Hunucma - Week 9

Holaaa!

This week at church we had TWO new people! Yay!

One is a guy that scuba dives for a living and drives a mototaxi. We met him like a month ago because he gave us a ride in his mototaxi and he was pretty interested, just that he didn't have the time. We've run into him twice since meeting him.  He told us, because of the weather, his work got cancelled, and he wanted to go to chuch.  He actually went! It was really sweet because he said before coming he felt nervous about going, but once he sat down he felt a peace come over him.

The other was a guy who the missionaries before us taught and who's called randomly from time to time asking for them. He called Friday and said he wanted to go to church, and he went too! A member introduced us to him and he wants to start listening again.

Berenice was also at church and 2 of her kids. She's ready to be baptized pretty much, just needs to decide if she's moving or not. Her situation is a little complicated because she's separating from her boyfriend, but she's not positive where she's going to go yet.

Other things this week...

I celebrated my 22nd Birthday!!!  It was pretty normal except for lunch. We ate with a member who's husband ALSO had his birthday May 3rd.  They invited the other missionaries and put out little decorations that they had,  which was really cute.

One thing our leaders have been bugging us to do is ask for references. They've been telling us to be almost obnoxious about it and try and get the names of all possible people from them.

On Saturday night, we went looking for a guy who wasn't home that we'd contacted like 2 weeks ago and we met his neighbor (and sister-in-law) instead. We invited her to listen and she told us politely no, so then we proceeded to ask if she knew anyone who could benefit from our message. At first she said she didn't know anyone her, even her neighbors, because she's in the house all day. But, we kept insisting on who she knew who was passing through difficulties and she ended up coming up with the names of 3 of her neighbors.

The first was one we'd already met, the second wasn't home but has a super cute family that told us the next day we could come by and the third was a super awesome lady named Betty. We showed up at her house and met her son and husband who were super nice and let us in. A few minutes later she walked in and after we started talking to her a little bit she said what a miracle it was that we showed up right now in her life. She barely discovered that she had a tumor in her brain, and she said she's in need of comfort. All of her family (4 older kids that live with her) are really nervous about it too. We started teaching plan of salvation and she liked it a lot because she said she'd never heard about the pre-mortal life.

One thing that was disappointing this week is that we found Pedro passed out and drunk when we went by to see him. When we saw him later in the week, he confessed that he gave in and drank. With him, reality is starting to hit and I'm pretty sure he won't be able to get baptized super fast because his addiction is really strong. He has the desire though and asked if we could check on him everyday to help him not drink. Poor guy.

This week  we had to be in Merida again, THREE times!  Thursday they talked to us about a topic that I really liked. They said that the prophet and apostles had recently felt that as a church, we're missing something to strengthen our relationship with God.  In order to find out what that was, they all prayed and fasted together and all came to the same conclusion, which was how we're keeping the sabbath day holy. When I thought about that, it really is so true.  When I was younger, I always thought sunday was boring and how it was a chore not to get to do "fun" stuff on Sunday. I think a lot of times we feel like if we go to church, that's good enough, but it shouldn't be like that. A day is 24 hours and if you try, there's a lot that can be fun, but helps you feel the spirit too. One example I like is of charging a cell phone. If you let it only charge 10 minutes, the battery doesn't last very long. But if you leave it until its completely done charging, it lasts for days. The sabbath does that for us, gives us spriritual energy to face our week with an eternal perspecive in all our decisions.

The best news of this week...we just found out Elder Bednar is coming on the 22nd of may to speak to all the missionaries and members. And apparently he speaks Spanish. Cool right? So I’ll get to end my mission with a visit from an apostle!

Well, see you all in 3 weeks!
Love Hermana Harper