Sunday, September 7, 2014

Email #50 (Gilbert, AZ)

August 4, 2014

FFFFAMILLLLIA!
Hola. Sounds like you had a pretty good week, everybody! I'm so sorry Max got a concussion! That's crazy!:( Poor guy. Feel better, Max! And Eliana is crawling already????? What??? That's so crazy! Wasn't she just born yesterday...? Time is such a strange thing out here. Time really does fly when you're having fun, and especially when you're serving the Lord. I can't believe Shelby goes home next week.... that hurts my heart a lot. When I saw her email that said "ultimo correo (tal vez)" I about broke into tears. And if I almost had an emotional breakdown in the library, I can't even imagine how she feels.... I know she's probably trying to think about it as little as possible, but I bet it's still hard. Weird.

Anyways, this week was a pretty good one! Hna Carvalho and I are just having a blast out here in the AZ heat! Seriously, I feel like I never stop sweating.... And my face just gets really red all the time so all our Hispanic friends always are like "Estas bien? tu carita esta rojita!". Thus is the life of the guera. But life is good! We struggled a little bit with teaching opportunities this week, and are beginning to realize that we have A LOT of work to do in our area, especially in Pueblo to find new investigators. I'm striving to better understand the mysterious ways in which the Lord works when he puts people into our path, and we plant a seed but they aren't quite ready to accept it, so their progression is slow and they don't make a whole lot of efforts to change. It's frustrating. BUT (if you buy 2 completos, is only 2 dollars! BUT...), we must put our faith and confidence in Him because His plan is perfect and He is the one that makes miracles happen in His own time, and we are merely instruments in his hands. I witnessed this first hand as I was able to watch my old investigator Edith enter the waters of baptism this weekend. She is the cute little Puerto Rican lady that Hna Chavarri and I found a long while back. When we found her, we taught her for about 2 weeks and then she dropped us, and later we started teaching her again but she never made much progress. I was transferred from that area, but always saw her at church and occasionally got to teach her while on exchanges. She was stubborn and didn't want to be baptized because she felt she had already accepted Christ in her life and was already baptized into a different church. But God softened her heart, answered her prayers and she was baptized. And it was amazing to see that. Although it was not her time to be baptized when I was in that area, she had experiences that converted her to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, thus bringing her closer to Him than she was even before. She is an amazing woman. Anyways, the point to that story is learning to have patience, to realize that everything happens accordingly with the Lord's timing and in his way, as long as we let it. If we do that we will see miracles with our current investigators and the investigators we are going to find. And although I know that everyone has their time in which they will be ready to accept the truth into their lives, and that time might not be now, I also know that there are people that their time is now, that God has prepared them to receive our message and they are searching for the truth but they know not where to find it. That is what Hermana Carvalho and I are going to focus on this week, finding those that the Lord has prepared for us to teach, especially in our Pueblo area that is really struggling right now.
Also, our Book of Mormon Class started yesterday!!! IT WAS SO GOOD! There were tons more people than I expected (oh thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? haha :)), about 90 people! Hermano Laparra did an amazing job and everyone loved it. We are so excited for how these classes will animar los miembros hispanos en esta area!
Answers to your questions, Mamita:
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1. Our asian investigators are doing okay. Progression is really slow because they are busy with school, and they also didn't come to church yesterday, but we are going to teach them this week so hopefully that will help their progression.
3. F and A are doing well! A still isn't a huge fan of us, but we're trying to get her to like us by giving their cute daughter candy and stickers... hahaha but she is really nice to us when we're there, but when A tells her we're coming she hides in the house... we're going to keep working with her and our members in Pueblo are going to help with amistad, which will help out a lot.
2. T didn't come to church yesterday and hasn't responded to our texts in a few days:( we are going to get him on date though this week when we teach him! So pray that he will be able to accept and work towards that date.
3. G is...well, she’s G! She told us she prayed (once) and didn't feel anything. When we told her she has to pray more she was like "I have to pray more than once??" haha so she is doing well, just once again, slow progression.

Okie dokie, well I love you all so much! I hope your week is fantastic and I'll be praying that all goes well with school prep within the next few weeks!
Les quiero mas que todos de los tiempos que alguien nos diga que va a llover, pero no llueve...:( jajaja
Have a great week!
Hermana Lattina

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