A week of miracles!

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A week of miracles! 

Hey everyone!! This week was such a good week! I don't have a lot of time to write, so I'll give you a few highlights:

Okay first, our friend Rosalba is so so awesome. She watched most of General Conference and absolutely LOVED it. She was so impressed by the speakers and the music. She asked who the speakers were so we explained what a prophet is and how we have the same organization as Christ's original church. 

Then, she was interested in how the prophet is chosen. So we just jumped right into the restoration. When we told her about the apostasy, she asked, "So we're still in the apostasy?" To which we answered with an emphatic "no!" God called another prophet named Joseph Smith. She absolutely loved the first vision too. When Sister Peterson said the words of the first vision, I could feel the spirit so strongly and I could tell Rosalba was touched by it too.

We ended off by reading Moroni 10:3-5 and sharing our testimonies about gaining our own witnesses of the truthfulness of the bom. She told us it was cool to hear our experiences to know that what the scripture says can really happen! She was literally writing down the scriptures we read to her to study later. In the end she also asked about baptism, without us even bringing it up!! I'm really excited about her. It was also so good to feel the spirit confirming so strongly the truth of what we were teaching. Sometimes it can be easy to fall into a routine and become numb to the spirit, so when we get that fresh witness & testimony, it's always really refreshing. 

We're also teaching this cute Colombian family. We've met the mom, Juliana, and her 3 kids! She has twin boys (13) and a little girl (9ish) and they are darling. One of the twins is so smart and he answers our questions so thoughtfully. I'm really excited for them too. 

We also had interviews this week! It was so good to talk to President, and he had some good advice and some high praise. I also mentioned to him that I would love to serve in Portuguese work, even though I still don't speak much portuguese. I told him not to feel like he has to do it, and to only do it if he really feels like that's what needs to be done. I thought he might shrug off my idea & say that if I already speak spanish, that's where I should be. But instead, he got really excited! He thought it was cool that I wanted to push myself and keep learning and growing. And He said having more Portuguese missionaries in the mission would be a huge blessing. So that's exciting! I don't think that will happen this next transfer, because the transfer starts next week. Plus, I do want to stay in this area a bit longer because there are so many good things happening! So, we'll see, I guess!

The last thing I wanted to share is a huge miracle we saw! It's kind of a long story, so I'll give the condensed version to the best of my ability. Basically, someone we have been teaching, her name is Mayra, told us she has a friend that goes to our church. We didn't recognize the name that she told us, Mariana, so we were very confused.

Then, one day this week we were trying to visit an inactive member, but they weren't home. We didn't know why we were in the area, but we figured Heavenly Father had a plan for us. So, we started looking to see who was in the area that we could visit. We didn't think Mariana was in our areabook, I swear I looked it up before. But we were looking at our options and I saw her name! I freaked out!! We were looking at her record and we saw her daughter's name–Francesca. We realized that Mayra's daughter had a friend over earlier this week and her name was Francesca. It was the same Mariana!! 

We knocked on their door and they let us right in! We got to know them and they told us it was a huge miracle that we had come at that time. Earlier that day, they had been talking about how fortunate they were to have Sundays off, and how they needed to be better at decimating their time to God. They decided together that they were going to start coming back to our church the next Sunday. We got to know everyone there and they all were really grateful for our visit, and all really open to coming to church, English class, and having us come over every week! Anyway, long story short, they are really awesome and I can't wait to keep teaching them!!

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The God of Abraham

I mentioned in a previous email that as a missionary we are studying a few topics in preparation for our mission tour (this week!) One of the topics, the one that has most captured my attention is that of the Abrahamic Covenant. I have learned so much about it, which makes sense because before this month I would say I knew relatively nothing. I have a lot of things I could share, but I'll just share a couple little things I thought were cool.

In the book of Mormon, it often refers to Jesus Christ as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Every time I read that, I like to think of it as "the God who promises, the God who Provides, and the God who prevails." I don't have time to articulate why I think of it that way, but I invite you to ponder about that this week!

