Wow, what a week! A lot of change, a lot of growth, a lot of miracles.
First of all, our area is now a biking area, and I'm training a new missionary. It gets a little hectic running around (literally), walking, asking members for rides - but the blessings are HUGE! Just from walking around and talking to everyone, we found 8 new investigators this week!
On Monday, we had a Family Home Evening with our 9 year old recent convert, Yesenia and her friend, Abbie, from Primary. It was so fun - Abbie is really a blessing, because Yese has a hard time understanding the lessons, so Abbie sits next to her and helps. When I asked, "Are you two friends?" Abbie told me, "No, we're best friends." Whoops- my bad! :)
I was very sad to see Hermana Oliphant go - she was a hard-working, loving, and we got along really well - but Hermana Beamer is a very good missionary! She's very focused and quite bold. She has a powerful testimony and doesn't mind walking. She even said to me the first time we walked, "We can walk a little faster if you want!" Her very first day in the field, we taught a lesson completely in Spanish and she did very well! I think she knows more Spanish than she thinks she does.
We went to a less active members house to practice our Spanish by teaching them the first discussion. About halfway through, they expressed to us that they don't feel comfortable at church because no one ever talks to them. My companion was able to whip out a scripture (Mosiah 2:9) about the reason why we even go to church. Once she shared that, the wife said, in essence, "You're right - we need to change the way we think about church!" It was a miracle.
Our bishop asked us to go see a less-active member named Maria Hernandez. He told us she was blind, but didn't give us her address or phone number - and we found to our surprise that she wasn't on the ward list! The next day, we walked to an appointment with a potential investigator that fell through, so we went to visit a less-active family. They not only knew Maria, they told us where she lived, what her phone number was, and offered to give us a ride home! So that was another miracle (and a good opportunity to practice Spanish, since the family was bilingual.)
We had a dinner with one of the Hermanas in the Young Women's presidency. We asked if there was anything we could do to support her in her calling - she asked that we visit Zelda, one of our investigators. When we told her we already visit, we decided to dig a little deeper and ask about her family. We were surprised to find out that one of our inactive recent converts' husband was actually her brother! So we were able to set up a family home evening with them and her and two of their mutual friends in the ward. We're excited!
We walked by a man named Martin and his little grandson that had just pulled over because their car had broken down. After we asked if he needed any help and he said 'no, his house was close by,' we told him we were missionaries. His literal reaction was, "Heck, yeah!" (that's a direct quote) and he told us, "Follow me!" So we walked with him to his house. My poor companion didn't have a clue what he was saying, he was speaking some rapid-fire Spanish, asking us about our beliefs about the trinity, about Jesus Christ, and about Heavenly Father. We arrived at his house and met his wife, Dora. She was equally enthusiastic to receive us. They accepted a Book of Mormon, (Martin was excited: "More of God's word?! Yes!!") a Restoration pamphlet, and Martin said a very sincere prayer. In the prayer, he said, "I know that there are no coincidences!"
We found an investigator named Dominic - or, rather, he found us. We were sitting in the shade, taking a water break on the sidewalk, when he walked up. We began to talk to him and discovered he was Christian. He gave us his address and phone number, and we set up an appointment right them and there. We gave him a Plan of Salvation pamphlet (we were fresh out of Restoration) and asked him to read it. Not only did he read it, he tried to answer the questions in the back and had some very good questions about spiritual vs. temporal death. He's not a strong reader, so he had to have some help on the hard words, but we were able to answer all his questions and help him figure out how to use the pamphlet to find his own answers. Later that very same day, he called us and told us that he got confused because his girlfriend prays to the Virgin Mary, but he doesn't - and when he tried to explain to her what we explained to him, bless his heart, he got confused. So he told us that he prayed and "God and Jesus told me to call you!" :) It was a miracle and we were able to actually talk to his girlfriend over the phone. She and Dominic want us to start teaching them next week!
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO awesome!
Love, Love, Love,
Hermana Smurthwaite
P.S. GUESS WHO WE FOUND??
We weren't able to get an autograph, unfortunately... :)
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