(NO SUBJECT)

7/21/14

Hola Familia!!!

Well. What a week. Seriously. It all started last week just after emailing when we went to good old Kroger to buy my pears and spinach. Well as we were walking through the store we casually ran into one of our past investigators!! Remember the one who took the bus by herself, got lost, and then walked way far to come to church? Well there was a long story with why she decided to stop investigating the church, but I was so sad because she had been so prepared. I was really praying that I would be able to visit with her at least one more time, and there she was! We small talked with her for a while about how things were going and it just led to us setting up a time to come back and visit her!! We went back later in the week and had an awesome lesson on the Book of Mormon and she recommitted to read it every day because she is really wanting the guidance right now. I am so excited to keep working with her!! Tender mercies. Later on in the week we finally got to have our interviews with President. He is so awesome. He makes me think of a sports coach, he just gets you so pumped up, but then he really commits you to actually act on it. He had a brief training before he started interviewing and he was talking about Captain Moroni and waving the title of Liberty. When Moroni received the epistle, he didn't wait around to see how anyone else was going to react to it, or wait for support, but he knew where he stood and he wasn't going to back down. As President said, "he knew who he was and who he served". As he prepared the title of Liberty, he probably didn't just wav it a little in the corner, but he was out flailing it and declaring the truth!! And that is how we must be as well. We can't just wait back, but we have to be bold to stand for the truth and declare it to others. A few months back President Pingree received the revelation that we need to extend at least 25 invitations every day. Well we had been trying our best, but aside from the lessons we were having, we usually only got around 10. Well, in our interviews President commited us to trust that God would help us make the 25 invitations if we did all we possibly could. Well... on Saturday.. we invited 27 new people to learn about the restored gospel. 27!! That's apart from all of the lessons and appointments that we had set that day too. It was incredible. We really saw how the Lord would fill our mouths as we freely opened them to help these people recognize us as his servants. Yesterday we saw an especially large miracle! Well we were walking through an apartment complex (surprise) and there was a boy sitting on one of the stairwells, but he had his back to us, so we couldn't just casually say hi to him. Well.. we decided to walk into the stairwell to talk to him. And I am soooo grateful we did. He is 17 years old and he was baptized a few years back in El Salvador with his dad and siblings. He used to read a chapter in the Book of Mormon every day and was planning on serving a mission. But then he moved up here to be with his mom and he lost contact with the church. His missionaries had told him that they were sending his info up here, but for some reason it never made it. Well.. it is no coincidence that we had just made our recommitment to talk with absolutely everyone, and God would put him in our path. Because he doesn't even live there, but he was visiting his friend, who wasn't even home! That's why he was just sitting there, finishing his food that he had bought. He is so excited to go to mututal and we gave him another copy of the Book of Mormon. He wants to start mission prep again and wants us to come visit his mom so she can get baptized too. What?? We asked him to say the prayer as we left and he just thanked God for having sent us to him that day.

I am so grateful for the privilege that I have to be a missionary. I love this work. and I am so incredibly excited to see the miracles that the Lord has in store this week.

Remember to trust in the Lord. Replace fear with faith. Life is just so good :)

los quiero,

Hermana Draper