Hi Fam Bam,
Well, all in all, we had a great great week, with lots of success and lots of miracles. I wrote about a lot of it in my letter to Pres Ellsworth so hopefully you can look at that.
But...first and foremost...FAMILIA PAZ! IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAYYYYY! The mom and the three youngest boys. We've been seeing them lots and lots this past week. Well, except for Leticia, because she goes missing for days at a time for work and that makes us super nervous!
But, we started prepping them on like Thursday for their interviews. Leticia was MIA from like Thursday to Saturday, which made it really hard. But we went over all the questions, and they were doing alright. Needed to go over repentance. Eduardo is the 10 year old and we're pretty sure he is a compulsive liar...or just really likes story telling. So we went over repentance and he starts telling us he's done "150 crimes" and all these things. Then he says he needed to say sorry to his brothers, and so he says sorry to them for being mean to them and he repents right then and there and the brothers say sorry and they all have a great moment of forgiveness and all hug! So good. Hno Pedro Vasquez went to get them all white shirts and ties afterwards, which you hopefully saw pictures of. So then on Friday we continued to go over the questions with them. They know some things in Spanish and some things in English, which makes things difficult. For instance, we're like "What is tithing?" and they go, "Diezmo!" hahhaa.
But on Saturday we headed over to the VC for their interviews. Sister Watkins and I were stressing most of Saturday and Sunday because the mom was MIA and we didn't think the ward would let the boys get baptized without her. And we have no way of contacting her when she's gone. Anyways, so they go to their interviews. You could tell they were all kind of nervous...Carlos got mad at Sister Watkins because she he asked her if he was dirty and she said "a little" and so he got mad and she told him "you're my favorite dirty boy in the whole world!" and he took that to mean "You're the dirtiest boy in the whole world!" So, we arrive at the interviews and Carlos is not forgiving Sister Watkins haha. Alex, the 12 yr old, is super nervous. And Eduardo and Carlos are wrestling on the ground in front of the Christus. So, we were all a little high strung. But they passed their interviews! Elder Meza had to come out in the middle of his interview w/ Eduardo because Eduardo told him that he had gone to juvy (he's 10), and so the older brother Joe had to get him to tell the truth. Oh jeez haha. And Elder Carrillo, in his interview w/ Carlos, convinced Carlos to forgive Sister Watkins in preparation for his baptism. So, they were all happy.
So the three boys came to the Halloween party that night (which I'll talk more about), and they were all set for church the next day, but the mom was still missing. That night we asked their oldest brother and he said that Hna Paz had told him that they were all going to church the next day, but we didn't know how reliable that was.
So, Sunday morning I'm stressing out really bad trying to figure this all out. We get to their house to see if they're awake/ready for church, and lo and behold Hna Paz opens the door, she is AWAKE, she is DRESSED, in a DRESS, which is MODEST and she is READY for church! And the boys are AWAKE and they are dressed in WHITE SHIRTS ready for church! Such a miracle, and the sign that we needed to see to know that the mom really was ready to take this step and support her boys through it...that they were not dependent on us.
So we get to church, and this is my favorite moment. Hna Paz's dress went to like just above her knees, basically what most members wear. She was sitting next to me in gospel principles, waiting for it to start, and had her books on her lap. She takes the books off, hands them to me, and then goes to adjust her dress so that it covers her knees! Sister Watkins and I were just like...in shock. Hahhaha something so little but we loved seeing a moment like that to show how they can catch onto things.
So, they stayed for all three hours and afterwards had an interview with the bishop. We went by last night and talked w/ Hna Paz about her baptismal interview and she seems ready. So excited!
So, that's the big miracle. Other big miracle...we had seven non-members come to mutual! We've been trying to make a push to use more activities. So we rounded up some of the kids in the ward to walk with our investigators to mutual. We were outside waiting for them and saw them all round the corner, looking like a huge gang, showing up to the church to play volleyball. so happy.
Then, the Halloween party was another huge miracle. We had 25 non-members that we had invited show up! Crazy! About 15 investigators and then some potentials or little kids. Sister Watkins and I were running all over the place, trying to accommodate to all of them. We'd turn around and see another random person we had invited on the street. We had decided that we were going to try to do chapel tours during the party to get people to come to church. So we ended up doing about 3 chapel tours that were really simple but successful. I also saw a bunch of people from my old Liahona 1st ward which was very happy.
Que mas...we had a funny story. We were going to a lesson at night this past week and had left our bikes at a member's house. So we met a different member outside the lesson, but they weren't there. We visited some other people then had to walk home, because it was an hermano and we couldn't go in his car. But, it's definitely the more dangerous part of our area so he didn't want us to be alone. So he said he'd follow us in his car home to make sure we got there okay. We got to a major street and our bikes were close by so we told him we were fine and we'd call him when we arrived home. He drove off, and about 2 seconds later we hear this "Excuse me!" and we look and it's this lady and her 4 kids. She goes "Do you know that there's a man tha's been following you for several blocks?! We were so worried about you!" hahahhaa. So she had been following us for blocks to make sure we were okay. We ended up walking the rest of the way with her to her home, and invited her to the halloween party. And she came! She's english speaking but it was so good.
Anyways, so lots of miracles. There are definitely still hard days, anxiety is like a minute to minute battle, but then I see all the miracles and it shows you that it's worth it, no? Anyways, I love you lots! Love, Sister Fors
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