Miracles!

 

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Life just keeps getting better and better

This week was so so good (surprise surprise). 

Also, a side note– as I am writing this I am also listening to the SeaWorld fireworks that we can watch from our study desks. I don't know how to express how amazing this mission is but I hope that gives you a glimpse of it. 

Pday was fun! We started off by playing Pickleball with the Welch's, a senior couple that lives in our complex. I love them to pieces. I lost in pickleball, but I still had fun! And I won later in the week so all is well;)

I also got to see some of my family of Pday! Naomi and her cute family were so sweet and took me and Sister Jackson our for lunch. Cutler showed me a lizard he caught! That, combined with his super awesome mullet, pretty much makes him the coolest kid ever. It was so good to see their family. I've only been gone 7 months or so but those kids have grown so much! And of course I love Naomi and Nate, my cliff jumping buddy, so much! If you are reading this, thanks again for lunch!!

Tuesday morning we went to say goodbye to the Gomez family, because they're heading out to Colombia for a vacation for a couple months, and we didn't know if we would be here when they came back. I was especially unsure because transfers are this week and since I've already been in this area 7 months, it was pretty much a given that I would be leaving (more on that later). I was sad to say goodbye to the Gomez family because I just love them so much! Its okay though, they told me I could go on a trip to Columbia with them after my mission:)

We also went to dinner with the Rosarios, some more of my favorite members. I've eaten with them every week of my mission thus far. They are definitely one of my favorite families. We got chinese food and it was super good! I think it's the first time I've had Asian food on the mission because all we eat is Hispanic food haha.

Wednesday was so great! We had a district council in the morning and wow. DC is always so motivating to me. I'm just a very goal-oriented person and it energizes me to see growth. Our district has grown so much this transfer. We've grown in unity, and we've grown into better missionaries. I've really come to love this district and it's been so good to serve around each of them. 

We also went over to Liduvi's on Wednesday. She was one of the miracles that we found in my training. We've been holding on to her for a really long time, and we don't really know how to help her. We didn't go into the lesson with much hope but she said she wants to start keeping commitments and getting closer to God! Please pray for her, that she will develop a habit of reading in the Book of Mormon and that she will make coming to church a priority. She knows baptism is the end goal, and she wants to prepare for it. She just isn't very committed yet to establishing the habits required for true conversion. 

We had dinner that night with the Pacheco-Ortega's. I love those two so much. They're just absolute sweethearts and my heart is always just so full when I'm around them. The food was delicious and their company is always so fun. Hermano Ortega works for Krispy Kreme so he gave us 4 boxes of donuts to take home!

Thursday was such a busy day! We started off by working at the Storehouse at 7:30 am. We had to leave early so we worked as fast as we could so we got a bunch of work done in about an hour. Working hard like that always gives me more energy though. I don't know what it is, maybe Coldstone messed me up, but I get just as much energy from working hard as I do from a good night's sleep. I said goodbyes to my Storehouse crew in case I got transferred. Elder Holladay was really sad to see me go :((

The reason we had to leave early is because we wanted to visit my best friend Carmen! She got baptized a few months ago but it has been really hard for her to come to church because of work. She has the best faith out of anyone I know, though. She'll be back at church soon. I simply cannot express how much I love her. We brought up transfers to her and we were all scared/sad about me leaving. I wasn't too worried about her though, because she wants to move to Utah. We'll definitely stay in touch. We have an arepa truck to run.

We had a video call lesson with Reyci later that day and he's already loving the Book of Mormon! We talked about what he has read. He had just finished 1 Nephi 8 when we called him so we talked about Lehi's dream and the importance of the covenant path. We ended up inviting him to be baptized!! He still feels like he has a lot of preparing and learning to do, and I'm excited to help him prepare!

