Miracles!
Hey everyone,
This has been a great week full of miracles and new things. We have just been working really hard to find new people to teach. I have loved working with Hermana Sousa. She is such a sweetheart and we have really had a lot of fun together. This week it has really started to get cold here. It is still a little bit warm in the middle of the day, but at night it gets really cold. I am starting to get a little nervous for winter especially for my companion, who has never really experienced cold!
This week we have been working really hard and praying and fasting to be able to find more people that we could invite to be baptized. Our leaders and mission president have been challenging us to have more faith and to set baptism dates. As the week was coming to an end, I have to admit I was getting a little discouraged and worried that we weren’t going to be able to complete the challenge of our mission President. One of the people we had invited had said, “no,” the last week and we weren’t finding anyone. Saturday we decided to go to work and find someone, as it was the last day of the week. We passed by to a contact we had done in the street, that I really hadn’t thought that much of the contact and he let us in. We were able to teach a middle age man and his wife. We taught him about the restoration and he had a lot of questions and was really interested. At the end we invited him to be baptized and he said, “yes!” He told us of how he had felt that there was a reason why we had talked to him in the street that day and he felt something really different as we shared about the restoration. It was such a powerful lesson and we are so excited to keep working with him and to help his wife and son as well to be able to come to the same experience as him. I know that the Lord always keeps His promises, when He asks us to do things. But we have to have faith and do our part. The Lord tested our faith as we started to doubt as Saturday was the last day of the week, but we kept on searching praying and hoping and we were able to find Alejandro.
This week we also started to work with a family that recently moved to the ward, Cesar and Paula. They have two kids and are all members other than Cesar. Cesar has a testimony and wants to be baptized, but he has to quite smoking first and they have to get married. We talked with them and put goals together as a family. We couldn’t get them to commit to a wedding date, as Cesar wants to buy another house first and the government helps out more for people that are single and so they want to wait. We are trying to help them understand the importance of acting now, so that they can reach the goal they have as a family to be able go to the temple and to be sealed together forever. Please pray for them.
Karla- Also this week an investigator who has been investigating the church for 2 years came to us and told us that she was ready to be baptized. We haven’t been teaching her as she has had all of the lessons and was going to be baptized about 2 or 3 years ago, when the day before something happened and her mom changed her mind. She is about to turn 18 and she can now be baptized and so we are really excited for her. It has all passed crazy fast and we are preparing her baptism for this Sunday. Please pray for her as this will be her third time preparing for a baptism. She is such a strong young women doing it all alone. She is planning to go on a mission in the next year. We are so excited for her!
Maria Olga-We had a really good lesson with Maria Olga this week we were able to go with a member Hermana Helen who used to be evanglical as well, and struggled to understand the importance of baptism. The lesson went really well and she committed to pray to know if the church really has the proper authority to baptized.
As I think I already mentioned, we have been focusing a lot on the temple and so this week we have been teaching all of the less actives and our recent converts in the ward about temples and family history many of the have committed to start their family history. It has helped them a lot to have a higher focus in the temple. Especially one of our converts Helen, who has been preparing to go to the temple at the end of the year. She committed to prepare 4 names and to go and do baptisms for them in May. I have loved this new focus as it has helped me to refocus in the temple and to put higher goals for those we teach.
Well I have just about run our of time but, I want you all to know that I love you and I am so grateful for all your support.
Hermana Stringham
Q & A
Yes my companion speaks Portuguese. I have learned a little, but not alot as our mission president recently asked that we only study Spanish and English in the mission so that we can really learn the language. Some missionaries were studying other languages. No she doesn’t speak any English, but I am teaching her as all missionaries are being asked to learn English and we have a half hour every day to study language.
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