I find myself getting less and less creative with the titles of my e-mails. I hope you all forgive me. Good news though! I am alive. I feel like that is something I should celebrate everyday. You should too, because life really is a gift, that´s why it´s called the present.
And, it´s a new transfer, but for the first time in my mission, nothing is really new. I´m still in Vicente Lopez and I´m still with Hermana Alvey. We´ve got another 6 weeks to perfect VIcente Lopez together. Maybe this transfer we´ll get brave enough to go knock the president´s house. we´ll see what happens. This is something that I have been trying to work on. Enjoying the mission. Don´t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do. I´m actually the happiest when I have a really good spiritual lesson. But, as all return missionaries are fairly aware of, really great spiritual lessons do not happen 24/7 on the mish. So we got to do something to spice up our lives while we´re finding the people God has prepared to teach.....so this week, we went down to the limit of our area and knocked doors so I could say that I have taught/spoken with people in all four corners of our area. Which you may not fully understand or appreciate, but let´s just say, my area is still HUGE! So it´s like mild bragging rights. Algo, así. It´s really not important, but I liked it. My companion did not. She really does not enjoy contacting at the moment (understandable). To be fair I don´t either, I just wanted to be able to say that I did it.
Oh, so, we had some awesome miracles this week. First off, we´ve been working on following the spirit more. We´ve been struggling for a while finding investigators to teach with it being the first week of vacations for everyone, but God promised that there are people prepared to listen, and God doesn´t lie, so obviously I was lacking in something. So we were working on bettering ourselves. Anyways, point is, One day we were walking around, trying to contact a few references and we were in an area where we normally aren´t when we decide to go visit our investigator Daniel. So we´re coming from a different direction, we´re like 15 blocks from where he works, when we hear "Hermanas!" And we turn to look and sha-bam! There´s Daniel! We were a bit stunned. Because what was he doing there? Turns out he was in the area because he´s working on getting his papers ready for his trip home to Peru. But if we hadn´t been in that spot at that time, we wouldn´t have been able to find him (Did I mention how last transfer we didn´t have a phone? When we split the area they had to buy us a new phone and it still hasn´t come in. Not fun). So miracle that we found him! And then we had a fun lesson on the Apocolypse. Also fun. Thank you 2012.
And then! This one´s fun. So, we´ve wanted to get better at having lessons with less active members. So we planned to go visit a family. Went there. They didn´t live there anymore. We talked to the lady at the house and she said that maybe they lived next door? So we go next door, they don´t live there, but a nother man named Daniel lives there and says we can teach him (score!) but he has to go to work, so if we want to stop by his work later we can. Bueno. So, we´re waiting at a train station, we were about to leave the area when I get the feeling that we should go stop by Daniel now instead of later in the day (it´s later). So we go, and Daniel is not there, but there is a man named Fabian. We start talking to him about his life. He´s 30, and super stressed because he´s trying to provide for his family of 7 brothers and sisters. And really, it just turned into this amazing lesson. We talked about how God does not want us to be stressed, depressed, or burdened in our lives. And God knows what we need. And then I wanted to share the scripture 3 Nefi 13: 31 - 34, but I couldn´t remember where it was at the time. I remember now. Anyways, I just remembered that it was in 3 Nefi somewhere, so I was about to pass the talking baton to Hermana Alvey so I could look for it real quick, when I opened up my scriptures, looked down at the page, and I was at 3 Nefi 13. The exact scripture that I had felt impressed to share. INSPIRATION! God loves me so much. Also, confirmation that this really was what Fabian needed. So, we shared it with him, and then invited him to be baptized. And he accepted. He has a baptismal date for the 8th of February (because I didn´t know which day was Saturday. It´s randomly a Thursday, but that´s okay). And throughout the whole lesson you could see his demeanor change. while we were reading the introduction he kept stopping and pondering. We were able to testify over and over again that he was feeling the power and truth of the Book of Mormon in that moment, and he hadn´t even read much of it yet. But you could tell that he felt the truthfulness of what we said. Increíble. And then we were getting ready to leave, we left him a chapter to leave and he tried to pay us for the Book of Mormon. First time this has actually happened to me, but we just explained that it´s free. He was mildly insistent, so we told him that if he really wanted to pay us for the hope that we had given him, then when the missionaries called him to talk to him, say yes, accept their message and their help. And then we left.
And it came to pass that I was mildly upset that he didn´t live in our area. Gah! I wanted to teach him so bad. Well, continue teaching him. But that´s okay, it will be a blessing to the missionaries in San Martin. Sigh.
But all in all, it´s been a week of miracles. We´ve also been bettering our relationship with the ward, they are getting so much better. They are accompaning us and when we ask if we can help them they actually say yes! Sometimes it´s just to offer a specific prayer (i.e. my husband is going through a rough time, he´s really stressed pray for him please). Because usually when we ask the members if we can help them they just say "pray" which is valid but mildly lame. We can do more. For instance, this week, a church member helped us to help her clean the church lawn. That was fun, and helpful in many ways. And when we ask the leaders if we can visit a family for them that they think needs help, they actually give us names. It´s crazy. My mind nearly explodes every time. God. Loves. Me.
And the best part of that sentence is that I love God too. THat´s why I´m here in Argentina. How cool is that? I´m so glad that I´m so sure in my knowledge that God really is my Heavenly Father, and even though I have trials, and it´s hot, and I pretty much have permanent sweat stains on all of my shirts (I know I´m pretty don´t worry about it), it doesn´t matter, because God has a plan, in His little/ginormous filing cabinet with my name on it, with a list of people that I´m specifically going to help, to know, to care for, and to love. And I know each of you are on that list. Because God thinks of you too. Thank you so much for everything.
Hermana Reed
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