Faith's email from March 25.
Mi Amada Familia, (See translation at end of page for her account of a miracle.)
Donde empiezo? Esta semana fue buenisima y cada dia disfruto la obra del Senor mas y mas. Estoy muy contenta estar aqui. I feel like this week was one of the most meaningful of my mission.
Hemos trabajado muy duro para cumplir con nuestras metas diarias los siete días (lo llamamos consiguiendo siete de siete) de la semana. Más difícil decirlo que hacerlo. Hemos visto tantos milagros. Por ejemplo, para conseguir nuestros objetivos tenemos que tener por lo menos uno de los indicadores clave (lección con el miembro, otra lección, recieved referencia, los contactos de referencia, y investator nuevo). Algunos días es difícil conseguir uno de cada uno. De todos modos, nos reunimos nuestras metas diarias todos los días hasta el jueves. Jueves por la noche después de un largo consejo de barrio, que todavía tenía que contactar con una referencia o nuestros sueños de 7/7 fueron por el desagüe. Eran las 9:30 y tuvimos que ir a casa y no podía `t cualquier contacto. Yo estaba tan triste. Pero luego, a las 9:35 una referencia llamé eariler que t hadn `respondió, nos ha llamado! Fijamos una cita para visitar el domingo. Referencia en contacto! Fue un signo evidente para mí que Dios is aware of misioneras pequeños. We saw so many miracles like that, my testimony grew a lot. It surprises me sometimes just HOW aware God is of our lives, even to the smallest detail. Whatever is important to us, is important to Him, even if it is actually important or not in the grand scheme of things. I know that God is aware of each of us and desperately wants us to do our part so he can bless us more.
Ah I`m so frustrated because I just typed all of that in English and it was automatically changed to Spanish...and I can`t figure out how to change it back. I just wasted 10 mintues of precious time.
Anyway, Esther is progressing so well and is getting baptized on Sunday. No, her new husband who is a member is not going to church, nor is at all providing for her. He just visits her at her dad`s house to see his daughter. She feels very hurt and forgotten and already wants to get separated. But we are helping her through and trying to find Arnaldo, her husband, but he is really good at avoiding us. I love Esther so much and am so proud of the acting in faith she`s doing.
Christian, another investigator, also came to church yesterday with his two little (wild, crazy) kids! His wife Adela is pregnant and didn`t feel good, but she`s the one we`ve taught more because Christian works during the night and is always sleeping when we visit. Anyway, a sweet, very humble family who has hope!
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. I was thinking of that day two years ago when I walked from Bethphage to Lions Gate in Jerusalem with thousands of other Christians to remember Christ`s walk. I am so thankful I could have that experience. I had the idea to do a little mini Easter Pageant open house church tour thing here in our ward for the community, and we`re doing it on Thursday. It is also an opportunity to open the doors of the church a little more so the community can get to know the church building. Hopefully it will be a spiritual experience for all. It`s a lot of work and I had the idea only last Thursday because I didn`t realize it`s already Easter time. I`ll let you know how it goes. Between that and the baptism on Saturday it will be a great week.
Yesterday the hour changed to an hour later, but NO one bothered to tell us (this happened in October, too, making us an hour late for General Conference) and so we got to church right when we thought it was 8:30 but it was only 7:30. The ONE day on the mission when we could have slept an extra hour, and we didn`t take advantage of it. And that also explains why the members I called at 7:45 answered so sleepily...ha.
The facts you sent mom, about the affects of soda on health, were very interesting. What I love about you is that you accept truth no matter what it`s source, and you accept it by living it, whether it be easy to incorporate into your life or not. I want to be like that. For instance, we used to buy deli meat, and frozen juice and crackers and stuff. I`m pretty sure you don`t do that anymore. Even more, I remember when we made Kool Aid and had Capri Suns! But when you learned that meat and juice are not good for you, you changed. You didn`t think, "Well I`m comfortable eating this, so it doesn`t matter what the truth is." It is such a good analogy of how we should react when we learn what the truth is.....makes me think of people here who have felt the spirit tell them this is Christ`s church, but are just too comfortable in their (cough Catholic cough) ways that they ignore the feelings they`ve felt and continue in what is comfortable instead of what is correct. It is so easy to just do our will, when we are sent here to earth to see if we will do HIS will.
I honestly love my mission so much and am so absorbed in the work, which I feel is an accomplishment. In the beginning of my mission, I used to spend my spare time thinking of my personal life, and now I almost always catch myself thinking about our investigators or the ward or what I can do to better explain something. I`m so thankful God has helped me truly change who I am.
And that`s what He does for all of us if we just let Him. If we just do something to indicate our sincerity and true intent, He makes up the rest. I have such a strong testimony of the love of our Father in Heaven. We have trials because He loves us, we have moments of joy because He loves us, we have the gospel because He loves us. We have failures and moments of despair that He lets happen in part because He loves us.
I love you so much, mom and dad, and brothers and sisters. I never hear from any of you except Hope and Carrie, but I think and pray for you. I wish so badly that I could go through the temple with Hope this week. I love the temple and know it is God`s work we do there. I wish we could all be worthy to be in the temple together when occasions like this happen. The temple is the goal, because it is a piece of heaven on Earth, and Heaven is the great goal, no? Well hopefully I`ll be getting married in about a year so that`s a great goal to look forward to----being in the temple together for that. I hope we can all remember that after this life things such as our career, car, house, popularity, grades, or bank account don't matter. The only thing that matters at that great day is our relationship with God and with others, and our obedience to Him.
Love,
Your Exceedingly Happy Sister Missionary,
Faith
*Translation: Where do I start? This week was great and every day I enjoyed the Lord's work more and more. I am so happy here. I feel like this week was one of the most meaningful of my mission. We have worked very hard to fulfill our daily goals all seven days (We call it "getting seven of seven"). It's more difficult to say than it is to do. We have seen so many miracles. For example, to meet our objectives we had to have at least one of the key indicators (lesson with a member, another lesson, receive a referral, contacting referrals, and a new investigator). Some days it's difficult to get every one. Anyway, we met our daily goals all the days except Thursday. Thursday evening after a long ward council meeting, we still had to contact one referral or our dream of 7/7 was down the drain. It was 9:30 p.m. and we had to go home and couldn't do any more contacting. I was so sad. But then, at 9:35 p.m., a referral I had called earlier but who hadn't responded, called us! I fixed a date for visiting him on Sunday. Referral and contact! It was clear evidence to me that God is aware of his little missionaries.
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