Hey Everyone,
Well, it is officially summertime in Puerto Rico. Haha, I don't think I have ever sweated so much in my life. Well, that's life. I can't even imagine what 50 degrees in foggy San Francisco would feel like. It's weird to even think about putting a jacket on. Sounds like you had a lot of fun on your trip. I'm jealous you went to see Wicked; I've always wanted to see it. That's awesome. Wow, it's crazy to think how fast time flies. Abby will be a college student in two weeks. Weird but I'm so excited for you. Erin, I'm praying for you so that you will be able to get everything done that you need to and that it will turn out well. I know it will.
So I am still here in Toa Baja. Transfer #4! Wow, I've been here in the Toa Baja Stake all 9 months. But that's okay because I love my companion and I am really excited for another transfer with her. She is amazing and we have a lot of fun together. Well this week has been pretty great. I don't know if I told you about Maria. If I did sorry I'll repeat myself. So we have to go back to the beginning of my mission to explain this story. When I got here my first day and we opened the area of Bayamon the Elders told us we had several investigators with baptism dates one of them was named Maria Colon. She lived in Naranjito and a member showed us where her house was the first week but she only pointed it out quickly as we drove by. We tried to call her and get a hold of her for weeks. We called, left messages, we went by where we thought her house was but it turned out it wasn't her house. We searched every house that was white with two levels along that entire highway and we could never find where she lived or if she lived there she was never home. Eventually after weeks we decided that she must not be interested or she would have returned our calls. But I remember being so determined, we have to find her. Let's just check this one more house. My trainer humored me and we looked for a long time but I just felt like we really needed to find her. We worked a lot in that area, until we found out that it was actually part of Toa Baja ward and not our area, the elders had gotten confused with the boundaries and told us wrong that's what happens in areas that are pretty rural.
Well you can imagine my surprise when we received a phone call from another set of sister missionaries and they told us that they had received a call from a woman named Maria Colon that lived in Naranjito and we had an appointment saturday. Well it turns out that it was her. She had had a whole bunch of family problems and that's when she lost contact with the missionaries but she ran into some elders that had taught her earlier that were serving in another part of the island and that's when she decided to call the old phone number she had and got in touch with the other sisters. Well it turns out that she had known elders for a long time when she lived in the Caparra ward. Her nephew that used to live with her was baptized a little more than a year ago. She loves the missionaries, loves the Book of Mormon has read it all the way through. She has a really strong testimony of Joseph Smith. She has gone through a lot of really hard things these last 9 months but she found a way to bring the gospel back in her life and she is now preparing to be baptized on September 4th. It's so crazy to think that I am now teaching this woman that we spent so much time looking for 9 months ago. Anyway, I am still in shock that she was able to reconnect with us. Tturns out she lives about four houses away from an investigator we taught many times. Either we didn't see it because it is hidden or if we did go by in the many times we looked for her she wasn't home. Anyway she's amazing and we are excited.
Well other news...we are looking for new ways to find people other than just knocking doors. Becuase knocking isn't that effective. Especially since so many other religions here do the same. People get tired of people going door to door. As a district we are trying to get more creative and after thinking for awhile we have come up with some ideas. For example, we have a million Liahona magazines that have been gathered from over the years. Somehow we have some months that we have 2 or 3 copies of the same so we are going to take them to doctor's offices nearby and ask if we can leave them in the waiting room for people to read and we put little notes that have the address of the church and mormon.org. We are asking members that have their own businesses to place pamphlets and cards for people to take and we are asking members, especially the youth, to go look online at mormon.org and youtube.com/mormonmessages and find videos that they like and then use facebook to share those videos with their friends. So this is a shout out to any friends or family especially those that have served missions. Any other cool ideas would be appreciated. Send them to me and we'll try them out. Anyway, I have to go but I love you all. Thanks for your emails and for the pics. Erin, that pic made my day. Send me more I love having them.
Anyway, hope you have a great week. Great tropical fruit here. It
makes great juice.
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