August 5, 2013

This past week was pretty good! We committed someone else to baptism! His name is Marcelo, and he’s nine years old. His mom is a member that Hermana Castañeta reactivated before I got here, and now we’re going to complete the family by baptizing her son. He and Andres, Josselij`s boyfriend, are both getting baptized on the 24th, the noche blanca. Both of them are progressing well, and although last week I was a bit concerned about whether or not Andres was sincere with his desire to progress, I have a lot more confidence now. We had another lesson with him this past week, and he came to church yesterday, as did Marcelo!

Unfortunately, Omar and Noelia weren’t able to come to church yesterday because their son has some sort of illness right now. I don’t know what it is, but apparently its super contagious because everyone in the ward that asked where they were basically said, yeah, good thing they didn’t come, we don’t want the whole ward to have it too! But they are still progressing well, they have started to pray together as a couple, Noelia is trying to have more patience with Omar, and Omar is looking for a new job that will allow him to spend more time with the family. We weren’t able to meet with them on Saturday, but we will meet with them this Tuesday and challenge them to marriage and baptism for the 24th as well! We’re praying that they will feel the importance of this and do it.

As far as things go with Elizabet, she went out of town for the whole past week without telling us, so when we stopped by to talk to her, we instead ran into someone who shares the house with her, Litsy. Litsy is also super receptive. We have taught her three times in the past week, and she understands the importance of baptism and wants to get baptized. However, her husband isn’t religious and she is afraid of angering him and she doesn’t want to discuss it with him. This is the third time we’ve run into this problem with someone were teaching - they want to be baptized, but their husband isn’t religious or is Catholic and they’re afraid of talking to their husband about it. It’s frustrating, but we just have to be patient and trust that they will find the courage at some point

As far as the Spanish goes, I definitely have seen the Lord’s help these past few days. We fasted from Saturday lunch to Sunday lunch since it was Fast Sunday, obviously, and while we fasted as a companionship for our investigators, I fasted privately for help with Spanish, to be able to understand the people better and especially to have the confidence to speak without fear. Because one of my big problems is that I get so nervous about what I’m going to say and how I’m going to say it that I forget like all my Spanish! But it has been really incredible since I started my fast. My Spanish is still seriously lacking and there’s still a lot I don’t understand, for sure, but I can see a definite change all the sudden. Suddenly I understand more, and I feel a lot more confident in my ability to speak. I feel like I’m actually contributing to the lessons more and I feel like I’m actually connecting with people better, which is a huge blessing of the gift of tongues. The power of fasting is real.

On P-Days, we wash our clothes by hand (I will never again complain about having to wash clothes in a washing machine, for real.) And we email, and do some shopping, and clean our apartment, and then have some time to do a few different things. Sometimes we have zone activities. Today, for example, we’re going to some museum, and I hear that they play futbol a lot. Or we sleep, or write letters, or read, or cook nice meals for ourselves (or as nice as we can get with our super basic little stove thing, which is all we have ha-ha.) Other than that, I’m not really sure! That’s what wave done so far with our p-days.

Sorry that I still haven’t sent any pictures, I’m not sure where I put my cord... but I know its somewhere in the apartment, so Ill be sure to send some next week. Love you all! Thanks for your support!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk