The work is going forward!

As always, it is so good to hear from you all!!! :) I am so extremely blessed by such incredible love and support :) Thank you so much for all of your prayers! And thank you Joci for fasting for me :) Estoy bastante agradecida por su amor (I am very grateful for your love) :) 

I would love to see pictures of Truck or Treat!!!!!!!!!

And it is so good to hear that Sister Miles got mi carta (my letter) :) Estoy agradecida por su animo y su apoya tambien (I am grateful for your encouragement and your support also):)

I also greatly appreciate you (Mikayla) going with the missionaries tambien (also) :) The members add an incredible witness to the discussions. I also have a deep appreciation for the members and their involvement in missionary work because it is a missionary rule aqui (here)that we cannot leave to  teach after 5:30 without a member. This is for safety reasons and to help extend friendships to the investigators. So again, thank you so much!!!! :)

This week has been very full and..... interesting. But also so miraculous!!!!! :D We have a few investigators that have the desire to be baptized and learn more about the gospel. But they are minors, and we are running into problems with their parents. One hermanaita se llama Carina Canchau (Young girl named Carina) . Ella tiene 16 anos (She is 16 years old). She has been reading the Book of Mormon, and she wants to be baptized. She lives with a lot of family in a little valley, and her parents we never home when she was. She told us her mom doesn’t care if she’s baptized, but her dad said no. 

But we also started teaching her Dad this last week, and our last lesson with him was not good. I understood very little, but mis companeras y yo (my companions and I) had a bad and yucky feeling while teaching him. To say the least, he has very different views of things like the Fall and Adam and Eve and other principles of the gospel. My trainer feels like it is not a good idea to return, we just couldn’t feel the Spirit. But it is very sad because this means we can’t meet with Carina anymore, and this breaks our hearts.

And another family we taught two kids and their grandma, and one of the kids is a 15 year old boy se llama Salvador (his name is Salvador). Salvador’s mom was there but left after we started teaching the lesson. As we were teaching, Salvador was reading and flipping through the Book of Mormon, and he was really into our lesson. He even asked us who Nefi (Nephi) was in the pictures. And he wants to be baptized. We invited them to church, but when we came to their house that Sunday, the Mom answered the door and she was not happy. She said her family already has a religion. But she said she’ll talk with her husband about the matter and decide whether it would be okay for us to teach her kids.

Despite these trails our investigators are facing, we have had incredible miracles this week tambien (also). Like yesterday, we set 3 fechas (dates) for baptism! And this is solely because of the Lord’s hand in our lives directing us and the Holy Ghost testifying as we teach. Yesterday, we found a family because there was a girl sticking her head out her door. We passed her house twice, and she looked out at us both times with a grateful smile. We started talking to her, and then her mom came to the door. My heart sank because I was scared of how the Mom would react to our message. But she invited us in and she was extremely pleasant :) We later found out that she had heard of the church before and that she had gone before in the capital. But then she moved here and lost contact with the church. Her name is Emma :) and her daughter’s name is Samatha (age 9). They both want to be baptized. Emma wants peace in her life and she wants to be closer to God. Their date for baptism is Nov 30, but if they come to church this Sunday, we might move it up closer. It was truly a miracle to find this little family :)

And then after that lesson, we had a lesson with a member’s friend se llama (his name) Diego. Diego is 21 and the member that came with us se llama (her name) Diana (she’s turning in her papers Wednesday!!!!!!!). And like I said before, the added witness of the member invites the Spirit so much more to the lessons, and after we had Diana give her testimony of the Book of Mormon, we invited Diego to be baptized. He recognized the peace in his heart, and he accepted the date of Nov 30 as well. 

Oh, and there this also another boy named Antonio. Can you please include him and his family in your prayers too.

Esta obra es la obra de Dios (This work is the work of the Lord). Te necesito siempre (I need you always)!!!!! This work is true and the gospel of Jesus Christ is also so true. El poder de Dios es poder de Esperanza (The power of God is the power of Hope) :) 

PS. I got a letter from Emily this week. SHE’S GOING TO CHURCH AND SHE KNOWS HOW TO PRAY NOW!!!!!!!!! She says she is praying for me. This is such a beautiful tender mercy!