Email 01/05/2011!

Happy New Year!

I have A LOT to write so hopefully I can type fast!

We have been FREAKISHLY blessed this week! Don't know what we did right, but the blessings are pouring! We had the two baptisms this week and they were amazing! First was "A" and it was really cute and now her family is going to start coming to church so that is good but more excitingly "B" is a member!! Wow!

So she was an hour late to her own baptism...we were freaking out...but luckily everyone else showed up a half hour late too. Time means nothing..and it's a friggin baptism...ugh...but anyway she was so excited and so nervous we were trying to calm her down but the day before. We had a little chat about the commandments and swearing because she is always saying "Jehovah" and "Dios mio" soo we figured we would inform her yes, that is indeed swearing as well...but it's a habit. So as she was getting into the baptismal font, she kind of slipped and got back on her feet but she was so nervous she swore..in the baptismal font! Really loud too..everyone was laughing and she just kept saying "perdon! perdon!" It was hilarious! We had to do it twice but it's official! She bore her testimony and she described her experience and everyone in the room was crying, including her less active brother. After her, he testimony bore his testimony to her and promised he would start coming back to church and they have! The whole family has been coming too all the activities this week!

So last week after we emailed we went over the Sister V's! (The therapist) She told me she wanted to do a "bio-feedback" so naturally we agreed, not having any idea what that means. We get there and she hooks me up to this machine, literally, I had a band around my head, two bands around my wrists and ankles and all the bands had cords leading back to this little machine that was hooked up to her computer. Needless to say I was freaked out. But I feel like she can read my mind so I was tyring to act like this was normal. So this bio feedback took two freaking hours but it was one of the most interesting things in the world and I kind of believe it!

So this machine sends and reads energy? I know that sounds sketchy but you had to be there! And it goes through your entire body and tells you what body organs are struggling or doing well and then she showed me my aura and I will admit that was a little sketchy. But anywho it was purple which she was excited about...so yay? But the weird part was that the bio-feedback was right about my body...to the point that it was creepy! So we have been running in the mornings and my back was a little sore last week and my one knee was a little sore. We get to the muscle part and she was DEAD ON! The computer came up showing the exact muscles in my back that were sore and my knee! And then this little bell went off telling her I had to use the restroom! It was creepy because well, it was true. I drank like 5 glasses of water before we left... Anyways it was really, really interesting and fun we were all laughing so hard but the neat thing is that she connects everything to the gospel how our spirits have energy. So It's Hermana O's turn today, so we are excited! Total perfect use of time on a P-Day:)

So I mentioned BLESSINGS! Where to start! We have so many solid investigators right now! Everyone we are teaching is progressing...which is really, really rare. We have a lesson almost every hour of the day. So Mondays we have district meetings and we have 3 other sisters in our district and so we all usually go out to lunch after the meeting together. So we went to California Pizza Kitchen which is kind of pricey, especially for us, but we planned on splitting everything. So we all start updating each other on what's happened over the last week with the people we are working with and we find out that all three sisters are on a Chocolate fast. One of the people they are working with is trying to quit smoking so they wanted to give up something that was hard for them as well, the investigator doesn't know about this, but all the sudden the investigator is having such an easier time not smoking and hasn't smoked in a week!

So there was this picture of desserts they offer and we were all admiring them. They were sad they couldn't have it because of the chocolate. They saw one that didn't have chocolate, but it was a $7 piece of cake...which is ridiculous. So the entire conversation during lunch was about investigators and exciting things we had going on..and we talked to our waiter too about the gospel and he started asking questions...which was cool.

But as we were finishing lunch the waiter brought over 2 giant desserts and said the man that was sitting in the booth behind you wanted you to know that he is not a member of your church, but he genuinely respects what you are doing and he has paid for your lunch and these desserts, but he asked me to wait until he left to tell you! He spent almost $70 bucks!!! We saw him when we walked in and he was sitting by himself, so we just smiled but I guess he had been listening to most of our conversation because he got the two desserts that we were talking about! Including one without chocolate for the sisters that were fasting. Pretty cool!

