was in the chapel, and all of us native English speaking missionaries were crammed into a tiny room to watch it in English. It was awesome to know that there are so many Spanish speaking members that they got priority. :)

Well, this week has been pretty slow as far as teaching goes. We did have a pretty neat experience earlier this past week. We are currently meeting regularly with the non member husband of one of the hermanas in the ward. His name is Marco, and he is an ex-Latin King who found God when he was younger. He married Alex, who is a member, and he comes to church most Sundays and has met with the missionaries tons, and almost got baptized. . . but he doesn't have a testimony, so he didn't pass the baptismal interview. The problem is that he has never read or prayed about the Book of Mormon. So he has doubts (very similar to those I have had) but those doubts can never be resolved unless he just reads and prays. But anyway, he and I get along really well, my just telling it like it is works well for him. He hadn't been taught for a little while by the missionaries because they got frustrated with him, but when I got here I sat down with him and was just like, "Okay Marco, you know why I'm here. I want you to get baptized. But I want you to get baptized because you believe it, not because Alex or I want you to. So what are your doubts, and what can we do to resolve them?" So we are now meeting with him once a week to read and talk about the Book of Mormon and give him the opportunity to pray about it. But the cool thing that happened this past week, is that we hadn't yet set up an appointment with him, and he called us to tell us he wanted us to come by that night. That he was worried about Alex, because of the friends she's hanging out with, and he was wondering if we could find some scriptures in the Book of Mormon to help her. I told him of course, but only if he looked in the Book of Mormon too. :) So we had an awesome lesson with them, directed toward Marco- but with the stuff Alex needed to hear to. We talked about the Liahona, and how it didn't work when Nefi's family wasn't doing the things they were supposed to. And then we related it to the Holy Ghost, and how not only does it not guide us when we aren't being obedient, but it also can't be with us in certain situations. So we need to always "stand in holy places and be not moved" so we can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost. Overall, it went really well.

We also realized that one of the daughters of one of the hermanas in our ward isn't baptized! She is 11, and her dad wouldn't give her permission before, but now he seems to be more open, so we are going to start working with her.

So that was my week. This next week will be FULL of miracles. I can't wait.

Hope your week is miracle filled as well. :P Oh man. . . I sound so sister missionary. Disgusting. :) 

Les Quiero,

Shaelyn


Fotos:

Bowling! Oh yeah!

Last time with The Maughan in 8 months. Saddest night ever!