2-28-11

Hola mi familia!!!

Como estan? Bien? Que bien! Estoy SUPER bien. It was another GREAT week to be a missionary, to be a live, to be a daughter of God. This week was really fun and we experienced a lot of miracles. I can hardly believe that all we experienced fits into one week.

We were sick YET AGAIN this week. We're not exactly sure what we had. It was different from last week and we BOTH were sick again. I've never had that before. We ate some really good Dominican food on Tuesday afternoon and then we had another Dinner Apt later that night. We're not sure if it was the food or a bug but...that food did NOT sit well with us. We were sick from Tuesday night when we got home until Thursday night. We ended up being inside our apt for that entire time! I have never, ever been so sick before. Wednesday Hermana Porter and I literally spent the entire day in bed. But even with being inside for a huge chunk of the week the work has progressed and miracles continued to happen. We are both feeling MUCH MUCH better and are excited to start a new week with OUT being sick.

On Tuesday night we were able to visit with the Ar* family. They are from Chili. Hna Ro* is Hna Ar*'s daughter who I've mentioned before. Hna Ar* has been less-active. She has begun coming back to church and bringing her other daughter Li* and her kids. We also found out that another girl, Gi*, who I thought was Hna Ar* youngest daughter is actually her grand-daughter and not a member. She is 13 and Hna Ar* said she wants us to begin teaching her in her home! What?! Yep. Huge blessing. Gi*'s mother, Hna Ar*'s other daughter is a member but converted to be a Muslim. She does not want the missionaries over in her home but gave permission for us to teach Gi* in her grandma's home. We're going to need a lot of prayers to begin teaching her but...we are really excited to work with her. She's already come to church 4+ times and loves it. She has a lot of friends in young women's and is doing well.

Thursday we were able to teach the Mi* family at night. We have been planning really hard to teach them and felt that we needed to invite Hna Mi* to be baptized. They have been doing really well with reading in the Book of Mormon and we have seen them change. When we got there Hna Mi* had read two chapters and was doing really well. We read in the Book of Mormon with them, taught, and the spirit was there. We invited Hna Mi* to be baptized and she said no. We really feel like we need to focus on Hna Mite and not them together as a couple. We did our best to work though some of their doubts and re-invited them to be baptized. They still said no. Both Hna Porter and I really felt the spirit while we were teaching. The Mi*'s said they know the church is true and the Book of Mormon is the word of God but they want to be solid on everything in the gospel before they commit themselves. They are afraid of falling away. We asked their daughter to bare her testimony and her thoughts about baptism and she expressed their concerns exactly. Regardless, they don't feel ready yet, even though they have investigated the church for over 2 years and are more active than some members here. We will continue to work with them. I know it is only a matter of time. They are ready but they need to feel ready themselves. They are a great family and we love them very much.

After the Mi* family we headed to the church where we were going to meet Hno Diaz, our ward coagulator. He is a funny man. When we got there he was helping set up for the ward talent show night the next day. We ended up not having ward correlation with him. We were downstairs with all of the youth. There was loud music playing and the youth were dancing and goofing around. We stayed and asked if we could help set up but there really wasn't anything that we could do. I thought, "I don't feel good, I don't want to hear this kind of music right now or ever, what are we doing here?" Even though I questioned what we were doing there, we didn't feel like we needed to leave. We set a time for us to leave regardless of what was going on. Right before we were about to leave the church and work Hno Aguilar came down and said, "Do you have a min, I just called Mo* and he is going to come. Can you teach him?" What?! YES!!! Even though we hadn't had a set apt with him we kept planning for him. When we were called to teach him we were ready. It was a lesson to me to always be ready along with obedience. We could have easily been listening to the music, dancing and so forth but we didn't.

Mo* came and we did our best to teach him with the Spirit. It was an incredible lesson. Actually the lesson was ok but the spirit was really strong. Mo* has a strong STRONG desire to change, to repent, and become better. He is about 28-30, from El Salvador, I think, an alcoholic, and smokes but that is what he wants to change. It is hard to describe the lesson, what was said and felt other than it was incredible. Because I was still sick I couldn't think 100%. I said a silent prayer and pleaded that this would be a spirit guided lesson. As we taught him I felt bold, confident, and did everything I knew how to hear and follow the spirit. While teaching he stopped and said, "This is amazing, it is like you know what I am thinking." I had just said, "Mo*, Heavenly Father is so pleased with your desire to change. He loves you. He is happy with you." Mo* said, "That is what I wanted to know. I wanted to know if this was what God wanted me to do, if He even cared and if this is what I should do to change. How did you know? You are servants of God, you are speaking His words to me right now. This is just what I was looking for and wanted to know." WOW! How humbling. I know that everything that was said was from the spirit. I know the lack of my skills as a missionary, I recognize how poor my Spanish is but Moises was there, he has desires to change and Hna Porter and I were doing EVERYTHING we knew we could to help this man learn and come closer to our Savior Jesus Christ. I am grateful that Heavenly Father is aware of what we stand in need of and how to help His children. That night He helped Mo*, not us.

