It was way good to hear from all of you this week. Sounds like you are loving London Rach. Thanks for sending her blog. I saved it to my jump drive and I am going to go print it out somewhere and read it so I can catch up on all of your adventures. Sounds like you are having so much fun, I'm slightly jealous of all the cool things you are doing. Erin, hope things are going well with school. I am sure you are super busy like always writing up a storm and working everyday too. You'll have to fill me in on some of the things that you are writing about. Sounds like you guys had a fun time with the Dees this week.
Well things here are about the same. This week has been absolutely crazy, and I'm not going to lie it was really hard. It started out with us waking up at 5:00 am on Tuesday to drive three hours to the other side of the island to do an exchange. I dropped off Hermana Venegas in San Sebastian and picked up another sister to come stay in Bayamon with me for 3 days. Six straight hours in the car is not fun especially trying to navigate your way around crazy Puerto Rican roads, it doesn't really make for a productive work day either. Well even though we did intercambios last week they were each shorter and things to work out a little. I'm not going to lie this one was a little hard. For three straight days I was basically in charge because the other sister didn't know the area, the members or the investigators. It was a really good experience for me to learn especially since Hermana Venegas will be leaving but it was also slightly exhausting. I am so grateful that we get to be in an area for awhile with the same companion. You really learn how to work together and can help each other out knowing what the investigators need etc. These intercambios have been a really good learning experience for me. First, I have learned to have a lot more confidence in myself as a missionary, even though I still have a lot to learn I can also see how much I have learned these past few months and it was nice to realize, okay, I can do this and I don't have to depend on my training so much. Another thing I have learned these last few weeks is the importance of loving everyone you meet, and trying to meet their individual needs. Most importantly, I have learned that if you don't love the person you can't have the spirit and you can't teach with the spirit if you are trying to convince them of anything. As missionaries our job is not to convince anyone by the words or the scriptures we use but rather that we have to teach them with love and the spirit and if there is contention we might as not teach at all. Everyone has their different teaching styles, but no matter how you teach if you are in the mood to argue with someone you will never get anywhere. Anyway, just some random thoughts I've been thinking about.
There isn't a ton more to tell that has happened this week. We have still been teaching some of the same investigators but for many different reasons, their sick, out of town, etc. we haven't seen any major progress with some of them this week. We really do have some great investigators is just all about getting them to put forth that faith to make the changes in their lives, and it all starts with coming to church. That's our new goal, get them to church. Emma is getting baptized on Saturday. Well we hope so. This last week she has been super nervous because the baptism date was coming up. She knows that she needs to get baptized, she has such a strong testimony and she has kept everyone of her committments but she is just nervous as it is getting closer. She was super nervous to fast, because she has never done it before but she fasted with us yesterday and we invited her to fast with her baptism in mind and make a decision if she felt ready for the 13th. We are going to go visit her tonight and ask her what she has decided. I hope she goes through with it this week because I know she had an amazing experience yesterday, she paid a large fast offering and even gave extra, as the bishop and first presidency had asked us to increase our fast offering this month for the people in Haiti. She fasted with us even though she was really nervous, I mean really nervous, and she was crying throughout the whole testimony meeting. We are going through with plans for her baptism, making the program etc. just in case so that it will all be planned out. If not we'll just have to push the date back.
Well I'll let you know how it goes. Love you all a ton.
PS Here are a few pics. One is me with a few of the other sisters in our mission. The other is me with a giant face that was carved into the rock by indigenous people. Its super old it is by some caves in a place called Santa Isabel that is on the north coast of the island. We passed it driving to Mayanguez last week. Super cool and random.
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