September 4th, 2012

How are you all?  I'm so great!  We had zone conference this week with Elder Robbins of the 70.  Can I just tell you how I love being up close and personal with a GENERAL AUTHORITY?! I love being a missionary. We spent like 4 hours with him just learning and soaking in all of his knowledge :).  He also had a fireside for less actives, investigators and recent converts the night before and we were able to bring 2 of our investigators.  They LOVED it.  He basically taught the message of the restoration and at the end he extended the invitation to be baptized haha love it!  A quote that my mission president said during the fire side was "If you know who you are and you know who God is.....things will be different."  It's true!  Don't ever forget the simple truth that you are a child of God.  In Zone conference, Elder Robbins said "Your obedience will be tested by your sacrafice...partial obedience is disobedience" Bam. I loved that.  So I started a new book of Mormon reading where I highlight in orange- the commandment, blue- the promise blessings, pink- the things we shouldn't do and purple- the consequences...there are SO many. I started in the book of Mosiah and King Benjamin's sermon is all about that.  God is so simple.  IF we do this THEN he will bless us. That's it.  I also loved that he said "you are enrolled in the Lord's university.  You are enrolled in patience 101, humility 101, diligence 101...etc." haha so true.  Ok so have I bored you all with my excitement of zone conference?  I'm sorry...I really am a nerd with this stuff but you have to remember...this is my life 24/7...Gospel stuff!  Just preparing me for the eternities right? So yesterday we had a great FHE with Amber (just got baptized last week)and her family with Denise and Victor (invesitgators who are on date to be baptized the 16th).  Denise and Victor made us some BOMB carne asada...let me just tell you...for a white girl she can cook some good mexican food.  She's great!  So the elders came over too and we all ate and talked, had a good time.  Then Hna. Rios and I taught a lesson on how to make our families and homes celestial because both of their biggest goals is to be sealed in the temple as a family forever.  After we played a game by the elders and then it happened.  Elder Moreno (who is a greenie) asked Denise to say the closing prayer.  Ok so Denise has never prayed out loud before...ever. She just gets really embarrassed saying the prayer so she always says no.  Elder Moreno had no idea that it was a huge obstacle for her so when he asked her, she didn't really say anything.  We sang the hymn and right after we bowed our heads and closed our eyes.  To be honest, I was thinking why she hasn't rejected yet.  There was a long silence so I opened my eyes and saw her struggling...so I shut my eyes and said the most DESPERATE prayer of my life.  then I hear her say "dear heavenly father" my heart has never been so filled!!  Do you understand how big of a hurdle that was for her?? We've tried EVERYTHING.  I've prayed EVERYDAY non stop to know how to help her overcome this fear because I know prayer is essential and she was getting baptized in two weeks.  I felt so relieved.  She took a huge step in faith.  I was so grateful for Heavenly Father's help.  Sometimes I have to remember I can only do so much as a missionary and that I need to leave it up to God.  He is always willing to help, we just have to put our trust in Him.  We have an appointment with her tonight!  So I'm exciting to see how it goes.  Ok well that's it.  Oh I forgot to tell you one of our tracting experiences.  We went knocking like 3 weeks ago...of course it was a day where it was like over 100 degrees and as we were walking on the dusty roads in the trailer parks, we were having no success.  As we saw one trailer, we thought...hey this one looks good...let's knock it.  So we do. Remember we have to be all smiley and perky so people will be interested.  A man opens the door who looks like Thor.  His trailer is super dark and his eyes are squinting because of the sunlight and he has a disoriented look on his face meaning he just woke up.  As we say "Hi sir! We're so sorry...did we wake you up?" Grant it, it was like 2pm but we were smiley and perky and trying to joke with him.  He just gives us the dirtiest look and  just slams the door.  Haha it was so awkward. We just laughed our heads off and just continued walking down the dirt road.  We didn't really have so called success but we had a good time.  I love those times. I feel like a real missionary. Anyways I hope you have a great week! les quiero.