That night for dinner we ate with Thais and her family! I wrote about this family a few weeks ago. They are one of the biggest miracles I've had on my mission. Thais called us out of the blue because her uncle, who was a member of the Church, had passed away. She wanted to learn more about the Plan of Salvation! The lesson went well a few weeks ago and they really wanted us to come back, they were just on vacation. The day all of them got back,  they reached out and invited us over for dinner! They are neighbors with some of the best members in our ward so the members came too! We had a yummy dinner and got to talking about why we're called Mormons. We explained what the Book of Mormon is and how it came to be and they were all just blown away by how cool it is that Christ visited this continent. It seems like they believed it all right off the bat. Unfortunately, the mission is out of Spanish Book of Mormons so we weren't able to give them one. But they're all coming to church and they want us to come back once we have books to give them their copies! This family has so much potential. They really love their old church, but they have so much faith and they're really good friends with maybe my favorite member in the ward--Anita. I'll keep you guys posted about them!

Okay, that's it for Thursday. I told you it was a lot. 

As for Friday, we started off with a Training Recap zoom because Hermana Jackson is finishing her training this week!! That literally flew by so fast. She's an awesome missionary and she's only been out 3 months. We also had a mission devotional over zoom. It was the last one of the transfer, so some of my favorite missionaries gave their departing testimonies: Elder and Sister Cluff, and Elder Jensen. I'm going to miss all 3 of them so much! 

Later that day, we sat down to do some weekly planning. We are teaching so many good people right now! Throughout the week, me and Hermana Jackson had come to the conclusion that I would be leaving. I was actually completely unsure if I would be leaving or staying, but I wanted to stay. So, I convinced myself I would be leaving. That way, I would either be right, or pleasantly surprised! As we were planning for the people I was convinced I was leaving, we got the email about transfers. Let's just say I was pleasantly surprised!

I'M STAYING IN BUENA VENTURA!!!

That means I will serve half of my mission in my first area, and I couldn't be more happy about it. I love this ward with all my heart and frankly, I never want to leave it. I also love Sister Jackson so much! She's so fun to serve around and we make a good team. Stay tuned for all the miracles we're going to see next transfer!

That night we went over to the Martinez family's home. They're like family to me. Hermano Martinez reminds me a lot of my uncle Nate for some reason, so that really adds to the effect. They made us super yummy food and I ate so much of it. They also let me and Sister Jackson walk their dog, Coco. He can do a handstand which I think is pretty cool.

Saturday was another crazy busy day. We started off the morning by visiting Wendy and Andres! They haven't been able to come to church because they've been moving but they want to start coming every week! Andres is going to get the Aaronic priesthood so that means he'll get to help pass the sacrament! 

We went straight from their house to see Carmencita (Rosario)! She wanted help cleaning out her pantry to prepare for hurricane season. It was so chaotic. I love her so much and I wish we could have stayed with her and helped her clean all day. She was so happy to hear that I would be staying another transfer! 

We left her house to go to Rene's baptism!! Rene is a man who the Elders taught and his baptism was so special! It was a little crazy at first because the water pressure in the faucet was about 30% of what it normally is for some reason, so the font was nowhere near as full as it needed to be. When we got there, some of our missionary friends were filling up 5 gallon coolers from the spicket outside of the church building and dumping them in the font. The craziness went away as soon as we started the service, though. It was so spiritual and Rene bore his testimony at the end and he was so happy!

After the baptism we had a pass off lesson with some other hermanas. They were teaching a really awesome guy, who's dad was a member. His dad passed away a little while ago and the son (his name is Richard) wanted to learn more about his dad's church. They gave him a book of Mormon before we met and he had already read 11 chapters before the lesson! He also invited his son and daughter in law and their cute girl to come to the lesson. It was a good lesson and they all seem really interested in the gospel!

Sunday was one of the busiest days of my mission. We set up our first lesson with our friend Lucero before English class. She is the sweetest Colombian lady and was already familiar with the church. Her daughter is a member and she has some friends who were recently baptized into the ward in the stake next to ours. We started talking about her experience with the church and she bore a really powerful testimony about how the Spirit has made her feel like she found the right church. The member we had there was able to converse with her and we all just shared our thoughts and feelings about the Spirit. We ended up asking Lucero to be baptized! She was so happy and she feels really food about her decision. Please keeo her in your prayers as she prepares!

