Me quedo en esta area y con el Elder Thayne

So for my last transfer I will be staying here in Indianapolis with Elder Thayne! This means I will have spent 6 transfers in this area alone, and 9 transfers in this branch. Which is over half of my mission! 

This week was good, as always. I don’t think there has been more than like one or two bad weeks on my mission :) So that’s awesome :) 

So sadly, that awesome miracle that we had with America doesn’t seem to be progressing. She doesn’t seem to have as much desire as we had hoped. We got everything set up for her to come to church, and the members showed up and she didn’t answer her phone or the door. And she isn’t answering us either. :(

We had a crazy lesson with Jesus and Estefani this week. So the member fell through, so it was just us. And their kids went CRAZY!! So half way through the lesson Elder Thayne had to go and step outside (don’t worry I could still see and hear him) and appease the three boys by throwing rocks and stuff. SO that left me with Jesus and Estefani. They were going through a hard time and so we were helping them understand the atonement and how Christ can help us. But then I was left to do it all on my own while Elder Thayne kept the kids occupied. Man that was scary! I never realized how much I rely on a companion. But the spirit sure helped and they were definitely touched. Estefani came to church again this week! :) We need to work harder on Jesus because he didn’t come again -___-

Friday was a great MLC and we got to learn a lot about faith and how to help investigators come to church. This was President Cleveland’s last MLC and it was interesting to see how emotional he got when he talked about how much he has loved his mission.

Saturday was stake conference, and it was super great! Talked about being joyful and living the gospel :) On the way up we stopped by Rosas mom’s house because we had heard that she was going to be there with her BF, so we got there and his car was there. We were so pumped to find her again! So her mom answered the door, and she lied to our face and told us that Rosa wasn’t there! Man I was so mad! But we will find her when we need to find her again. 

La meta no es el bautismo, sino la exaltacion

This week was very good and uplifting :) We had the chance to go on many exchanges again, and that always is fun :)

We have had some awesome lessons with Estefani and Jesus. We brought some members that live close by, and they connected very well! After one of the lessons, we had to go, to be back home on time, but the members stayed after to continue answering the questions that they had. We were able to teach Estefani about the Book of Mormon, and the member, Brother Stout, shared how he came to know that the BOM was true, then after the testimony, Estefani wanted so bad to read it! She also came to church on Sunday! Jesus stayed home with the kids (those kids are nuts!) so we will be working with him to get him and all of the kids to come to church next week :) 

On exchanges with Elder G. Wright, we were able to get his two solid investigators back on date for June 18th! We were able to talk to one of them about getting married and the blessings that it would bring her. We also talked about her quitting smoking, she was talking about how it would be hard. So I was like, "Do you want me to help you never ever to want to smoke again?" She said sure. So I went off an idea that another missionary had told me he did once. So I asked her for the remaining pack of cigarettes that she had. Then I asked her to boil a pot of water. We then disassembled all the remaining cigarettes and dumped the tobacco in the water, let it boil for about 5 minutes. Then voila! You have cigarette tea. We even put ice in it to make it iced tea ;) Then we had each of them take a sip of the stuff. Gosh, I should’ve recorded their faces! I was then told how it was some of the nastiest stuff they had ever tasted! Then we put it in bottles so they could always remember what they were consuming :) 

We have also been able to meet with America, she is progressing, but really slow. We have been told of a lot of things that have happened in her life that still haunt her. So we are making a big deal of Christ’s atonement and the power of repentance. 

At the temple with some recent converts.

Honorary picture since the Indy 500 was Sunday

De verdad, Dios es un Dios de milagros!

Let’s just say this week has been a week of miracles!

So we went on two all day blitzes this transfer. I was with Elder Norris and Elder Bigelow. Two great missionaries. We had a really good time and had some cool success :) But with doing two blitzes we only then had 4 days to do work, and then we also had Zone Conference which took up most of another day, so really we only had like 3 days to work in our area. But man did those three days get packed with miracles!

So in Zone Conference we had a training on obedience and just recommitting yourself. Everyone can always do better, and I committed myself to do better. It was a great conference. And from this commitment to do better and an all-day fast we had, came all the miracles.

So miracle number one; that in 3 days, we were able to hit all the Standard of Excellence (which is the goals the Mission President has set for us) and to even surpass some of them.

Miracle number two. We were tracting after an appointment had fell through, and the second house we knocked was this lady named Estefani. She told us that the missionaries had taught her two times before, each in different areas because they moved without telling anyone. She also told us that 20 minutes before she had been praying to God and asking him if he was even there. Then we knocked on her door! Then Elder Thayne realized that he had taught her when he was in training, and that the story of how they found them in the first place was a miracle in and of itself. She then told us that every time she had been found by the missionaries, she had been going through a hard time. So we were able to testify to her that God really does exist and that he has a plan for her. She then told us that she wanted to be baptized, and that she had already given up all the stuff that had been holding her back the first time. So we told her to pray and look at a calendar to choose a date to be baptized with her husband. She told us that she wanted to be baptized the last Saturday in June, and he does as well :) We have a lesson with them tonight so we are super excited!

Miracle number 3. We were tracting yesterday night, and it was like 8:15. We knocked on a house, and no one answered, so we walked down the street. We saw that the house we had knocked didn’t open because all the people were out in the back, but we didn’t see any Hispanics so we just moved on. But then someone yelled to us. I was like, "oh great, another yelling person." But she asked us, "Do you have a bible that I could have?" We were like ,"YES! But only in Spanish, do you read Spanish?" She said she did. Then she asked, "Are you Mormons?" I said that we were and then said, "Are you?" She goes, "No, but I wanna be one.”  Elder Thayne and I were blown away! We then continued to talk to her. Her name is America and she is from Nicaragua, but has lived in the states her whole life. She said that she met with missionaries before, and that she liked how they taught and made her feel. She is going through a really hard time right now, and trying to recover from being homeless. But she really wants to change. We were able to also put her on date for the last Saturday in June :) So we went from having 0 people on date, to 3 in one day! And they were all people who had been found that week by tracting! So even though the hours are long and grueling, there are great miracles that can be found!

I trace all these miracles to my renewed commitment to change.
The verse in Mosiah 2:24 " he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you."
Is so true! IF we do what he commands, he doth immediately bless us! I know this to be true :) I love this work, and I love helping people come closer to Christ :)