Good Monday to you!!!

guess what i did today!! BIKRAM YOGA! oh how i missed it! it was so challenging, and now i feel like passing out cause it excerted a lot of my strength . It was great! 

this is my companion Sister Vargas and i at the Zone Temple Trip!

 

we had  a wonderful week, we had five investigators at church which were the ones we took to the Visitors Center last week and the Familia Diaz, we were so happy because it took a lot of investigation as to why that brother who is searching for truth, and can't find it in his own church and yet he still goes, as an obligation to  his wife as he says that he does it ofr his wife, although she doesnt even like to go and gave him clear permission that he can search for the religoin he likes and not to worry about taking his kids to their church and just go find the one that makes him happy, she did this in front of us. So we have a hard time understanding this man. His wife is super nice to us she even feeds us dinner and getrs so happy when we are there but she also says that we should pertend she is not there and she sitts in on hte llessons but she makes it clear that she wants us to teach her husband. He is a man with many questions and wierd doubts. We have scripture packed lessons for him when we go and we have been able to resolve some of his doubts, thankfully. ONe such doubt he had was the importance of baptism and how it is not necessary for us because Christ came to cleanse us from sin. So we shared i think it is John3:5 about how we cannot enter into his kingdm exceot we are baptized abnd of coarse the comission of the resureccted Lord, to his apostles which states clearly that they must go forth and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. It really was  a miracle to get them to church. and the members that have invited them before were shocked to see them there. also the members that have came out to teach them were glad they were there. We belive that perhaps we wont get to harvest these fruits but we knowthat we are nourishing them.

 

then we have been teaching the martinez girls and we helped them make invites for their baptism with cute pictutres from old ensigns and that made them even more excited for the day of their baptism, they have theri interview scheduled for this wednesday. not to mention this is a great way to find people to teach.  We are soups happy that their GRandma decided to join them and take the lessons and get baptized as well. they all came to church too. She cant read so we committed her to listen to the scriputres onlds.org its awesome!! We have seen a huge tur around in this family, because now the mother is supportive and bringing them to church and she also is home when schedule appointments. We are teacing them how to have a family home evening tonight and we are super excited. WEll we had taught the grandma the restoration and when we went over there again ot follow up if she had prayed about it. she said that she forgot and that she likes this church a lot more than any other church but doesnt have a firm testimony that is the only true restored churhc of Jesus Chirst here on the earth. so we  had to teach her again to refresh her memory, but this time we had her tell us what she understood and explain it in her own words after each point. it required a lot more focuse on her part. hehe  we are evil.

 

 we have this 13 yr old we are teaching and she is so prepared and is so mature! she prayed to know if the chruch is true and she said she felt good as she prayed so we asked her to describe her feelings and she sai that she felt her heart kindof burn and it wasnt heart burn it was a  really good feeling she said. we were both taken back and we said to her that she had a lot of faith and thats why God was able to respond so clearly. exceptfoher parents wont let her come to church. WE are going to have a little talk with her mothere and find out what we can do.

 We have been working hard, we love eachother , and we are seeing the miracles that come from being the best we can be.!!

love you lots!! take care y'all

 this is them reading The Book of Mormon stories arent they super cute!?? love them to death

Good Morning

this is the Dad he has a lot of random questions
 is very difficult to teach  but we love them and are going
 to teach them with more scriptures from the bible to help him
 understand the need for a restoration of the Church of Christ

we had a huge miracle this week so we has an appointment fall through with a young women, we went over to visit but she fell asleep and so we asked her family to wake her up and she wouldnt so we left. As we were about to leave we saw her older brother pull in so i told my companion that we should go talk to him, so we walked up to him and said hi. I asked him if he had some time, he said yes but im starving, so i said its ok we will just talk to you while you eat, he said ok. so he warmed up his dinner and we were just asking him get to know you questions. so he is a 22 year old boy who hasnt gone to church in years and does things he shouldnt be doing. i admite that is was aqward talking to him at first, but then i asked him the sould searching question: "do you see yourself serving a mission?" he said honestly no i never even thought of it, i would be a good missionary becasue of some things that i struggle with, and so i asked him what is it that keeps you from going? he said he had anger issues and he also asked that if he can go even if he had a family and we said no.he said he wanted a kid and that he wants to settle down. My companion asked him if hes recieved his patriarcal blessing? he said no and we explained to him what it is , he seemed really intrested in getting one especially the part that it tells you about the potential that you have and the gifts heavenly will give you if you work for it. my companion explained that hers inspired her to go on a mission. he asked if he had to be active in the church for that and we said yes. Then we started talking about the mission and how much we have learned and how much it will bless us in our future families, and all the while i was picturing his future with his kids and wife having a picninc near the temple and they were super happy and he had already served a mission and he married a wonerfull women and then he asked what are you thinking about and i told about about your future. he said that we seemed more excited than he was. then he told us that that same exact day he was thinking that he was going to go visit his ex and ask her to live with him and have a baby with her. but that he thought it was crasy that just we crossed paths at that moment and now we are talking about  his future, he recognized that God had a hand in his life at that moment. We think he really started taking the mission seriously becasue he started asing lots of wuestionsand he was getting nervous/excited.  we left feeling so spiritually edified we were so happy and our testimonies about Heavenly father and his love for us grew inormously, we know that the spirit guided that lesson conversation and that we can always be an answer to someones prayer even if they dont have tons of faith God is simpy jsut always there.

well love you and don't forget to say your prayers!!

we took an investigating family to the Visitors center!! they loved it! 