English class was a ton of fun, because the only students were Alba and Lucero, both of which are the sweetest people ever and theyre both going to be baptized on the same day, and Oscar, who was baptized about a month ago. My heart was full. 

Church was really great and a lot of the people we are teaching came! They all had a great experience. We also got a new Relief Society presidency and I'm really excited about it. I admire each member of the presidency so much and I'm excited to see the miracles that are going to happen.

After church we went over to a member's house to teach some of their friends. This is the same family & friends as last Sunday! Except this time they had even more friends over! Everyone got there super late which was kind of frustrating, but the small spiritual thought wenwere able to share ended up being super powerful! We talked about prayer and helped teach everyone to pray. It was so incredible to hear one of the people we are teaching offer the closing prayer before we left. 

We ended the night at Bishop's house. I've said it before and I'll said it again: I love their family so much. They genuinely feel like my family and I'm so grateful for them. They were all so happy I'm staying another transfer!

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Miracles!

I was reading in Moroni this week and I loved these verses:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased because Christ hath ascended into heaven, and hath sat down on the right hand of God, to claim of the Father his rights of mercy which he hath upon the children of men?...Behold I say unto you, Nay; neither have angels ceased to minister unto the children of men."

You guys! Our God is a God of miracles!! 

Miracles are EVERYWHERE. All we have to do is seek, expect, and recognize them. Our Heavenly Father loves us so much and He wants nothing but to bless us. 

There's not much more I can say. Miracles are happening in this area and all over the world. If you're feeling weighed down, this is my one piece of advice: look for a miracle today. Write it down. And thank your Heavenly Father for it. As we recognize more miracles, more miracles enter into our lives. I know it's true. Let Him bless you!

Uncle Nate and Aunt Naomi took me to lunch while they were vacationing Orlando

Carmencita (Rosario)

Carmen!

Hermano Martinez

Living below our privilege

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It was the craziest week of my entire life and this time I actually mean it. 

Wow, ok. I don't even know where to begin. This entire week felt like the best dream ever. It was so incredible that it literally doesn't feel real. 

Pday was a blast. We played football all morning, which was actually more fun than I thought it would be. Then we got all cleaned up and went over to Disney Springs. A nice member bought us all slushies from the coca cola store. I also found a pillow like the ones at Grandma & Grandpas house!

We started off the week with some much needed changes. We changed the way we do District Council, and we got a new vacuum!!! The combination of the two really started us off on the right foot for the week. We finally had clean carpet and we had a clean mindset! We definitely hit the ground running.

I'm not even going to bother writing about the middle of the week because WOW this weekend was wild. Basically Facebook finding was super successful this week so we constantly had a huge pile of DMs to respond to and we never had the time to do it. We were working through a bunch of them Friday afternoon, while simultaneously soaking up some sun, when we got a call from an unknown number. We answered it and it was this lady whose uncle passed away this week. Apparently he was a member in our ward but he was completely inactive and even the Bishop, who has been in this ward since he was a kid, didn't know who he was. She told us she wanted us to come over to her house and teach her and her entire extended family about the Plan of Salvation. She's Catholic. So is her whole family. We had no idea what to expect going into it, but we agreed to go over the next day. More on that later ;)

We caught up on our messages (for about 1 minute before they started filling up again), grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then headed out to meet our friends Rocio & Victoria for a lesson! They love going on walks so they asked us if we could go on a walk with them instead of coming over to have a sit-down lesson. Obviously we agreed. I love walks (shoutout to Shay-my walking buddy .

We met them at a local park to go for a walk and it was so much fun! The trail we were on goes past a bunch of lakes and jungly forests. Rocio was reasonably scared an alligator would come chase us haha. She and I got to talking about what we've been teaching her and her daughter Victoria and we had the sweetest conversation ever. They prayed about the Book of Mormon this week and they received an answer to their prayers. They never knew you could ask God a question in your prayers! She was so excited to keep seeking personal revelation and getting more in tune with the spirit. I told her prayer is what led us to knock on her door a couple months ago! 

