Hello Familia Fors!
Okay, lots to tell. This is the last week of the transfer, which means I have transfer news! And let's just say Sister Watkins and I ended our transfer on a great note, we had a great, very well-balanced week...before we were struggling in that we had lots of lessons but no one at church, and this week, all of our key indicators ended really well and balanced! We had seven investigators at church! Which was great.
OK...so, transferencias. I am staying in the area! and heading back to the VC! Which will be crazy because there is so much work in this area, but with Christmas lights our time in the area was bound to be cut down either way. Sister Watkins is going to Liahona 1st to be with Sister Holladay there, they're getting bikes instead of a car which makes sister watkins really happy and sister holladay not so happy. Also, the Paz kids' grandparents live in that area, which is where I met Leticia...so Sister Watkins will get to meet them! I'm getting Sister Schwartz! She is from Georgia, was studying anthropology at BYU before coming here. Her mom is LDS but was less active for years and years and her dad is Jewish! She has a cool background. She's the one that I stayed with her her first day out, and I was training and everyone thought she was the sister I'd be training. We're really similar and get along really well, and just joke around a ton. We've both been full field for the last 3 transfers so we always talk about how we never see eachother and why we've never been companions, and here I'm with her my last transfer! I feel like it'll be great...we'll have a lot of fun, and Heavenly Father is really being kind and blessing me with great circumstances for this coming transfer.
Okay...que mas, well...the weather! It's cold already! And on bikes, it's colder! I got my winter coat on and scarves and everything, but it's actually really nice and beautiful, and they're getting the Christmas lights all ready and it's very exciting.
Okay, so I'll tell you what all happened this week, and my letter to the president is just copy and pasted throughout.
So, we had SEVEN investigators at church yesterday, plus 6 little non-member kids that also came but are under age 8. We had a miracle family, Familia Zazuetta, all come to church. They came to church for 1 year straight and no one knew they were members, they started getting taught by missionaries then for one reason or another stopped meeting with them. We visited them on Saturday and they were on board for getting baptized, and getting married beforehand. We set a date for December 8th. They all showed up to church, all 7 of them in Sunday dress the next day for Stake Conference. They're eating dinner with some members tonight then coming to an FHE.
We also had Cristian and Lupita, the granddaughters of a recent convert, come to church with their little siblings. They were also coming before and then since stopped. We've struggled to get them to progress, so it was a big step for them.
We also had Federico (aka Kiko), the oldest brother of the Paz boys, come to church for the first time! Now that his brothers are baptized we've been able to focus more on him, and we're seeing a lot of progress. He came to church and was really happy afterwards. We taught him the Word of Wisdom with a 17 year old girl that he knew in junior high who has been fellowshipping him really well. He needs a lot of help, he has some friends that are bad influences and he has Word of Wisdom issues. But it's been great to see how the Spirit changes him. He went from never talking to us, to never waking up from being passed out to talk to us, where now he wakes up when we arrive, he gets dressed, and comes to church! He's great.
I love Kiko...working with him requires a lot of patience and hard work, because he comes from such rough rough circumstances, but it's so cool to see the power of the Atonement work in him. Normally when we arrive at his house, him and all his friends are totally passed out on the floor, and he just seems dead and depressed. We take him to the Visitor's Center or church, and he comes back a totally different person. And he knows it's because of the Spirit...when we were at the Visitor's Center he talked about how he felt "joy" and how he knew it came from God, and when he came to church for the first time, he was saying afterwards how much he loved the mood and the spirit there. It was a transmitted regional stake conference, which had some great talks but he was thrown off why we all went to church just to watch a tv. But we explained it to him and it was alright. We stopped by Sunday night afterwards and it was great because he was still happy! Normally it wears off the minute he gets back with his friends..but he was smiling and awake and energized and happy to see us. So, he is slowly getting there!
We have another great investigator, Eric, who still doesn't have a date. He had one previously and it made him nervous, but we're hoping to set a date before transfers. He was late getting ready for church, and so his ride thought he was still asleep and left. But this Sunday he seems completely determined to go! We have great lessons with him...we had one with him in the Visitor's Center about priesthood authority. He's studying theology at a university right now, so it's been really fun to teach him on that level. We're trying to maintain our role as missionaries and teach simply while still teaching to his needs.
Eric is probably our favorite investigator to teach. We have so much fun because he really grasps the magnitude of everything that we teach him, we have to be careful to not get too carried away! But with him I've definitely seen how Heavenly Father puts specific missionaries for specific investigators. Sister Watkins and I have been able to teach him in a way that I feel like helps out all of us...I try not to be like weird or prideful about it, but it's cool to see how Heavenly Father uses us as tools to specifically reach out to His individual children. Sister Schwartz will also be great for him.
We have 2 great new investigators...Ana and Isaac. They were a referral from some other missionaries...Ana works with a ward mission leader of Sister Shurtz. We gave them the introduction to read and when we returned she had read all of it and thoroughly understood it, it was great. She was talking about the gathering of Israel and all of that stuff, and then she was like "But I feel like the most important part of all of it was the invitation for me to read it myself and ask God." and we were like "couldn't say it better myself". They couldn't come to church but are coming to the FHE tonight and seem very reliable and responsible.
So, as you can tell, great things are happening. We're working with our recent converts to get them all lined up with new member lessons. We worked with one of them a lot this week because she was still praying to saints...we've had to talk with her a lot about it. It's really sad...she's this older lady who got baptized really quick last fall, and now she tells us kind of that she doesn't really know what she got herself into. She just says she feels happy when she goes. She's the one whose granddaughters we're teaching. So we had 2 lessons with her this week because she still is very clearly holding onto her Catholic traditions...and basically she'd be like "well, praying to the Virgin Mary isn't wrong, right?" and we'd have to talk about it, then she'd be like "Well, my sister sent me this rosary, that's okay, right?" and we'd have to talk about it, and one by one just basically address these things that have been part of her entire life. It's really hard for us, but she's very humble about it and basically told us how we need to be patient with her, etc. We also a less active who didn't come to church last week, then showed up this week but didn't know it was stake conference! We felt so bad. We're also having several of them speak in the charla fogonera in our ward this coming weekend...including Eduardo, the 10 year old! Hahaha.
I am really excited to see what happens this coming transfer. I already know Sister Schwartz will be great for our area. I'm reallly excited to be back in the Visitor's Center. This past week we had the last "departure meeting" of 4 sisters that are all going home tomorrow...it was sad but made me just miss the Visitor's center a lot! I've been gone so long and it'l be so good to be back. It'll be hard because we really do have so much good stuff going on in the area, and it'll probably means some sacrifices on our part, but that's okay.
I love you all! As you can probably tell, I'm pretty excited for all the things that are coming up soon...Christmas lights, Visitors' Center, a great companion, it'll be great. I've learned a lot from Sister Watkins, she is one of the best missionaries out there. We'll see waht the future brings! Love you all! Sister Fors
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