Thanks for the updates mom. No I did not no about S's mission call, nobody tells me anything. But that's awesome! If any of my friends get engaged or get their calls, don't wait to let them be the ones to tell me, because they haven't really kept me in the loop.
It was a great week. Tuesday and Wednesday there were four missionaries in S; each of us went with one of the Zone Leaders. It was very helpful. I learned a lot from them and we are teaching a lot better because of it, I think. Thursday we had Zone conference, and I cannot say enough about how much power President Wagner has! We did practices and it blew my mind how direct he is when he teaches! He literally asked the mock investigator "What are your sins? Do you think God likes your sins? That's why he sent us here, so that you stop sinning." Wow! I learned a lot that day. Something awesome always happens after these conferences, and this time was no exception. Thursday after the conference we did splits with our district leader; Elder R stayed in G with Elder J and his companion, Elder D, came with me. He has one transfer more than me, he's way awesome and a super good missionary. That night we visited S, who has kind of stopped progressing since she can't come to church every week and she refuses to accept a baptismal date. So we tried to put one again. We figured out the things that have been keeping her from accepting: She doesn't feel like she has any sins and she's scared of making a mistake after her baptism and breaking her covenant. So we explained to her that she's not God and still has sins and that she can take the sacrament to renew her baptismal covenant, and she seemed a little more receptive. She's been saying that since it took her 5 months to plan a vacation to the beach, she should take at least that much time to plan her baptism, since it is much more important. But she finally asked us when we thought she could be ready. The Spirit (through us) said March 9th, so we had her pray about it and we all felt super strongly that that was the date! We just need to get her to stop working on Sundays and she should be very, very ready for that day. Pray for her a lot!
More miracles: Elder R came back Friday night and we went to visit a less active named I. His mom was the first member baptized in S, but he has been inactive for about 20 years. His wife and 3 daughters are super active and super faithful, but he has just never had the desire to go. But about 3 weeks ago he broke his ankle skateboarding, and after 1 week of not being able to get in for surgery, we went to his house and his wife asked us if we could give him a blessing. That day they had gone to the hospital again to see if they could get in, but they were too full and were going to have to wait until the next week. In the blessing, it said that he would be able to get surgery soon and begin to heal. He was crying when we finished. Later that day, they went back to the hospital and everything had suddenly cleared up so that he could have his surgery. Taking advantage of the fact that he can't move and is stuck in his living room all day, we went to visit him. His daughter is going to turn eight next month and is going to get baptized, so we used that as a motivation to help him come back to church. He told us he felt the Spirit really strong in the blessing and that he knew he needed to come back to church. Friday night we had a super spiritual lesson with him--we taught him the first two points of lesson 1: God is our loving Heavenly Father and The Gospel Blesses Families. It was powerful--we had never taught a lesson with such unity and so spiritual. He felt it too, apparently. The next day his daughter came with us to a few lessons and while we were walking around, asked us "What did you say to my Dad last night? He's been acting really weird." Apparently by really weird, she meant that he had called the whole family together for family prayer, was super happy, told his wife to iron his Sunday pants so that he could go to church, and reminded them to be home Monday night for Family Home Evening. What?!!! And sure enough, he came to church this week, even though he still can't walk without crutches. That's the power of the Holy Ghost. It really does change hearts and lives when we let it in!
Last miracle: Last week we felt impressed to contact the guy who works in the cyber cafe where we always write. We did, and he told us that he had to go to Guadalajara that week, that he wasn't going to be able to meet with us, blah, blah, blah, he's not interested. But we went back Saturday to put more credit on our phone and he was outside washing his car. He yelled for us to come and said he wanted to talk to us. Apparently his wife left him Tuesday and took the kids with her and he has been really lonely. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and told him to read it until we could meet with him this Wednesday. Heavenly Father knows His children and knows when they will need the gospel most!
Finally, congratulations Timo! San Antonio is a great mission! And the cool thing about going English speaking is that the moment you get into the field you can already be the Man instead of having to learn how to communicate first. You'll be great, I'm sure! I'm super excited for you and super excited to tell everyone here about it! Love you!
Have a great week everybody! I haven't had time to read your letters today, so I'll respond to them next week. Hasta luego!
.JPG)
Elder Pew
