Hey
hey hey boys and girls! I hope everybody is well and enjoying the first falls
of snow that I´m sure are starting to come. Before you complain, take a moment
to remember yours truly in 115 degrees who will go 3 years without seeing snow.
You´ll feel a lot better. But good thing I love Rivera anyway!
We
went as a zone today to this AWESOME park camping ground thing in the outskirts
of Rivera. One of my zone leaders has three BASEBALL mitts and a baseball.
Playing catch never felt so good! also, fun fact: Latinos are SUPER amazing at
soccer. Baseball...they play about as well as I play soccer. Haha to each his
own.
This
week was super great! Full of miracles. Every week is full of miracles.
So the
first is Mirna. Her progression is incredible! On Tuesday we went with a member
to her house and taught the first part of the Plan of Salvation (in our mission
the lesson is split in 2). She shared the same doubts with the member, Mirta
Cal, as she had shared with us. Mirta was a big help because she has also been
in other religions but said she never felt so right as she has in her years as
a member. My companion and I decided that instead of beating a dead horse
constantly talking to her about the priesthood authority that makes the church
different from others, which really just brings us around in circles with her,
we were just going to keep teaching her the doctrine and continue encouraging
her to keep reading and praying and the Spirit would take over.
She
said another amazing prayer at the end, saying "Help me God, because I
don´t want to get it wrong this time. I want to be sure. Help me be sure."
And then at the end of the prayer she said "While I was praying, I saw
a light. It lit up my whole being." She recognized it as an answer,
but still wants to keep learning more because she really does want to be sure.
But her sincere desire to know is incredible! It´s fun to teach her because
it´s amazing to see the way the Spirit always manages to touch her.
But
yet another amazing tender mercy from God was when we went back on Saturday.
She said that the night before she went to her church, and the priest took out
some herb saying that if they blessed it it would heal them. And so she told us
"that´s not from God. I didn´t like that. So I´m going to have to Pastor
Nelson." WHAT. Yet ANOTHER way in which the Lord touched her heart! We
invited her to church and said we would pass by her house to walk with her. But
we were running late, so right at 9 we called her to ask if she was ready, and
she said "i´m already here in the church talking with some people!"
INCREDIBLE. And the fellowshipping in this ward was phenomenal. We did have
much time to talk to her afterwards, but we´re hoping she was able to receive
even more of an answer to her prayers. It´s been so awesome to see her
progression from the very first time we taught her. Keep praying for
Mirna!
The
other thing was José. José is Belén and Valentina´s dad. He´s the only member
of his family that isn´t baptized. The mom and their little brother all are.
José is someone who requires really sloooowwww warming up to to win his
confidence. Before, he would actually drive around the block to avoid seeing
the missionaries if he saw them walking on the same street of his house. With
the other Hna Barrios, we decided to start to go inside for a glass of water or
something every time we went to pick up Belen or Valentina to go out with us,
so that we´d at least have an excuse to say hi and shake his hand. From there,
he is still slowly warming up, but he will come up and talk to us, he´ll make
jokes, he´s a lot less serious. He has NEVER, and I mean EVER, been to church.
He has only ever come to an activity or two. Well their little brother Franco
turned 12 a little bit ago and was receiving the priesthood yesterday. So we
walk out of Sunday school and who do we see? JOSÉ. With his family,
waiting to go into sacrament meeting. WHAT. I hugged Belén and Valentina and
literally started crying and they just laughed at me. But it´s because I love
this family so incredibly much and I want them so badly to be able to be an
eternal family. There is still a loooooong way to go, but this was a huge
step.
Long
story short: God is good. So, so good.
I love
you, I love you, I love you!
Hermana
Dolan
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