I love Rocio and Victoria so much. They feel like family to me. I can't wait to help them continue to progress. They have so much potential. 

The walk didn't end there either. The sun was setting as a storm rolled in and the vibes were absolutely immaculate. There was tons of lightning in the distance and the wind was blowing like crazy and then it started raining. So, there I was: in a flowy yellow dress (yes mom. The package arrived this week. Thank you!!!) and my Keens, running with my companion and the people we are teaching, through a forest and past the alligator-infested lake, in a lightning storm. I've never been happier. 

So yeah, that was Friday. Saturday was equally, or perhaps more, chaotic.

We started off the day at a Salvation Army volunteer breakfast. Basically it was just an event to thank all of the volunteer groups who help with the Salvation Army projects. They had a choir of middle aged women singing love songs between the announcements of awards haha. The event was actually so good!! The Church was given a few awards which might not sound very exciting but it was! Even just a few years ago the Salvation Army in Orlando wouldn't work with church members or missionaries, and now they recognize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as one of their partners! It's been really great to work with the Salvation Army for the last 6 months and do our best to shine a good light on the Church. 

Then we came home, did as much of our studies and planning as we could, between sessions of helping our neighbor move out. 

Up next we had that funeral/Plan of Salvation lesson thing! We still had no idea what to expect going into it but you guys. It was so awesome. We went over and got to know their family. There were about 10 family members there and they were all so nice! We taught them about the Plan of Salvation and they had the most amazing questions and we had such a fun and uplifting conversation. They were so grateful that we came over and they told us they love us and they gave us yummy food (which is actually another form of saying I love you). They insisted that we come back after they get back from their trip to Miami. They sent us home with an avocado and some yummy sauce as a token of their gratitude. I adore all of them. And! They all came to church yesterday and they loved it! I definitely have a lot of hope for them in the future. 

We ended our Saturday off with a bang. We went over to a member's house for a birthday party! In case you haven't picked up on the culture of Hispanics in Orlando yet: a birthday party is just a rave with a bunch of food. We got to their house and there was a DJ and a fog machine and loud music and they moved their furniture to make a dance floor. And of course, there was more food than you can imagine. It was so fun and our ward mission leader and his wife taught us how to dance haha. Also the food was excellent. 

The highlight of my Sunday, besides the sacrament, of course, was actually our English class! Victoria helped us teach it. And by "helped" I mean she stood on a chair at the front of the class and drew pictures of all of the vocabulary words on the chalkboard. It was iconic. Sacrament meeting was also so good, and dinner at Bishop's house is always one of my favorite parts of the week. I love Bishop's family with all my heart. 

That's just a snippet of the fun I had this week. But you guys. I'm so so happy. The spirit was so present and miracles were just pouring down all around us. Life is so good. 

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Living below our privilege 

This week we learned a little something about living below our privileges. By that I mean we finally got a new vacuum and it changed our lives. 

As dramatic as that sounds, I mean it. I've lived in this same apartment for over 6 months and when I got here I was told "the vacuum doesn't work very well." And then we left it at that. 

But new vacuums exist! All it took was us asking the right person if we could have one and boom. We had one the next day. 

All this time I've been living below my privileges because I've never bothered to hope for something better. 

Rocio and I actually talked about this on our walk on Friday night. They go walking at this park all the time, but they never took the trail that leads you past the lake and through the forest because they never bothered to hope for something better. But then we came along and introduced them to something new! They loved it too. It completely opened their eyes to the possibilities that they had been missing out on.

We also talked about prayer, and all of the possibilities that come along with it. She had been taught all her life that there is one specific way to pray and basically if you said anything else it didn't count. Or God didn't hear you. 

Is that not so sad?

She had been living below her privileges for so long! 

