1 Ano!
Hola! Buenas tardes!
I hope you are all doing well! It's been a great week here in San Andres. I cannot believe I hit my 1 year mark this week. It has gone by so fast - I feel like it was just yesterday that I started. This week me and Hermana Ayala said goodbye and I welcomed Hermana Garcia to Jardin! Somehow we haven't taken pictures...but we will this week, don't worry. It's been a great week with her! Hermana Garcia has 16 months in the mission, she's from Chihuahua México, and she is so fun to work with. We try to find something fun in every day.
This week we went to work with all of the investigators that we had who haven't really been progressing. We decided we'd give them one week more, and if not we'd go find people who truely are searching for the Gospel. It was really difficult, trying to find new investigators and hearing just about every excuse in the book of excuses and pretexts. In moments like these - I feel like Satan thinks he's going to get to me. But he forgets that I've got the Lord on my side.
We went to go look for one of our investigators and we ended up finding Maria Jose. She was outside watching her son play and she invited us in. We came in to start talking to her and she then remembered(?) that she was going to give her son a bath. She gave us some juice and then asked us if we'd mind giving her a minute to bath her son. We then realized that maybe she wasn't so interested after all...So we drank up our juice and told her we'd come back. She told us - Yes! Come back around 5 o'clock! So we left and went to a few other appointments. When 5 o'clock rolled around we went to what we had planned and when it fell through we decided to have faith in her. We went back and we found her ready to listen. We started teaching and it was so interesting how everything she said highlighted the Restoration. It was one of those moments where I get really excited to teach haha When we started talking about baptism she accepted right away. Then she told us - "It's so interesting! We've moved houses 6 times in the last year and everytime we get to a new house some sort of missionaries end up at my door, and now that we've finally found the house where we want to stay - you show up! It's strange too, because they've all invited me to baptism and I've never said yes. But with you two it's different." I know that the Lord is preparing people everywhere. We just have to have the faith to find them.
One of the highlights of the week - was the baptism of Jose Albañil. He has been waiting patiently (maybe not so patiently haha) the last 2 weeks to be able to be baptized. From the first moment we found him he was so willing and READY! We came back after the first visit and he had read his pamplet, later he was reading the Book of Mormon, when we taught the Word of Wisdom he said goodbye to his Coffee and hasn't looked back. He pays such close attention to everything he's learned and everything that goes on. When we asked him who he wanted to baptism him he said - My neighbor - President Sanchez! Hermana Ayala asked, Wait, how did you know he's the president? And Jose replied - Hermana it's not hard to pay attention. haha It's been a great few weeks teaching him and the day of his baptism finally came! It was great too because Hermana Ayala was able to come and be a part of it. I love this picture because he looks so smug that he's about to be baptized.
Nothing could get his spirits down - even the fact that there was no water in the baptism font. When the Ward Mission Leader filled it up - he didn't close the drain all the way and little by little the water went draining away. It was just above his knees - but he was so convinced that he was going to be baptized that he did it sitting down. A baptismal memory he'll never forget haha I feel so blessed to have been able to be part of his story.
Well that's about it for this week - keep sending your prayers and well wishes my way :) Everything's going great here in San Andres Tuxtla. Hope you all have a great week!
Hermana Terry
I hope you are all doing well! It's been a great week here in San Andres. I cannot believe I hit my 1 year mark this week. It has gone by so fast - I feel like it was just yesterday that I started. This week me and Hermana Ayala said goodbye and I welcomed Hermana Garcia to Jardin! Somehow we haven't taken pictures...but we will this week, don't worry. It's been a great week with her! Hermana Garcia has 16 months in the mission, she's from Chihuahua México, and she is so fun to work with. We try to find something fun in every day.
This week we went to work with all of the investigators that we had who haven't really been progressing. We decided we'd give them one week more, and if not we'd go find people who truely are searching for the Gospel. It was really difficult, trying to find new investigators and hearing just about every excuse in the book of excuses and pretexts. In moments like these - I feel like Satan thinks he's going to get to me. But he forgets that I've got the Lord on my side.
We went to go look for one of our investigators and we ended up finding Maria Jose. She was outside watching her son play and she invited us in. We came in to start talking to her and she then remembered(?) that she was going to give her son a bath. She gave us some juice and then asked us if we'd mind giving her a minute to bath her son. We then realized that maybe she wasn't so interested after all...So we drank up our juice and told her we'd come back. She told us - Yes! Come back around 5 o'clock! So we left and went to a few other appointments. When 5 o'clock rolled around we went to what we had planned and when it fell through we decided to have faith in her. We went back and we found her ready to listen. We started teaching and it was so interesting how everything she said highlighted the Restoration. It was one of those moments where I get really excited to teach haha When we started talking about baptism she accepted right away. Then she told us - "It's so interesting! We've moved houses 6 times in the last year and everytime we get to a new house some sort of missionaries end up at my door, and now that we've finally found the house where we want to stay - you show up! It's strange too, because they've all invited me to baptism and I've never said yes. But with you two it's different." I know that the Lord is preparing people everywhere. We just have to have the faith to find them.
One of the highlights of the week - was the baptism of Jose Albañil. He has been waiting patiently (maybe not so patiently haha) the last 2 weeks to be able to be baptized. From the first moment we found him he was so willing and READY! We came back after the first visit and he had read his pamplet, later he was reading the Book of Mormon, when we taught the Word of Wisdom he said goodbye to his Coffee and hasn't looked back. He pays such close attention to everything he's learned and everything that goes on. When we asked him who he wanted to baptism him he said - My neighbor - President Sanchez! Hermana Ayala asked, Wait, how did you know he's the president? And Jose replied - Hermana it's not hard to pay attention. haha It's been a great few weeks teaching him and the day of his baptism finally came! It was great too because Hermana Ayala was able to come and be a part of it. I love this picture because he looks so smug that he's about to be baptized.
Nothing could get his spirits down - even the fact that there was no water in the baptism font. When the Ward Mission Leader filled it up - he didn't close the drain all the way and little by little the water went draining away. It was just above his knees - but he was so convinced that he was going to be baptized that he did it sitting down. A baptismal memory he'll never forget haha I feel so blessed to have been able to be part of his story.
Well that's about it for this week - keep sending your prayers and well wishes my way :) Everything's going great here in San Andres Tuxtla. Hope you all have a great week!
Hermana Terry