January 27th 2014

Dear Family,

Monday we had a little BBQ with the Elders for a district activity and we volunteered to make Horchata out of oatmeal that a member had shown us. It didn't turn out as well as hers....we'll have to get better directions next time:)

I think all the dogs are talking with each other. Everytime we're in this one part of our area at night a tiny dog always starts chasing and barking at me for a little bit. It scares me every time!

This week was full of lots of....testing experiences. Our investigator Fernando is really putting our knowledge of the Bible and our patience to the test. At one of our lessons he had just come from Bible study and after being questioned by his friends it didn't put him in the most open-minded frame of mind. At one point in time he started kind of railing on the way Sister Walker teaches, because she says things with a lot of passion, and I generally have a smile on my face. It was super hard to see him saying all these things about her when she was trying to testify and help him put away all his doubts. After a few minutes he looked at me because Sister Walker was done talking for a while...all I could think of what to say was "I stand behind everything my companion says" and then something along the lines about the differences in the way we present the gospel doesn't change the message or something like that. I felt like he was breaking up with us, but by the end of the lesson he felt better, and then we had a better lesson on Thursday. Then he came to church and...well he didn't really like it. He told us that he didn't feel God's presence and didn't see the joy in the members that he sees in the missionaries. That was hard to hear because he really does have so much potential, but he's being super stubborn about not reading the Book of Mormon. I personally think he's just afraid because he does and doesn't want to know it's true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet which is super funny because after our super awesome Restoration lesson he went home and memorized the First Vision. It's pretty safe to say we're learning a lot:) He's by far the most outspoken person I've ever been taught, but it's coming along. We have a lesson with him tonight, so pray for us!

Laura is doing super good! She didn't come to church because her ride had a family emergency and by the time we found that out it was too late to find another ride and we just so conveniently live the furthest away from the church:(

Norma, a super less active woman that has been teaching us how to knit so we can slowly help her back into the church:) has been having a super hard time, and that day we finally planned to give her a Book of Mormon and commit her to reading it. We were a little apprehensive because she still is super reluctant to pray because she knows that we are just trying to get her back to church, but I felt that she just needed be told to read. As soon as we started talking to her she had told us how things hadn't been getting better. After a little bit I finally pulled out the Book of Mormon and promised that it would help her and asked her to read it and she said she would! Such a big step for her!

We had dinner with the Garcia Family this weekend and I had planned a scripture specifically for the dad(who finally came to church this week, woohoo!!!!) but both parents weren't there during dinner or the thought so it was just Valerie and her friend Heather who has been crashing there for a few days. I decided to just continue with the same scripture. Valerie didn't like it and wanted something a little more happy(it was about repentance:)) so we shared something different for her, but as we started to talk to Heather she told us that she had really need to hear the scripture that we shared even though she grew up in the church and it was nothing new. Sometimes things don't always go as planned but we were definitely suppose to meet and talk to Heather that night and share that scripture with her. I am so grateful that we planned and followed through with our plans. God truly works in mysterious ways to bless everyone!

Last night we went to a baptism! Susy, a girl in our english class after 6 months of talking with the missionaries was baptized! One of her missionaries who actually taught her wasn't able to come back, so she asked me to give the talk on baptism! She lives in the United States all by herself so we helped her get ready and everything before and after and I always feel so bad because people are always so nervous before their baptism but it is so cool to watch people to go through with it and then so happy afterwards. She was funny because she put on the white jumpsuit and then while we were walking to the room she started acting like a ninja and all the fun stuff:) Also, my cotton skirts that I was going to send home I decided that I'm just going to give them to Susy because she doesn't have any and hasn't bought any. I'm sure she'll have a little fit that she can't pull the whole "I don't have any skirts" card:) 

Transfers are next week...it'll be interested to see what happens. Sister Walker has never stayed in an area for more than 3 transfers. Oh! I also heard that Fransico was baptized yesterday! Apparently Silverlake(my first area) is just having so much success. If it's true I'm super sad that no one at least called me about it after teaching him pretty much everything, but I happy that he was finally able to feel like he was prepared enough and is able to participate fully in Church and all the activities.

I hope you have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Ford