We taught her and Victoria a little while back about how to pray. We explained to them that God loves us so much and He wants to hear from us. We can tell Him our thoughts, worries, gratitude, anger, needs, wants, questions, or whatever it may be. He loves us like a good father does. Because that is exactly what He is. He is a Good, Good Father. He is the Perfect Father. And because He is a perfect Father, He wants to make us happy. That's what makes Him happy. So that's what He does. 

Asking Heavenly Father a question in prayer was something totally new for her and she was so pleasantly surprised by the spirit that touched her heart after she prayed about the Book Of Mormon. She was so excited to keep praying this way, without repetitions and feeling free to say or ask about what's on her mind!

She had lived so long without ever bothering to hope for something better.

I think we can all learn something from that. I definitely needed to learn something about learning below my privileges. Last week we were kind of in robot mode. Our missionary work wasn't as inspired as we wished it was. But that was us living below our privileges.

All we had to do was go to our Father in Heaven and ask for something better. Ask for what He wanted to give us all along. We asked Him to guide us to the people who needed to hear this message and He did just that. 

I don't even have words to describe how many miracles we saw this week. I wish I could write all of them down, but there just aren't words to describe it all.

The crazy thing is all we had to do was ask. 

Hope for something better.

Seek and expect miracles, just as our dear prophet has instructed. 

And then wait. They'll come.

Service, sealing and so many miracles!!!

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This was easily the busiest week of my mission.

What a wild week. I genuinely don't know how to express to you just how busy this week was. We always have stuff going on every hour of every day, so I didn't think it was possible to work overtime as a missionary. Apparently it is.

Also, I just want to preface this by saying that it really was a good week and I'm not complaining. There was just a lot going on and my brain definitely got overloaded, so I was very tired by the time the end of the week came around. I've also been sick which just added to the chaos of it all. I'm almost better now though!

We had tons of service projects this week, in addition to an overwhelmingly large teaching pool. We helped at the bishops storehouse, as we do every week. We also helped make some content for the mission Facebook page (keep an eye out for that next week!), and participated in the largest clothing drive I've ever seen. I don't remember the exact number, but we sorted and prepared about 15,000 clothing items to donate to people and charities. The service coordinator in our stake is incredible and I want to be like him when I grow up. It was a really fun project and we got to see almost all the missionaries in our stake which is always fun! It's pretty rare to have a service project big enough to need that many missionaries. I also don't know the exact number of missionaries that were there but I would guess it was almost 50. Seriously, it was so fun. 

We also got to go to a sealing this week!! It was such an incredible experience and it was really great to be able to go to a sealing here in Orlando because I'll be missing Avery & Haley's sealing later this month. The sealing was for some recent converts who went inactive years back but were reactivated by some missionaries a while back and finally made it to the temple this last month!! I'm so happy for them and it has been such a blessing to be able to see them progress and strengthen each other as they go. I love them both so much. 

I could go on and on about what went on this week, but there's just no way I could ever be able to articulate how crazy it was. So just imagine the craziest week ever, and then multiply it by 10. And then add a little bit. That's what my week was.

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What it means to be an instrument in His hands.

So, what did I learn from a week such as this? 

God is in charge of His work. 

I'll be honest. I have felt really guilty, and dare I say inadequate, this week. Being sick really slowed me down and having so many service projects and member activities really filled up our schedule. I tried to have a good attitude about it all, and I think I did a good job, for the most part. But I still couldn't help but think to myself, often, that I needed to be in a lesson. I have apparently developed this mentality in the last few weeks that if I'm not in a lesson every possible moment of the day, I am not a successful missionary. 

This perspective is coming from a good place, but I've put too much pressure on myself and on this "ideal schedule" that I have fabricated for myself. Of course it's good to be in lessons. That's what missionaries do. They teach people. And where we have such a large teaching pool, it's good to be in lessons as often as possible so we're capable of keeping our friends progressing. 

But like I said, I think I took it too far. 

