I seriously cannot believe that another week has passed. There is so much happening all the time I hardly have time to realize what day it is haha.
So anyways, about the week. We seriously have the best investigators in the whole entire world! I'm getting to the point where I'll get all excited when I look at my agenda for the day and read all the wonderful people we're going to get to visit. I've really been trying to focus this week on learning how to love the people we teach...and it's amazing how much of a difference it makes. I still don't understand everything they say, but when I'm legitimately trying to understand what they're saying and trying to help them with their struggles, somehow the Spirit helps me to understand enough. I think they call that the gift of tongues or something like that ;) haha.
I'm pretty sure that I mentioned Alejandro to you guys last week, but seriously, this investigator is GOLDEN. When we go to teach him, I feel like all the stuff we try to tell him he just absorbs and looks for how he can start applying it to his life. He's only had a Book of Mormon for a little over a week and he's ALMOST FINISHED. I don't think I could do that. He prays every day and he says that when he prays and reads the Book of Mormon he really notices that he feels so much more peaceful and like everything is going to be alright. It's so amazing to hear him talk about his experiences and to see his faith grow. He came with us to church yesterday and it's like he fits right in already. We're hoping to invite him to be baptized this week!! I'm so excited because he is so ready.
Another one of our wonderful investigators is named Renato. He's 14 years old and he has such a desire to learn. Whenever we go to visit him, I feel his love for the Lord and his desire to do the right thing, and it just makes me so excited!! He asked a really deep question in Sunday School yesterday about the Millennium...I'm not really sure how to answer him with that...I've got a lot of studying to do before our next visit with him on Wednesday! Haha. But he is really ready for baptism too, he just needs to realize it. I think he thinks he needs to have an experience like Joseph Smith with the church before he makes such a special covenant with God--which is SUCH a great perspective--but hopefully we can help him realize that the good feelings he gets everytime he reads the Book of Mormon, prays or attends church is an answer from the same source as the one Joseph Smith recieved.
This week, we also had our Capacitacion de 5 semanas (training 5 weeks)! Can't believe I've almost finished my first exchange in the mission field. It's seriously so crazy. But it was such a great day...so fun to see and talk with all my wonderful friends from the CCM and hear a little bit of their experiences and how their Spanish is coming and everything. It was kind of surreal to see them all again, but so much fun! The conference was really focused on the things that we should be doing every day with our companions: during study time, to contact people, and to plan in the most effective way. Hermana Rios and I came away with some inspired goals that we've been trying to apply, and it's been going really well. Besides all that, it's always great to see President and Hermana Rowley. They're really like our parents in the mission and it's amazing how much I've come to love them after knowing them for such a short time!
Yesterday was an amazing experience at church. We were able to have 3 investigators and 2 menos activos that came to church, and it was really amazing how my perspective of the meetings changed as I tried to understand what they might be seeing and hearing from their perspective. It was a really neat experience for me, and from the way they were acting and the questions they asked and what they told us after, it seems like they had a wonderful experience as well. It made me so happy to see how happy they were after church!! :)
OH! Almost forgot. Craaaaazy experience on Saturday night haha! We were walking down the road with one of the misioneras del barrio on our way to a cita with Alejandro, when someone called out "HERMANAS!" We turned around and it was this probably 27 year old guy that we'd only taught once (and only because he happened to be home when we were teaching his mom and dad). Anyways he came up to us and was like "Ive been thinking a lot about what you guys taught me this last week, and I've been reading the pamplets you left me....last night I woke up at like one in the morning and couldn't sleep because I was thinking about all the things we'd talked about. I was really reflecting on my life and the things I've done and I prayed for forgiveness, and now I want to be baptized." Straight up. Almost exactly like that. Haha It was so crazy! We made an appointment to visit with him the next day and invited him to church, then left. I was freaking out like...what the heck in the world just happened!? Hna Rios helped me calm down a little bit haha and helped me look at it with a realistic view. We'd only met with him once after all and she was a little bit concerned about his motives for baptism, so we decided we'd have to be careful with our response haha. Sure enough, he didn't come to church the next day...but he was there for our appointment that night. He still seems to have pretty good desires to me, but he needs a lot more knowledge before he takes the next step. Hopefully we can work with him and help him find the right reasonings within himself so he can be baptized!
One last thing--IT RAINED THIS WEEK!! Apparently it's that winter's here, since it's rained 2-3 times in the night over the last week, and also rained on us on the way to church on Sunday, but it's still hot as ever during the day haha. But I love it so much here. Church yesterday was so nice since we're finally getting to know some people in the ward and understand a lot more of how things work. I'm SO grateful to be here in this wonderful part of the Lord's vineyard with such wonderful people and such a wonderful companion!!
I hope you all had a great week :) One thing I wanted to share with you all about this week is that faith is SUPER important in everything we do. It's the first principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for a reason! And when we let ourselves fear or doubt something, our faith can't grow, because we're not acting on the hope that this thing is true. I came into the mission field with a lot of fears, but I'm so grateful for this opportunity that the Lord has given me to find these weaknesses and learn to put my trust in Him! Love you all! Look for one way that you can show your faith in the Lord a little bit more this week!
Con amor,
Hermana Garner
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