Monday, May 4, 2015

Hello family this week was great just like the last week.  The time is still flying by and it is insane.  The first highlight from this week.  TEMPLE.  We went to the temple on thursday with Luis!  There were other converts there too but it was the first time for Luis.  It was really awesome.  Luis was super worried about the water and how his head was going to be and all that.  But we went in the temple and there was (as always) a peace inside that is so special.  Literally words can't describe what we can feel inside the temple.  The temple president talked to our ward before we did the baptisms and he said that the veil in the temple is very thin and sometimes it doesn't exist.  After that we did the baptisms and afterward we were talking to Luis and he looked happy.  We were talking to him and he thought he was only going to get baptized for 1 person but he did 4 and he said that he was fine and his head didn't hurt him at all.  It is so good to see that he is progressing so much.  

The next highlight from this week was on Saturday.  So this week in our district meeting we had talked about being persistent and we all agreed to be more persistent and just go straight into testifying instead of accepting no for an answer.  Anyways, there wasn't really a differenece in the first part but on Saturday we understood what being persistent really means.  First of all, we were going  to the house of a lady that just got reactivated and she wasn't there but her son answered who is like 45 and told us to come back in an hour.  We came back in an hour and she wasn't there.  After about 20 seconds of walking away we both looked at each other and said why did we not talk with him??  So, FOR THE THIRD TIME we rang his doorbell.  He came out and accepted us and we ended up putting a baptismal date with him for the 6 of June.  

Second, after that we went to a house of this 80 year old lady who had listened to the missionaries before when I first got here.  We went and she said she was busy so we said just for 10 minutes and she again replied no.  Then we said how about just a prayer in your house?  So she went inside to ask around and then she came out and said another time and again we said that the prayer would help her and she said ok, come in.  Then we started to teach a little and at the end of it all we put a date with her also for the 6 of June for baptism. 

Then after that we went to search for a new investigator that we have and he wasn't there but his older sister answered the door and she said no one was there so then we contacted her.  She said that she was really busy at that moment but we kept on persisting and she finally said ok, ya, come in.  So we entered and it turned out that she wasn't doing anything but anyways we started to teach her.  She was probably paying more attention than any other investigator that I have ever had in the mission.  She was able to answer all the questions we gave her and at the end she didn't accept baptism yet but we got invited back for another time.  So all in all we got 3 new investigators from being persistent.  Before this I don't think I really understood what persistent meant but now I do.  It is really easier than it seems to go into a house to teach.  We were able to do great things on Saturday just from going one step farther. 

Also we had another lesson last night in which we were teaching about family history.  We have a convert Yolanda who has gone to the temple but hasn't taken names because her grandpa doesn't want her to be baptized for his parents so we were talking to her grandpa last night to try and get the names.  In the end we didn't get the names quite yet but we were able to soften his point of view a little bit.  And something that I really recognized in this moment was that we are actually in the church of Jesus Christ.  I already new it but this lesson just confirmed it.  Being able to teach him and respond to his questions with scriptures from the Bible (because he doesn't believe in the Book of Mormon) just reassured my testimony.  We are literally in the same church that Christ established in his time.  

This was a great week.  I hope you all have a wonderful week this week and that you have success in everything you do.  Love you all.  Oh and we have a baptism this Saturday if all goes as planned so that will be fun!  Love you all!!