Pictures of our investigators Beatriz and the Martinez girls

hello everyone !! hope you like the pictures of the cute children we are teaching, they are so much fun.

 

The maritnez girls are tought cookies, they are still uncertain if they want to pay their tithing and since they werent reading the Book of mormon with their mom, except for with us their testimony hasnt grown as fast. Thankfully the church has come up with the Book of Mormon Stories, which is genius, it totally counts! so they have stared to read that. we are excited. MIRACLE!! so after we had dinner with them we had a nice conversation with the grandma who loves the church and she asked her daughter who is hte mother of our investigators when the girls are going to be baptized, because she wants to join them and be baptized too!!  we continued the conversation and asked her what she liked best about the church and she said everything and we talked with her daugther and she just sat there thinking. Well we asked her what she was thinking about and she said "about that day that i get baptized." it was so amazing!

but then we were over there the next day to do serive on saturday morning and she asked everyone if anyone wanted coffe and she expressed her addiction to coffee, and all the sister who are Mormon and tried to justify theri use of coffee and asked us things like why is it bad? one of them had a little attitude, and that it is proven to reduce the risk of cancer, and that coke is worse and why can we drink that?, i didn't know what to say because we both felt attacked and that no matter what we said they would not have listened. next time we talk about that and we are in an enviorment where the spirit can testify then i would ask them if they belive the church is true and if Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and if he was then when he recieved that revelation, it came from God and it is for our wellness. God is all knowing, he comprehends all things that we cannot and if we follow the council we will be blessed.

 

we have a new investigator named Alejandra. she reminds me of me when i was investigating the church. She is thirteen and is really mature for her age, she has even read some chapteres in the Book of Mormon when previous missionaries taught her, which is a big deal for someone to have the inrest and want to learn for themselves if the book is true, She really wants to come to church but her mom made up an excuse for her not to come. we will be persistant and loving. I know that if she keeps her eye on the temple and an eternal family she will never give up on her journey.

 

 

well i love you all have a happy week.

 

sorry i havent written in two weeks

sorry i havent written in two weeks but i expirienced a miracle with my brother writting me, thats been fun.

 

so lets see whats new. this week we found 7 new investigators! one family of three, a pair of brothers, a young mom, and the husband of an investigator. yesterday we were packed with lessons all day it was a miracle.

so we are still teaching the martinez girls and they are not going to be ready for the 9th so we pushed their date back to the 23rd, we asked them why and it is because they dont understand the book of mormon, even thou we read with htem everythime we go see them, it is not hte same because they need a guide at home teaching them how to lkive the gospel, os we had a little heart ot heart with the mother, about the importance of daily scripture study and family prayer, and bearing tesrimony to them of the truths of the gospel. she agreed. the girls are so smart and ready we did a re run fo rthe interview for batism and they believe everything they even talked about the importance of everthing like having a prophet and living hte commandments. We need to send y'all a picture of them, they are so cute! Their mom told them to pay more attention to the lessons and not be so giggly because the gospel is serioius stuff and they shouldnt be laughing so much when we teach them. then the girls told us that it is our fault because we make them laugh too much and  so we jokingly started acting serious, then they sat up straight and leaned in towards us, and were stroking their chins as if they were thinking and had straight faces on trying not to laugh, and we tried to teach them more seriously but it didn't work the whole situation was too funny.

 

so the women we are teaching who stays at home with her kids is reallly cool she is our age, and she grew up cathholic but she doesnt know anything about Christ or even how to pray. so its kinda cool because then as sh does those simple things like pray and read she will feel a big differenec in her life and her mind will be filled with understanding and she will feel the need to come unto Christ more fully. we taugh her the restoration and committed her to pray about it and she said she would, she gave a beautiful closing prayer and she thanked us for teaching her and resolved some of her concerns and for showing her how to pray , because now she will do it more often. she is very sincere.

 

next family was a family that i tti'd on the street once and went to try to teach htem a few times but were never home, so one night we had no planns and we had former investigators on our back up planns, so we decided to go visit, it was around 8:20 pm and we knocked and no one was home, but as we were about to leave they showed up back from their walk, so they invited us in, at first, not gonna lie it was sort of aquward, but then we just asked them questions and then the mom started telling us the issues she is having with her concieted son, who thinks he doesn't have to lift a finger because he is too handsome, and  he is only 11!! haha anyway more towards the end of our How to begin TEaching we started talking about church and all the fun things that the kids  will learn. He and his little 6 year old sister were super excited and begged their parents if they can go to church and they were totally fine with it, it was such a cool lesson because we got to ask them about what they want to learn about and we learned about their doubts and why they dont go ot a church, so now we know what to study for them for our next  lesson. our plan is to have the kids go, they will love it and this will then persuade their parents to come to church, it's brilliant!

 

if i sound like a TEXAN its not my fault it was sister Vargas :)

we are also teaching an amazing women who was a refferral from a member and thanks to her rightoeous example she wanted to learn more about the book of mormon, we  had a fantastic lesson at the members house and wow. the member taught her the ministry of christ the resroaraiton of the prieshood the book of mormon, the church's history, the first vision emma smith a whole bunch of stuff and even re comitted  her to pray about the lessons to see if they are true, so she said she will this was all after the lesson about the gospel, but becaue she made the comment about "it doesnt matter what churhc you go to as long as you have faith and live it its ok" my companion ans i were just so impressed and were glad she did in a beautiful confident was. it was amazing!! so we are hoping that she can feel better and recover from her lupus so she can come to church