Familia,
Hola hola! Glad to hear that things are going well there.
Sounds like the girls are having a blast with all of their activities. Things
are going well here. Not too frozen, and lucky for you all I actually have a
few good stories to tell this week!
Firstly, I forgot to tell you the BEST part of last week!
Last Sunday Luis blessed the Sacrament! It was awesome. And this Sunday the
Bishop asked all of the men preparing to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood to
stand up, and it was so cool to see Hugo, Sotero, and Luis stand up. Just the
best. Sotero just received the Aaronic Priesthood yesterday, and Hugo and Maria
got called as ward missionaries! Maria is super stoked to go with us to citas.
:) and Luis has been going out with the Elders and loves it, he is going to be
a bomb missionary.
On Thursday we went over to the Sarmiento's (Sotero, Silvia,
y Nolberto) and their brother Roberto was there. We have talked to Roberto a
couple of times, and he always has a lot of questions, but they generally seem
kind of antagonistic. But he's a cool guy, just never seemed to have much
desire to know if this is the church of Jesus Christ, but Thursday when we went
over, he asked us if he could be baptized! It was kind of shocking, but super
sweet. He said he wants to, he just doesn't know if he can come to church
because of work. So it is still going to be slow going for him, he has to make
a lot of changes and his faith has to grow a lot, but as for right now he is on
date to be baptized the 22nd of March!
Remember Cruz? The investigator that took us to the city,
and to sushi, and is generally the best person ever? Well, the last month or so
we haven't seen her. Her phone has been acting up, and then she has also been
avoiding us. We weren't really sure why, and it was super sad. We really missed
her. But we have kept visiting her mom, who is less active, and we finally
caught Cruz one day and set up a time that we could come visit with her on her
day off. We really needed to know what the heck was going on, because she had
kind of just dropped off the face of the earth. We went from seeing her like
everyday, and if she didn't hear from us she was upset, to her disappearing, so
we needed to find out what happened. We went over there on Saturday and it was
kind of awkward at first. Like when you see someone for the first time after
breaking up with them. But then it got more comfortable and finally she told us
what was going on. Turns out that she felt like a hypocrite meeting with us and
reading the Book of Mormon, because she was still going out and partying and
doing things she knows God doesn't want her to do. The thing is, we NEVER
taught her the Word of Wisdom or the Law of Chastity, she just could feel that
those things weren't right after she started reading the Book of Mormon. And
because she is scared to change, or something, she ran away from the happiness
she was experiencing, and from what she was telling us it sounded to me like
she has been super depressed lately. Also, she didn't want to get too attached
to us because she knows the Hermana Maughan is leaving in March and that I
could leave basically whenever, so she told us she was trying to do a
"pre-separation" thing. Which is sad. But, she said we could start
coming over again, and she told us when her days off are. So we're going to
start slow, not just jump right back in, but she said she will read this week,
and is still praying. So hopefully everything will get better. She will totes
still be baptized, just not as fast as we were thinking before.
And then yesterday we had a straight up miracle. For sure.
So before I got here, Hermana Maughan and Hermana Noyes found a guy named
Alejandro who has a ton of potential, really wants to learn, but is just a
workaholic and lives in like the very corner of our area they were never able
to really teach him. They gave him a Book of Mormon, and we have stopped by his
work and his home many many times trying to find him, but have never been able
to catch him. Well yesterday, we got out of an appointment a little earlier
than planned and were in like the farthest edge of our area with about an hour
to kill. And I just kept thinking we needed to go see if we could find him
again. Which was weird, because I have only met him once, briefly in the
restaurant he works at. I told Hermana Maughan that, and then asked her if we
should go to his work or his home. She didn't say anything and just asked me
what I thought. Logically we should have gone to his work because that is where
he ALWAYS is, especially around dinner time, and it was about 7:30- dinner
time. But I felt like we needed to go to his house, and when I told Hermana
Maughan that she said she was thinking the exact same thing. So off we went to
Alejandro's house. and guess what!! He was there! He opened the door and asked
us to come in, and we were both like, "oh man. . . now we found him, but
we can't even go in because there isn't a woman at home. . ." But we asked
anyway, "hay una mujer aqui?" and he said yes! Turns out the reason
he that he was home, and not at work is because he left work early to go to the
airport to pick up his esposa who just flew in from Texas. THAT DAY! Like 4
hours before we went over. And she wants to learn more! I can't even explain in
email how awesome it was, because it just FELT so cool. And Alejandro told us this crazy story about
how he used to be in this gang in the city, the Kings, and he got a girl
pregnant and then she kicked him out and he ended up living on the streets for
like a year. In Chicago, in the winter, he was on the street. And SOMEHOW he
got out of that and the Kings alive and miraculously met this guy that taught
him how to cook, and liked how he cooked so he hired him at his restaurant. So
now he has a job, and a tiny apartment, and a super super sweet esposa, and he
knows that God exists and he really wants a better relationship with Him after
all of this. He has even been reading the Book of Mormon! He takes it to work
with him to read, and he has talked to his coworkers about us, and he told us
one of his coworkers wants to learn more and gave us a referral! We left that
appointment on a definite spiritual high. The spirit was just so strong in
their apartment. It was legit.
So that was basically my week. It was sweet. I hope
everything is going well for you! Keep up the good work team. Love you all!
Les Quiero,
Shaelyn
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