(Always wear your seatbelt, it's very important) :-)
This is "The Golden Gate of El Paso." It's an artistic row of windmills that lights up at night.
And here is a picture of our Zone.
So typically, when we find a new person to teach and it's not through a member, we set up an appointment, confirm the appointment the day before and the day of, show up on their doorstep - and they're not there. Or they won't answer calls or texts, so we can't confirm.
HOWEVER, let me tell you about Rogelio, a 40-ish year old man who we taught a 5-minute Restoration lesson to outside his house. Teaching the Restoration of the Gospel, including the prophet Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, in just five minutes is more difficult than it sounds. We saw him in his driveway, working on his car. We walked up to him, planning only to ask him if we could come back another time and teach him and his family. He smiled (also out of the ordinary) and told us, "I don't speak English." We told him, "Perfect! We're Spanish missionaries." He smiled wider and asked us, "What is your message?" I looked to my companion, and asked him, "How much time do you have?" He put down his oil rag and said, "I have 5 minutes." We had practiced a 5-minute Restoration lesson that very morning.
To make a long story short, HE called US the day before our first appointment, very apologetic, and asked if we could reschedule, he wasn't going to be there. This was a very good sign - he truly wanted to hear more! Stay tuned!
I have learned of the power of prayer. As I pray for our investigators, our members, other missionaries, my family, and others, I feel my love for them grow. I also learned the significant difference between personal prayers and public prayers.
We have recently begun re-teaching three Hermanitas (young women), whose names are Maria, Stefanie, and Jasmine. Their father is in jail, so their mother works a lot for their support. They also have three younger brothers in foster care. Whenever we visit, the mother is not there - the three girls, who are 18, 16, and 12 have the hardest time understanding prayer. We are struggling to teach them - mostly because when we ask them questions, they shrug their shoulders and don't answer. We explain that prayer is like a conversation with our Heavenly Father - how we can tell Him anything that is in our hearts. We explain that the scriptures help us find answers to our questions, and we gave them a Book of Mormon with pictures, to help them read. We ask them to pray during lessons, to see how they pray, and we mostly just hear them repeat the same three things: we thank thee for the Sister Missionaries, we thank thee for our family, please bless us. We finally had a breakthrough when we gave them each an index card and told them to write the five most important things in their lives. They had good answers - Family, my friends, my teachers, my goals, my future. We explained how the Gospel Blesses Families - how families can be together forever only if they all get baptized and sealed in the temple. We explained how reading and praying and going to church help us keep our covenants. We are still struggling to teach them, mostly because the teaching methods we're used to - reading from the scriptures and asking understanding/application questions - are not the way these girls learn. We struggle to figure out what their learning language is. We'll keep working on them and I'll let you know how it goes!
We went to see Letty Gonzales. She was a referral from Hna Andrade, in the Primary program. We actually had a former investigator at the same address, Maria Para. We learned that Letty and Maria are in fact one and the same - Letty was recently divorced and started going by her middle name. She lost her son about a year ago. We reminded her of the Plan of Salvation, which according to her teaching record, she had been taught numerous times. We came back the next day with Hermana Andrade, and taught Letty the Restoration of the Gospel. She wasn't nearly as emotional as the day before, which I was happy about. She and Hermana Andrade knew each other from work, and Hermana Andrade's testimony of the Restored Gospel was powerful! I believe Letty's clarity of mind during that lesson was essential to her understanding the priesthood and how she must be baptized by proper authority if she ever wants to be sealed to her son.
Jahayra and Oliver are doing a lot better - their faith is strong, and they plan to be married soon.
We visited Guillermo Lopez. It was an Awesome lesson - he hadn't read, which wasn't awesome, but we brought Karem Vidaurri, the Bishop's daughter, with us. She bore a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon, and my companion and I followed suit. We opened Preach my Gospel to chapter 5, to "The Book of Mormon answers Questions of the Soul." We slid it across the table and asked him to read the questions silently to himself. We asked him if he had ever had any questions like these. He said, "yeah," contemplatively looking at the questions. We passed him a pen and an index card, and he wrote down a few of the questions with their corresponding scripture references. He gave himself homework, which was perfect - we challenged him to read, pray about what he read, come to church on Sunday, (which didn't happen, he was out of town) and be baptized. I'll keep you updated!
If you, my fellow full-time missionaries, ever wonder whether you should bring a member along to lessons, I have two words for you: DO IT! Just DO IT! :-)
One last piece of awesomeness - our recent convert, Enrique, who's 67 and was baptized shortly before I arrived, FINISHED the Book of Mormon. But behold, this is not all - He started reading the index. The INDEX! Who reads the Index!?!? Enrique Ramirez, that's who. AND he noticed there were a TON of references to "D and C". "What's D y C?" he asked us. We happily gave him a copy (it was a miracle we had a Spanish one in the trunk), and he promised to start reading! AND he said he would start reading the Book of Mormon all the way through AGAIN! He's awesome. :-)
That's all for this week!
Love Love Love,
Hermana Smurthwaite
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