We invited him to read in the Book of Mormon. We promised him that he would be able to change, stop drinking and smoking as he worked hard, kept his desire change and read. He was a little take back that a book could do all of that. We left him with Alma 36 to read. We talked to him a lot about baptism as well and said he wants to learn more before he decides to be baptised but he understands that he can be cleansed from all of his sins as he follows the example of Jesus Christ and is baptized. He came to church Sunday!!! He also read and said it was great and he didn't stop reading after he finished reading the chapter! What a great man. While teaching him we taught him how to pray as well. We asked him to give the closing prayer and after a little tough love and saying that he CAN do it he did. He prayed and it was amazing. Afterwards we asked him how he felt. He said, "I feel warm all over. Maybe this church is just hot but I feel warm all over my body. I feel something deep within me..." We testified of the spirit and that he was feeling it.

On Friday we were able to teach Ol* and St*. It was kind of a crazy lesson but I guess that just happens sometimes when you are teaching a 10 yr old, 7 yr old, with their 5 yr old friend. It was good though. They understand better that they need to take these things a little more seriously. Hna Me* helped teach. Ol* came to church on Sunday! We were so excited to see him there. Ro* also made it to church. We've been worried about her and her progression lately. Part of it is that we haven't been able to teach her for a while with being so sick. We are hoping to teach her and Martin sometime this week.

Saturday we were doing all we could to work hard and at the same time remember that we had just spent two days in bed and to not kill ourselves. I love LOVE working. We ended up writing about 30 thank you notes for members of our ward, investigators and so forth to express our love and thanks for everything we do. I have a huge testimony of thank you notes. :) They get things done and people let us come over when they feel we really love them and aren't just trying to get something out of them. After that we had a dinner apt with one of our investigators, Hna Parada. She is incredible. She has a rough life and due to some choices and things going on in her life she can't be baptized just yet but has a HUGE desire. She will be some day. After a great time in their home we had planned to finish our weekly planning that desperately needed to get done. My testimony of planning has grown in enormous amounts serving a mission. The thought of going home right then didn't sit well with me...more time inside...NOOOOOooo... We had planned another apt but they called and cancelled right before we were going to leave. We decided to look up some former investigators and thanks to the awesome zoning of our area we were able to look up quite a few people in an hour. There was either no one home or no one interested but we did our best. As we went from house to house we did our best to contact people on the street and check out the area. On our way to the last person we were going to look up we stopped a couple on the street and talked with them for a little bit. They had talked with missionaries before and actually use to have missionaries live in their home in Peru. We've really been doing EVERYTHING we can to find new investigators. It has been difficult, which it always it but it makes you value and love those you are teaching even more. We got the couples information and invited them to church. They said they would give us a call when we can come over which usually means..."I'm just being nice to you but I'm not going to call." They didn't call BUT the next day I was looking over the potential investigators that we have in that area and I found them in our records! We have some more information on them and missionaries here have met with them before. We are going to do our best to look them up this week and pray that they will be ready to accept the message of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week has been one of miracles and blessings to hear and follow the spirit. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the people here more than I could ever express. One example of a miracle is that there were 3...THREE people that wanted to feed us all at the same time or within two hours and would not let us say no. Some how after explaining that we would LOVE to come over but were running from apt to apt they said, well, just come and pick up the food, then you can eat it when you have more time. What?! Yes!!! What a blessing. We ended up bringing two dinner apts home and eating at another members home. Please don't question the weight gain my poor body has experienced. It is all because I love the people :) and their food.

I love being a missionary Family. I am doing everything I can to be 100% obedient, consecrated, and follow the spirit. I know there are so many things that I lack in but I am doing my very best. I need to apply and use the Atonement more in my life and in this work. We are looking forward to this coming week. We have a lot of good apts with people we have never met before but are family members of members or people that contacted other missionaries on the street.

I know this is the work of the Lord. I know that Christ lives and miracles continue to happen. The world is getting torn apart but there is hope and comfort found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I know this is His church. I love all of you very much. Have a great week and know that I will be praying for you.

Con Amor,

Hermana Banaszewski or as the members say, Hermana Banana wisky