HEYOOOO

6/24/13

Heyo Familia! Como les va?

This has been quite the week!! Really! The Lord is doing some really great things here in the Woodlands! I just love it when you can step back and trace out how some miracles happen, and just marvel in the genius of God!! Seriously!! I don't know if last week I told you, but we have a menos activo family, but they really want to go to the temple and be sealed. They have a really hard time paying tithing, because they haven't really seen the importance. But, that is a requirement for a temple recommend. Well, we were going to do a noche de hogar about a month ago on tithing, but at the last moment we felt that we shouldn't, and we did something else. Well, last week this family came to our ward for the first time in a long time (they go to another ward occasionally that is closer) and guess what the lesson in Sociedad de Socurro was?? It was on tithing!!! How perfect is that?? Well, we could tell that this sister really took the lesson hard, sort of as a chastisement, but we prayed that she would be able to use it in a positive way. Well, then we had dinner with them this week and we just shared a scripture about the power of the Book of Mormon and such. Well, somehow something we had said led into the mom really opening up about how she had felt so guilty after the lesson and how she knew the only way to get rid of that guilt was to obey the law of the tithe and such and she finally understood why it was so important. But her most important reasoning was she didn't want one law to be keeping her and her family from being sealed. It never ceases to amaze me how perfect God's timing is! Everything needs to happen on His timetable.

Another awesome thing is how faithful our "most progressing" investigator is!! We meet with her about three times a week and she has usually read multiple chapters between each visit. I had said we taught her the word of wisdom, and she hasn't had any coffee since then! She told us that it doesn't matter if the coffee is bad or good for her body, it is just a test of faith. WOW. Seriously? Every time we visit I feel like she teaches me so much more than I can teach her; and, she came to church yesterday!!!!! It was her first time coming! And yesterday was kind of weird, because normally our block is from 3:00-6:00, but since we had the broadcast yesterday we just had sacrament meeting from 3-4:30, then a little break and then watched the broadcast, and she stayed for it! We really wanted her to, because it is something else for the investigator to really be able to listen to the Prophets voice, regardless of the message. But it was awesome because I think it really helped her see how important this work is!! She had no idea how much work went into it. That it is so much more that a bunch of jovens going out to share a really awesome book of scripture, but that is an organized mandate of God! So that was great, great, great day. :)

Did you guys get to watch the broadcast? It was so awesome. Well, I wish I could say I completely understood everything.. but we watched in Spanish.. but I did get the general feel; the excitement of the work! And no worries, we are going to watch it this week during training time... in English. But I have to admit I got teary eyed when they had the little videos of "I hope they call me on a mission" and then "we'll bring the world His truth"... It made me think about, well, how I am so lucky to be out here?? At 19. I don't even know. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary. To be one of the 70,000 bringing the world His truth.

I love you all so much. Thank you for the support and love!! We just keep on keeping on. Reemplace miedo con fe.

Les Quiero,

Hermana Draper... or hermana diaper as some of the members like to say... apparently in a spanish accent they sound similar.. :)