Monday, April 15, 2013


Awww, the voice!  It's the little things like that that I miss.  Haha.  Okay, I GOT YOUR EMAIL ABOUT THE CHECKS!  Haha, It's just really hectic, I don't have much time to sit down and write everyone.  I definitely need to write Marina, though.  I hope things get better for her.  It's a big adjustment!  You'll be happy to know that my companion and I got permission to do work out videos and we do "Shred it with Julian Michaels" and we just did Zumba this morning.  One of the members gave us a Zumba DVD.  Haha.  So we've been working out pretty intensely! 
Trust me, the mission leader doesn't want ANY of us handling calendars or trying to set up dinner appointments!  He made that very clear.  It's all good, though.  Him and our district leader do not like each other.  Haaa.  Yes, we've been eating.  Everything's great there.  And yes, Sister Neider is real awesome! 
Oh, yeah!  My companion!  Haha, she's great.  She's from Washington.  Her dad is from Argentina and her mom is American, but served a mission in Argentina.  Hermana Franco didn't know ANY Spanish before her mission, though.  Her parents are divorced so she didn't grow up always around her dad's family.  She's a very happy person, and thankfully, strives for obedience!  We're constantly setting goals to improve.  We're both nervous about street contacts, so we're always working at that.  She goes home in September.  We have a lot of fun! 
Yeah, Victor is our first official progressing investigator.  The other day we actually had our 3rd lesson planned for him, but we called literally almost 30 people and no one could come out with us! (He's a single man and lives alone.)  We didn't want to cancel on him because he was going on a trip for a while and we wanted to give him some good homework before he left.  He is so legit and keeps all of his commitments, always remembers appointments...and so the last thing we wanted was to cancel and give him a bad impression and we REALLY needed to teach him this lesson before his trip!  Crucial! So we were freaking out and we both came home to finish our studies and say loooong prayers.  Then a miracle occured!  Victor called us and told us he could not meet that day because he had a problem in his home, but said Tuesday (tomorrow) should be better.  We were so relieved!  And we felt much better afterwards. 
Also, we've been teaching FHE's to the Valadez family.  They have a 9 year old son who wants to get baptized.  However, his dad has been inactive and has just recently been coming back to church.  Jose, the 9 year old, wants his dad to baptize him, but he needs to priesthood first.  The family really wants to go to the temple and be sealed.  We visited them the other night and had a really cool lesson planned, but it turned into something waaay more intense.  Hermana Franco had mentioned how her parents were divorced and they had wondered why that happens in the church sometimes.  Hermana Franco explained how when one person keeps their covenants and the other doesn't, it creates problems.  Hermano Valadez then expressed how that has never been a problem in their marriage and how they are still strong even though he's not active.  However, Hermana Valadez then told us the opposite.  She is very upset and really wants to go to the temple.  She feels it is hurting their family.  It was really intense and apparently was the first time he had even heard her say this.  She told us she never opened up like that before.

 As missionaries, people just spill their hearts out to us! It's a blessing in a way because they recognize us as representatives of Jesus Christ and I guess they trust us. 

Anyway, He really wants to change and take his family to the temple, but he has problems setting his pride aside.  He says he doesn't know if he has a testimony, but I think he does.  He says he wants it, too.  He works constantly and the only time he has to spend with his family is on Sundays, and so he doesn't always want to go to church.  In the spiritual thought I shared that night, I tried to emphasize how that is the place you should be with your family.  He also doesn't like conference, so that's kind of a problem.  Me and Hna. Franco are determined to help them with their goal to make it to the temple! 
We're going to have the fremont experience again next Monday!  Excited!

PS...
Also, another miracle this week!  We were trying to visit a potential the other day, but they never answered the door.  On the way to the house, a man was walking down the street a ways and waved to us.  So eventually we got back in our car and Hemana Franco felt guilty for not talking to the man, even though he was further down the street.  We passed him sitting on a bench and she really had a feeling we should turn around.  So we did and had to park way out of the way and walk all the way to where he was, hoping he'd still be there.  As we started walking, he was actually walking right towards us.  We talked to him a bit and he was seriously interested.  We felt so good afterwards!  It wasn't in our area, though, so we had to pass him on to other elders.  And guess what?  He was at church THAT SUNDAY!  Before anyone even committed him to go, he was there!  The funny thing is, he told us he spoke Spanish and so we referred him to Spanish Elders, but when they met with him he said he was from the Philippines, but his wife was Latin.  And so he actually went to the Spanish ward AND the English ward on Sunday!  Super legit!  He was definitely prepared and we followed a crazy prompting to go hunt him down!  The Spirit was not about to let us pass him by!  

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