Monday, January 18, 2016

Letter #67 01/18/16



This week started out with exchanges with the cute swiftcreek sisters.
It was an absolute treat. I went to swiftcreek with Sister Bray, the
worlds most interesting human aka she's from England and uses words
like "banter" and "biscuit tin" and basically within two seconds
you're speaking like a Brit and it's a real good time. We saw some
wonderful miracles and I was rudely awaken to the fact that I can no
longer teach the gospel in English..  I spent so much of my mission
life as an English human that I was ambidextrous, but now, being
immersed in and saturated with Spanish and passing time with Hispanics
nearly all the time I was awkward as can be. It was a neat thing, and
one of the first times I've felt like a true Hermana.  Hah.
On the exchange we had a lesson with one of the recent converts named
J. He is a really really great kid with so much potential. He got
baptized but his family is really against the church and so it's been
really hard for him. We were just talking with him about the struggles
that he's been going through and just how much he wants to be good,
when this really hard looking guy walks by in the park. He was walking
his pitbull, listening to music blaring from this radio he was
carrying around. I felt like we should talk to him, but I also kind of
had one of those moments where you semi judge someone in your mind
because of their appearance and think that they probably won't be
interested in the message.

As he walked back to the other way I just waved and said hey! He saw
us and came over. Turns out he and J are friends so he sat down
to talk. He told us that he moved here recently to Virginia to
straighten out his life and that he wants to build a better future. We
talked about heavenly father's plan and how there really are no
coincidences. It was super windy but my heart was warm. Have you seen
the picture of Jesus Christ sitting on a bench with a teenage boy
dressed all in black? I felt like I was there. In the picture sitting
with two really incredible sons of God that just don't know how much
he loves them. It's those moments that make missions worth it.

Okay, remember how J Gramajo el papa didn't come to church last
Sunday because he had to work last
minute? So we had a lesson with him during the week. We left
him to read 3 nefi 11 and he read it! He drew little stars in the
margins close to the verses he liked. Haha! It was so sweet. And when
we brought up his baptism to tell him that we needed to push it back a
week he interrupted us and said, "yes! I AM getting baptized on the
30th!" So we didn't argue. He came
to church on Sunday, even though it was really snowy and many members
didn't make it. It was a miracle in disguise though because the bishop
had more time on his hands and talked to him, found out about his
baptismal date, and later told us that the plan was that he would be
baptized on the 30th of January, receive the priesthood shortly after,
and baptize his daughter in law and son the 20 th of February after
they get married. Wow! And speaking of weddings, this super less
active lady randomly gave the other sisters in our ward two wedding
dresses the other day.. And they were like, well you can try them out,
because they knew we are planning like twelve weddings. And one dress
fit Es PERFECTLY and the other, El. WHAT IN THE WORLD?
It's so beautiful how Heavenly Father's plan is so much grander than
we think. Heavenly Father wanted The Pe-Al family back in
church so He worked through their sweet kids. Heavenly Father wants
Jo and Es and El and Le married, so he works
through this random less active lady to get the marriage ball rolling.
IM SO GRATEFUL to be working side by side with my Heavenly Father!

THIS WEEK was crazy. There's so many other miracles that took place.
Maybe I'll write them in a letter and mom can copy and paste them.
HEAVENLY FATHER blesses us. He loves us. He's here.

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