Bolivia Bound

Paraiso Round 2!!

June 23, 2014

Hello everyone!!!

Well, it’s been yet another great week! It was a nerve wracking week as well... the week of CAMBIOS! On Wednesday night we got te dreaded phone call... and were excited to learn that Hermana Lopez and I get to stay together here in Paraiso for another six weeks at least to bless this ward. :)

Last week, as I mentioned, was "the week of the family." We spent the week trying to be more diligent in contacting families in the street and looking for referrals of families. The week of the family didn’t turn out exactly how we imagined (I was imagining, for example, contacting a great family of four that lives in our area and would accept to be baptized in the first lesson), but I know that the Lord gave us exactly the families He needed us to contact. In the end, we contacted various couples and families that seemed interested, but none that live in our area, ha. That’s okay, though; Hermana Lopez and I talk a lot about how we have the blessing of having an area en el centro (downtown?) so we get to bless other missionary’s lives by talking to and contacting prepared people that live in other areas. For example, we found a fantastic part-member family that lives in another area, a family that is less active and talked to US because they want to go back to church, and also lives in another area, and other nonmember families that are interested and live in other areas.

But I know that despite the fact that we haven’t yet found our "golden family" in our area, the Lord is still blessing us a LOT, and with families - just not in the way we expected. For example, we felt prompted to visit a part-member family that we were working with a while ago but that stopped receiving us - and they are once again interested in making the gospel a part of their family! They have some work to do to be ready for reactivation/baptism, but they came to church on Sunday and we’re excited about that. :) We also met a new menos activa, Veronica, who wants to come back to church and wants us to teach her boyfriend that she lives with - another potential family! And we have seen lots of progress with other people we have been working with - Cristina and her boyfriend Grover, who I mentioned a few weeks ago, went to church as well, Cristina for the second time and Grover for the first time, and are progressing towards a baptism date. And another hermana Adriana came to church for the second time with her nine-year-old son, and are super excited to keep progressing. Another investigator also came to church, as did several menos activos - including one named Mauricio, who came for the first time in years! It wasn’t exactly the week we expected, like I said, but I know that the Lord is blessing us with tons of miracles.

Some other good news... it appears that after almost a month, the university in our area is now FINALLY open again! That means a lot of our investigators who left will now be coming back and hopefully we can start teaching them again. :) Also, if everything goes well with the interview, Esteban should be getting baptized this week! It was a huge fight he had to go through to make it to this point, but I am grateful to be here to see his example of firmness and patience despite all the trials he’s had to go through to get baptized.

Love you all! Have a fantastic week!!

Love,

Hermana Chelsie Faulk