Nine Months!

I hit my nine months this week! What the heck? It is crazy…I am kind of sad and it is very unbelievable for me. I have SOOO much that I still want to do here and just not enough time. J That is ok though, because I am super excited to take what I am learning here to become the BEST member missionary ever!  

We are running hard again and the Lord blessed us with the most beautiful pink sunrise that first morning. We jogged down the hill and it was like all of El Paso was being lit by a ton of pink yumminess. J

Mary Thompson is doing great! We had Marcela Garcia pick up Mary Thompson to come to a baptism for the university ward. She was so happy and excited. We gave her a little tour. We saw that Jeremy kid again who knows Chase. OH! And such a fun basketball tourney was going on with the young men and young women. I really wanted to play (not more than I want to be a missionary though, obviously haha). Anyway, the baptismal service was very beautiful. This girl who got baptized is dating a member. She wanted it to be very clear that she wasn’t getting baptized for him. She didn’t even have her boyfriend baptize her.  It was great for Mary to see it. She is a lot more excited for her baptism.

What Mary texted us back...so cute!

The bishop of the University Ward is a convert and is Hispanic. He talked with Mary for quite a bit. It was awesome. He talked about how he was sitting there during the baptism, listening to the Spirit, and he felt like he needed to change the scripture he had picked to share during his portion of the baptismal service. He said that he received that personal revelation, and when he met Mary, he said that was why he changed it! That was a very sweet little experience for her. Mary is just so dang cute. She is so classy and just gets everything. Sister Fallentine and I were talking about this…it is interesting, because we don’t really feel like she is a very emotional person. She basically has accepted everything in very logical ways. Yesterday, there was a very strong spirit at the baptism, and we finally think she is starting to open up more spiritually and emotionally and it was just a nice thought.

We picked up Alexis and took her with us to go eat with Hermana Harper. She had made some really greasy tacos. They weren’t horrible, but not the best…and she made us eat a ton. She told us lots of stories, including some sad ones. She has been through a ton in her life, but when she talks about God, you can tell that she has a strong testimony that He lives. She never comes to church but she wants to! We may be making progress there. It is SO difficult to get out of there though. Holy cow…I kept and kept trying, it took forever. That has to be one of the hardest thing as a Spanish missionary…getting out of appointments.

After that we tried to go find our little less active family. We did, por fin.  Then we walked up to a little park where a ton of people were playing flag football. We spoke to some women on the benches. Two of them were not so nice but another woman was very sweet. It just reminded me how grateful I am that I primarily teach in Spanish. This is totally a generalization and doesn’t apply to everyone, but the people we teach and talk to on the street are so much sweeter and more humble than some of the gringo people we contact. I have grown this deep love for these people.

We went with Mary to an English ward for church. She might have to go there more often because of work. She looked super cute and classy like always.  J Oh, and she fasted. At our church, for once I didn’t play the piano! It was so nice. I got to know a bunch of new people. I didn’t realize how all the time I spent playing the piano was really hindering my ability to meet new people. This sweet member, Hermana Gamez (who I love and got us amazing chile relleno burritos) had invited her sister to church who is super less-active. Her name is Karina. We got along so well! We took her with us to Gospel Principles. I am super excited because her 12 year old daughter isn’t baptized, but wants to be. We are going to start teaching them!

President Miller took the time to give us both interviews on Sunday, because we had missed the week we were both sick. It was amazing! I love that man so much. He gave me some great advice and made me feel amazing!

This was probably the best Monday that I have had on the mission. Not only did we have a great weekly planning, we were able to teach five lessons, four of those being member present lessons. We were so excited! That doesn’t ever happen on Mondays, especially because we had weekly planning and it cuts into our day. First off we were going to go to Cuca, but she called us. She told us that she told her husband in Mexico that she wanted to be baptized and he flipped out! We are so sad. L He said that if she wanted to, then she should just stay with Hermana Judd in El Paso. It broke our hearts. We obviously haven’t given up on her, but it is truly heart breaking when family members (especially spouses) take away the agency of their loved ones. We are all fasting together next week and are really praying that it will help. We love her so much, and she is such an incredible woman. We haven’t heard from the missionaries in Mexico. We can’t call them, so we sent a referral to them with our email on it, so we can touch base.

We were finally able to give the Russian Book of Mormon to the Russian couple we met a while back. The wife was so stinking cute! J She hardly knows ANY English, but we were able to get on her computer and translate some stuff to her and get her on Mormon.org in Russian. We will see what happens. She said they are going back to Russia in March and then coming back again after the summer. I really hope the missionaries in Russia find them.

We were able to finally visit cute little Julian who is nine. His mom is less active, and he has an eight year old sister as well as a 16 year old sister. None of the kids are baptized. Julian is seriously adorable. He wants to be baptized so badly. His grandparents were there when we stopped by and they are active. They live in Mexico and were very grateful that we stopped by and are teaching them. We taught Julian about prayer and put him in charge of gathering his family every night and assigning someone to give the prayer. J It was so cute to see him so excited about his assignment.

We taught Leo a few times this week. We taught him about chastity with Jesus. That was fun teaching chastity to a 15 year old boy…haha. He is super awkward already (just an adorable little 15 year old kid). He also pulled a funny one. He is always so nervous when we see him. This time when he shook my hand he said, “Mucho gusto,” or “Much pleasure”. It was too late by the time he realized what he was saying. He was super embarrassed. When he gets nervous he talks in this high voice really fast and really mumbled…can hardly understand him.

After that we went by Magali and her adorable daughters. She had a couple clients come while we were there (she does massages and other things).  We were able to talk to the two little girls alone. Oh my word, Sofia is a special little girl. We talked about trials, and she told us about how hard it was when her dad died. She started bawling. I just know that if Sofia comes to church and can make this decision on her own, she will be baptized! We had time to stop by a referral the UTEP sisters gave us. Mabel is 21, and goes to UTEP. She was super sweet. She is friends with the cute Minjares Family that is no longer seeing us. Hopefully some good comes from that!

A potential that we have been trying by FOREVER was finally home…AND we had a great lesson with them. I will let you know if things keep progressing.

This week was kind of an up and down week with us and Rudolfo. To make a long story short, he knows that this is the church for him and wants to be baptized, but wants his wife to be more on board. He is going to be SUCH a strong member.

This week was also super fun because I went on exchanges with Sister Mendenhall! She is the girl I met in Ash’s ward in Pocatello before I came on my mission. How crazy is that? She is super cute and we had tons of fun and a lot of success that day.

Matchy matchy with Sister Wilkinson. :)