Visitors From Home

Hey Everyone!
Wow, what a week. Erin congratulations on your scholarship. Wow, I can't believe that. Well I can, but that is just way too cool. I am so proud to be the sister of this year's winner of "The Flying Pig Grade- A, Number One Ham Humor Award." Haha; trying saying that ten times fast! I laughed forever reading that. That is so cool. I'm going to be laughing about it all week. But the cool thing is that they said that they are excited to sell it in their stores. Good luck with reading it on Monday. I'm sure you'll do great. There is a reason they chose your story.  Just be yourself and they'll love it. Wow! And AB! Congrats on your AP tests. So amazing! I hope you get my email in time and I hope it helps you register for next year. Thanks for the photos Rach sounds like things are going good.

Sounds like you have all been having some crazy adventures. Thanks for the pics. So fun. Wow, mom sounds like you should start selling raspberries.  I can't believe you have so many. PS was that picture real? Is that a cookie?  It's really cool. Thanks for sending the skirt. I really like it.  I think I'm good with clothes for awhile.  You are the best!

So that was a huge surprise to see Rob and Cindy at our ward this sunday when they were visiting their son. So crazy that they were staying in Dorado. We were outside waiting for our investigators when I saw them walking through the parking lot.  It was totally unreal. It was so good to see them. I wasn't able to talk to them much because we had a lot of things to do helping our investigatros and coordinating with the members for visits that week. But I was able to talk to them for a minute and it was really good.

This week has been pretty good. We are still teaching Julio. He didn't come to church this week because he accidentally slept in. But we had a good lesson with him on thursday, although it was pretty crazy because he told us some crazy stories and got really off topic.  We were able to figure out what he needs. The last few lessons he has told us these weird stories that have to do with what he thinks are gifts of the spirit and he told us some weird things like how he has had visions and the gift of tongues (very common here with lots of different churches). So this last lesson we talked about prayer and what the spirit is, because we realized that he is so confused.  He doesn't know what to think because he has a whole life-time of experiences in different churches and everything we have taught is really jumbled in his head. He has been searching for God his whole life and along the way has become really confused. He just needs to ask directly and then wait for the answer. Tonight we are going to teach him-focusing with this goal in mind. We'll see how it goes. He has a lot of potential.

We have also another investigator, Linnette, who has been coming to church with the Torro family. She is amazing! She is reading the Book of Mormon and when she has a question or doesn't understand a word she writes it down and looks it up in the Guia de las escrituras or she calls Hermana Torro and asks her. She wants to get baptized but her parents are not too excited about her going to church. Her mom is rarely at home and won't let us come by unless she is there. It is almost impossible to visit her but we know that if we can just keep getting to know the parents and get them to gain confidence in us we will be able to teach her more regularly. She fasted on fast sunday even though she didn't come to church. She told us that it was really hard becuase she was on vacation with her family and everyone kept offering her food. Hermana Torro later told us that she fasted with the purpose of having her parents be more open to her going to church and listening to the missionaries. She is so amazing!

So... funny experience this week. Haha! Well we are teaching an older couple named Luz Divina and Angel. Well mostly we are teaching Luz becuase angel doesn't really understand much. Angel is pretty crazy. He is this really old guy and he likes to sing and he recites poetry and he likes to talk a lot. His wife told us he is in the early stages of alzheimers.  It's pretty crazy cause sometimes he tells us random stories and we have to try and get back to the point in the lesson. And he really likes to give us food. Well they gave us food and then he brings out this little pound cake that was in this tinfoil tray. Then he hands my this huge knife. I mean huge!It's like a butcher knife (well maybe not a butcher knife but imagine the biggest knife that mom has in the kitchen) and he tells me to cut the cake. So as I start to cut this little cake with this giant knife he yells "wait!" So I am sitting there with the tip of this giant knife in the cake, wondering, "What in the world?"  I don't know if I should pull it out or keep going so I just left it there the tip in the cake. He grabs a guitar from behind the couch and starts singing, "Happy Birthday to You!" in English. I wish I had a picture becuase I can just imagine my face and my companion said it was priceless. Here I am knife still raised with the tip just barely in the cake completely confused while Angel sings me happy birthday in his loudest voice possible with a thick Spanish accent. Never mind that my birthday is in March. We were laughing so hard. Anyway just a random funny story I thought you might enjoy. Love you all.  I hope you have the best week ever!