We've started working with this 14 year old boy named "T". He he has had a pretty tough life and he lives with this family in our Spanish branch because he can't live at home. The members name is "O" and he is about 60 years old and all his kids are old and married. So one day "O" was working in his yard and asked "T" a random kid on the street if he could help him really quick. Long story short they ended up becoming best friends. It's the cutest relationship in the world. "O" and "T" hang out every day and then "T" ended up moving in with them. "O" isn't really a father figure, he really is like "T"'s best friend it's adorable. We started teaching "T", who is so worried about being cool that its hard to get him to concentrate but we got him to pray for the first time and he started to tear up. After he was done, we explained that God heard him, and he sooo cutely said "Really, he really heard ME?"

It pulled a little string in our hearts and we were tearing up, this poor kid has had such a rough start to life and is so oblivious to the fact that he is a Son of God and that someone loves him and cares about him.

I don't have time for all the blessings but at least this one.. We get a call Monday night from a family in one of our wards saying that they have a friend that would like to start taking the lessons as soon as possible. (English work is so much easier than Spanish it's not even funny.) We went over and met him last night. His name is "M", he is about 40. Within seconds of meeting him he tells me "I want to change. I've seen how this family operates and how your church treats one another and I need to know more." He then explained how he's had a past. Then he met the "H" family and he went through a rough patch and the "H" family told him that he could live at their house until he got back on his feet. He has been there for about a week and he's seen how they treat each other. He was listening in the other room to the home teachers when they came over and he loves how our church is like a giant family. So we sat down with him last night, and it was amazing. He knows the Bible inside and out and he noticed things that were missing from every religion. He then read the introduction page of the Book of Mormon and was in shock! He talked about how he knew that "a White God" had come to the Americas because the Bible predicts it and there are historical facts that prove it that he has studied. So when we told him about how Jesus Christ came to the Americas he was smiling ear to ear! The spirit was so strong. He is so interesting and has so much faith. He told us everything about him and was practically confessing, but he has changed so much in his life since prison and genuinely is a really good man. He is so prepared, like "B", he has been looking and he realized he just found it! He accepted a baptismal date. He is getting baptized Feb.5th:)

We are teaching the elect right now! It is very real! So many people are prepared in this area Heavenly Father is "blessing the crap out of us" as we keep saying. Every person we have met, even just in daily contact has been really inspired. We picked up 5 new investigators this week by just running into them! Heavenly Father has been putting so many people in our path it has been UNREAL. The Elders are having the same thing is sounds like. The other day they missed an appointment and were walking around on a street they had never been on and they ran into this 50 year old man and started talking to him. He started to cry and explained that he was about to commit suicide! And that's when they walked up to him and started talking about the Plan of Salvation out of nowhere and how much God loved him and cared for him. Pretty amazing huh?!

Sometimes I wish we could just have a video camera following us around so we could turn to people and say "DENY THAT, that is not coincidence!" It was a very cool week. We still can't get over it. We have managed to celebrate to the best of our ability though. Tonight we are borrowing the Easy Bake Oven from upstairs and making cookies! And building a fort and watching a cheesy church movie from the 80's! That's about as good as it gets when it comes to our night life...meaning between 9:30 and 10:30. But we have managed to keep ourselves entertained!

OH YA- we got asked to work at the temple lights! They asked 12 missionaries from the Tempe Mission to work the lights while the Mesa Mission had a concert and they asked us to go! It was fun to have a change of pace, but the fun lasted about 20 minutes and then it was just plain COLD. I think our blood has thinned, we have gotten used to Arizona weather because Christmas was warm, we had the windows down and AC on and then this last week it dropped down to the 50's and at night in the 30's and we were shivering like crazy! Two missionaries went back and brought us gloves which was very sweet of them, but we ended up putting them on our feet because we felt like our toes were going to fall off. So we had glove fingers sticking out of our shoes..like most cool people do. Only a few people noticed. We met a lot of interesting people. I got proposed to...by a creeper and a half-man that was like 60 years old and an anti-Mormon, but he said "If I could marry a little lady like you I'd be a Mormon.." Gew. He told me I should be a politician, that I talk smoothly and I am convincing. Which was interesting because all we did was bear our testimonies on every principle he tried to attack...He kept hanging around us for the next few hours. Good ol' "C..."

Well we met a lot of people that were definitely put in our path which was fun but I am out of time and I will have to tell you another time! I have a ton of pictures I need to send too.

I LOVE YOU I MISS YOU!! Tell Dad I LOVE HIM!