Or maybe it would be better explained by saying that I had anticipated that a greater portion of the control would have been mine. I thought my life was in my hands. I thought the progress of my people was in my hands. 

I had willingly and forcefully been putting extra weight on my shoulders. Weight that no one else asked me to bear. 

I got so worried that the momentum in this area was going to fall flat because I wasn't doing enough. 

And the worst part is, there was practically nothing I could do about it. I couldn't change our schedule. I couldn't change the timing of service projects. I couldn't just decide to stop being sick. 

I couldn't control the uncontrollable. 

So I didn't.

I was forced to live with exactly what I had been given (which is actually how it always is and always has been).

And guess what?

God's work carried on. 

Thursday night at a ward activity, we had the most incredible lesson with a man we met on Facebook. He is so prepared for this Gospel. He eagerly came to church last Sunday and he loved it. He had left his other church months ago because He felt like he was missing something there. He didn't feel like it was true. When he came to church, he felt the spirit. He felt that this is where he wanted to be. He changed his work schedule so he could come to our activity this Thursday. He already knew a little bit about the church, so he had a lot of really good questions for us. He loved everything we said. He loved that everyone in our church serves in a calling out of service instead of for payment. He loved that we have a prophet today. He loved that we baptize by authority. He loved the idea of Fast Sunday and fast offerings. He loved the word of wisdom. He loved everything. We didn't even get to explain the more fundamental concepts like the Restoration or the Plan of Salvation or the Gospel. He was so enamored with all of the selfless things that members of the church willingly and enthusiastically participate in, that he said he wants to be baptized in this church once he knows a little more. We introduced the Book of Mormon in simple terms and invited him to read the introduction during the week before we met with him again. He read the whole intro that night. He has such an open heart and he has been so perfectly prepared to hear this message. 

As if that miracle wasn't good enough, this Sunday was a huge day of miracles. Oscar was confirmed a member of the church and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. His confirmation was done by a recent convert who just received the Melquisedec Priesthood. Andres was sustained to receive the Aaronic priesthood. All of our new converts are progressing so beautifully. I love them so much. 

We also had a man named Daniel come to church today who apparently saw an ad for the church like 30 years ago and woke up this morning and decided today was the day he was going to go to church. From what I understand he doesn't live super close to our chapel, but he knew that's where he needed to be. He got there and one of the first people to talk to him was the ward mission leader. He explained a little bit about our beliefs, emphasizing that we have a living prophet and that Christ directs this church. He bore testimony that he knows this church is the true church on the earth today. Daniel loved it. He said that's what he has been looking for. Then, to add to his experience, it was a fast and testimony meeting. Time and time again, he heard members say with emotion in their voices, "I know without a doubt that this is the true church on the earth today."

The spirit was in that room. And our visitors felt it. We went to Sunday school after, and Daniel loves the Bible, so Come, Follow Me was so good for him. Our Sunday school teacher is one of the smartest women I've ever met and he loved her lesson so much. He downloaded Gospel Library in the middle of the class because he loved how our church gives its members so many resources.

To top it all off, the members did such a good job welcoming these people in. We had 8 new people in church yesterday. That's too many for us missionaries to handle gracefully. The ward welcomed them in like they had been there their entire lives. David ended up going to dinner at the Martinez families home that night. We stayed after church for over half an hour just talking to ward members, or rather, watching them talk to our friends and welcome them into the fold. 

I love this ward so much. I don't have the vocabulary sufficient to express the love I feel for them. My heart is so full. Sunday was exactly what I needed. My mind, body, and heart were all so drained and beaten down by the end of the week. I was convinced that we had failed. I had let our people slip out of my grasp. 

I put all of these burdens on my own shoulders, and then I was disappointed when I couldn't carry them all. 

I allowed myself to think that I was guilty, that I was even capable, of hindering God's work. But I'm not. He uses me for what He needs me for. And at the end of the day, it's actually up to Him to make the work move forward.

Because although He uses me as an instrument in His hands, He will always be the musician.