Week #37 *April 13, 2015

Hey Everyone,

So this week has been really good.  I have a new companion Hermana Sousa From Brazil.  She is so sweet and I absolutely love working with her it has been a lot of fun  She is from Fortaleza Brazil. She did surfing competitions before her mission and her mom is a scuba Diving tour guide and her dad competes motor cross. How cool is that. I am pretty sure I am going to have to go there after my mission, so she can teach me to surf and we can go scuba diving.  She has about 5 months in the mission ,so she speaks well in Spanish, which is good because I definitely don’t speak Portugese and that would be really hard.

We are really doing well just working hard to make this sector better, and find new people to teach and help those that we are teaching.  

Nicol-  One of our investigators who we were starting to work with the rest of the family was grounded this week.  She has been attending the church for a long time with a member, but when we went by the other night her father informed us that as her grades aren’t good and he feels like the church and its activities are a distraction. She is not allowed to go to church or any of its activities until he likes where her grades are. She was really upset when we went over and we tried to talk to her dad about it, but he didn’t budge, but he says he appreciates our help but she wont be going to church anymore.  Please pray for her. This was a real set back and it happens a lot with parents and later they don’t want anything to do with the church, because it is not worth the fight with their parents. We are really worried about her.

Maria Olga.  We invited her to be baptized this week and she said no and is really struggling to understand why it is important to be baptized in  the church, when she was already baptized in the Catholic Church.  She still wants to learn about the church and keeps saying that she is going to go, but keeps going out of town so it has been a little hard with her.  Please pray for her as well.

One of our less actives Patricia went to church this week who has never been during my time here. We were so excited for her she shared her testimony and it was so sweet.  Her daughter has downs syndrome and leukemia and recently is doing better and her cancer is basically in remission. But she doesn’t want anything to do with the church or really anyone and so it has been really hard for Patricia as she cant really leave her at home alone for a lot of time and so she doesn’t go to church very much. But she wants to return and we are trying to help her and work with her daughter.  

Camila -  She is a less active that we are starting to work with. She was baptized only about 2 years ago and is almost 16. We are trying to help her to return and to do her personal progress, but she is pregnant and she is really embarrassed to return because of what the others will say, but she really wants to return and put her life back in order so that she can raise her child in the church.  She is really struggling, but she is a very strong girl and said that she is going to go to church with us,  because we said that we would walk together and she could stick with us because she feels really uncomfortable, but we are really excited for her decision to return and I am really excited to work on personal progress with her!

Karla-  we are starting to work with a new investigator who is about to turn 18. She has been attending the church for a couple of years and was almost baptized with her mom, but something happened and her mom was offended and so she now goes every Sunday alone and wants us to begin teaching the lessons again so that when she turns 18 she can be baptized. We are so excited for her as she has been waiting so long and she is also planing on going on a mission.

We are continuing to find new families and work with a lot of others that we were working with before.  Sorry I don’t have a lot of time to tell you about them all but please pray for them.

Temple Attendance in this area:

The temple is about 3 hours and the goal in our ward about 4 times in the year. But, it is expensive and so not all go. 

Sorry I don’t have much more time,  but we are starting to focus more on temples now. We only report numbers of attendance at church.  Baptisms, confirmations, baptism dates that we have put, and less actives and recent converts that went to the temple.  We are really excited to start working with this new focus. Before, when I started the mission, we counted how many lessons, new people, contacts and many other things. But I think that this new focus is really going to help us.  I truly love being a missionary, for all the changes that we get to see in the lives of the people and the blessing and miracles  we see each day.  I will try and share more. Sorry time is really short and I don’t get to some things.

I love you all so much and I am so grateful for everything that you all do for me!

Love ya,

Hermana Stringham