Hi family!!!!! Well, I'm supercalifragalisticespialidotiously excited to talk to you next week! I will call around 3 California time. They told us to keep it under 40 minutes and only family so no boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. Don't think I'll have a problem with that.
This week was great. I'm so proud of you, Clark whenever I hear about your adventures in Philharmonia. Those were good times. Those are great pictures! That looks like fun. Is it getting really hot there? It's going up in temperature here too. The Sisters are liberated from our nylons. We no longer have to wear them if we don't want to. I bought some of those little footie socks you wear with dress shoes. It makes a huge difference.
I love you all so much!
Hi friends and family! Great week. Getting hotter and feeling more like home. We had a lesson with a less-active sister outside and the way we were sitting, I got a sunburn on just my left arm.
We had some really good experiences with less-actives this week. We took a family through on a church tour. We felt the Spirit very strongly and they said at the end they feel like it's time to come back to church. There is also a lady who is actually one of our neighbors who has been inactive for awhile. We've been visiting with her and yesterday we invited her to walk to church with us. We saw her this morning and she thanked us for going with her and she was really glad she went and she feels like it's time to come back. She said it made her feel good and she needed it. She is so sweet! We visited her last week and she said "I have something for you." She gave me a little ornament made out of a purple fake rose that she had bought for me at a craft fair. She was thinking of me because I'm new to the area. She loves to crochet and is always making gifts for other people.
We have right now 3 people with a baptismal date for May 22nd. We are working hard to help them prepare. Baptism isn't just something to check off on your list of things to do. It is a sacred covenant with your Heavenly Father that you need to be willing to keep for the rest of your life, to take upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ and try AT ALL TIMES (not just Sundays) to be more like Him. We had a really special lesson with one of these investigators this week. Mayra is really shy and has refused to say a prayer out loud in the lessons. The last lesson we read Doctrine and Covenants 19:28 and 38 where it says to pray vocally as well as in your heart. We bore testimony about prayer and read about the blessings. She agreed to say our closing prayer! It was beautiful! As long as prayer comes from the heart, it doesn't matter who else is listening or what they think. The only person who has an opinion that counts is Heavenly Father. He loves us so much and if we're speaking from our heart, He won't criticize.
We're actually teaching mostly in English. We are in an English ward. The other ward in Hanford has Spanish Sunday school and Spanish translation for sacrament meeting like my last ward so if we have investigators who can't really speak English they would go to those classes. We have one family that we're teaching that speaks Spanish and English equally so we switch off when we're talking with them. We're going to teach a family tonight (that I have not met yet) that speak only Spanish. I think I'll be ok. The thing with my companion is that she wants to learn English like I want to learn Spanish. She understands English as much as I understand Spanish. We both want to get better. We decided this week that we're going to switch languages every other day. Today we're speaking all English. Tomorrow all Spanish. With each other at least. Investigators and members obviously take precedence over that. :-) Someone told me that I have a Canadian accent. I had no idea.
It's fun having a foreign companion. She tried Spaghetti-o's for the first time last week. It's strange realizing how many strange words are in the English language that I have to explain. It took awhile to help her understand what "Barbeque" meant. Other English words we have learned: Oblivious, random, tough, shade. I'm trying to learn the Spanish equivalents whenever she has a question about an English word.
Since our ward doesn't have a huge Hispanic population, there isn't really anything planned for Cinco de Mayo. My last ward had a huge Cinco de Mayo party they do every year but that was after transfers.
We had an interesting tracting experience this week. At first we thought the lady was really receptive but after talking awhile it seemed more like she was trying to convince us of the error of our ways and felt sorry for us because we're young and probably going in the wrong direction. It was the nicest tone I've ever heard anyone speak negative things about the church in.
There is something that I would highly recommend everyone doing. Whenever you have a spiritual experience, have a special separate place you can write it down. Then go back and read those experiences every once in awhile. Life holds a lot of distractions that can make you forget. We CANNOT forget! How many times in the scriptures does it say "remember, remember!"? Quite a few times. Don't dwell on the past so much that you start living in it, but you can look back and see where you have felt the Spirit and where your testimony came from so you can help it continue to grow. Look forward with faith and with hope and remember how much you have been blessed in the past. It's a balance we all need to learn how to achieve.
How's everyone doing back home? I hope that everyone's safe, happy and healthy!
Keep Smiling!
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