Junio13

Familia Hermosa,

We have more investigators than we can shake a Book of Mormon at.
The Lord is opening the windows of heaven.
But there is so much responsibility from that.
These people have amazing faith, crazy backgrounds, so much trust in us as representatives of the Lord and now they all just need to come to church.
I think a lot of times they think we''re church. We're the ones who come into their homes and bring the Spirit and help them feel something they've never felt before and feel spiritually uplifted... (they all readily voice this).... but now we need to help them understand that there are things at church that they need and that we cannot provide. This week we are going to work super hard to get lots of member present lessons and expound the doctrine of church and the sacrament, etc.

We have so many sweet people that we meet with. I wish I could tell you all about every single one of them. They're so unique and wonderful and we love them.
But here are just a few.
W.T. - Ok I'm not telling you his details..... Suffice it to say, he's done it all. It ALL.
We literally started from ground zero with him. Possibly even the negatives. But I've never seen someone make progress like this. He keeps his commitments and he reads every Book of Mormon reading assignment we give him and he has visibly changed since the first time we met with him.
The last time we met with him....
I "expounded" Alma 32 to him ... and it was not me talking. I've never understood Alma 32 in that kind of way before and it was NOT ME talking. The Spirit was very present. And then he started to talk (and he's not the kind of person who'll say something unless he really believes it) about the possibility of even loving the people who killed his mother and baby brother and cousin and instead of wanting revenge (something that has always been 2nd nature to him) he could maybe give that to God to deal with and let it go. When those words came out of his mouth I couldn't contain myself. "YES! you're getting it!!!!! YES!!!" I exclaimed, and shook his hand profusely. And now he is actually concerned about where he's going after this life (a very new concept to be concerned about for him). He now has a desire to "do whatever it takes to get to Heaven." Our lifestyle was surreal to him at first. Completely surreal. But over time and with reading the BoM, he actually believes in it, wants it and is willing to sacrifice to have it. We committed him to stop smoking marijuana for a month and to experiment and just see if within that month he doesn't feel a change in his spiritual sensitivity and life in general. We said if our experiment fails, he can go right back to it. So on July 11th..... I'm confident he won't even want to go back. He stopped on June 11th. This week'll be good with him.... And I WILL see him baptized. Eventually. I think he might be ready for the doctrine of repentance this week....

V... First time we met with him he brought out extensive notes from OT reading and basically taught US the first lesson... we have high hopes for him.
B... what a darling woman. So sweet. Sensitive. LOVES us. So do her kids. More on her later.
D... said she wanted to convert to Mormonism during our first lesson, that it all felt very right to her and completely made sense. Her little brother A is like my FAVORITE. We have an ongoing battle about which style of Vans is better. (He says the 106s are better.... I stay with the originals...)


Have a wonderful week, family! I love you!


P.S. The fireflies here are AWESOME.