Received May 4, 2010
Bon dia,
FIRST OFF!!!
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
To all moms but especially to my mom!
Mom I love you so much and I am so thankful for all that you do for me! You are so amazing! I love you so much! I hope that you have an amazing week! It will be exciting to hear about how all has been when we speak on Sunday!
I love you mom!
I hope that you all have had a great morning so far and a great day and that everything is going well. I am sorry that the email is one day late. We had the kings birthday to celebrate this weekend and so when everyone was off for the day, we got to go out and work! It was fun. But I'm still really confused about why everyone had a day off for the queen's birthday. Oh well.
This week has been a crazy week. I feel like I have been on an emotional roller coaster for the past week and a half. We have been super super busy trying to prepare the Petrona family for baptism and also to maintain a progressing work on the island. And to do this all while having to deal with problem after problem with the cars and the house. But it is awesome and I am loving every minute of it. But I am just shocked by how crazy things are.
We have a baptism that is supposed to occur this Saturday and we are hoping that all will go well. The Petrona family is so awesome and it has been such a blessing to be able to know them. Our journey with them started almost 6 weeks ago and there have been challenges all along the way. Why would it be any different for the week of their baptism . . . right?
They ended up getting kicked out of the house where they have been living last week so at this point they are in a frantic search for a house. As much as they know that this message is true, we aren't really the top thing on the priority list right now. And a week before a baptism it is a little difficult for that to be happening, but it's good. They know that they want to be baptized and they are going to do all that they can to get there. It all depends on what they feel and the will of the Lord as it always is.
But we had a cool experience with them on Saturday. Because they got kicked out of their house they are living with a friend. It turns out this lady is pretty hard core anti-Mormon. She was in the room with them when we sat down to teach them on Saturday. The first thing out of her mouth was "listen, I want you to explain to me, no to all of us, including them (the family) why they need to stop drinking coffee before their baptism." She wanted facts and medical reports and I thought "oh boy here we go." But a voice just came to me in my head reminding "you don't need to, just testify." I opened my mouth and the words just came out. Her heart was touched or something because for the rest of the lesson she was on the side of supporting the baptism of this family. I don't know what I said but I know that I didn't say anything to change her, it was all the spirit.
So yeah, we are working really hard with them. Jose told us last night that he is not really sure if this week is going to be the best week for the baptism. I was really sad to hear that. I just hope it's honestly because they don't feel prepared not because of something that somebody is telling him. This family has so much faith and such a testimony, but it's still new to them. We need your prayers to make this happen. At this point it's fifty-fifty. I would love to be able to see them be baptized but in the end it really isn't about what I want, its about what God wants and what they chose to do! So we'll see. It seems that on Sunday you will be able to figure out if we had a baptism or not! What a cliffhanger, huh?
As for the other family we are teaching they are doing just great! We set a baptismal date with them on Saturday and the lesson was just awesome. We got to the end of the lesson and it seemed like my companion wasn't wanting to set a baptismal date. I asked him about it and he told me if I felt it to do it that I should. I committed the family in a way that I had never done before. It was almost weird. I was talking about things that really didn't matter to baptism but were things that I know that family needed to hear. The dad of this family is a little rough and is a little cold to our message. When we invited the family to be baptized, they all agreed, including him.
The dad said it was a goal for him. He really wants to know if the gospel we are teaching them is true and if they should join the church. He said that he will do whatever he needs to do to come to know for himself. But he didn't want us to be mad at him if he is not ready on the date when it arrives. While I was pleased I was also a little shocked that he was willing to go this far and I know it's because the spirit touched his heart. Really, once again I'm not sure what I said but I know it was not me that touched his heart and gave him the desire to know. It was the spirit that he felt from the truthfulness of the message.
I wish that you all could have seen the joy that was on the mothers face. She wants more than anything for her family to be baptized and accept Christ together. Hearing her husband agree to work towards baptism made her the happiest that I have ever seen her.
As for the other people, the Burnabella family is doing just fine. They fly out to Venezuela on Friday to get married. We need a miracle to make sure that everything goes well. They have the faith that they everything will work out well and that Maedeline will be able to get enter Venezuela and then be able to leave again without any problems! I love this family so much! I won't be here for their baptism but I know that they are going to do great things in this gospel! It has been an absolute blessing to be able to work with them and help them along this path.
There is one miracle story that I do want to tell you about. As I said last week, we had to get the cars registered and it was ridiculous. We ended up spending all day last P-Day at the DMV. We went on Thursday to get the car inspected and we had some more issues to resolve but eventually it all worked out. We had finally jumped through all of the hoops to be able to get the car officially registered. We did it and it felt amazing.
Then my companion said that we should hand them the paperwork for the other car at the same time to see if they would let us pay for the other car too (and not have to go through the week-long process again for that car). We did it and it worked! I was so amazed and so happy. You have no idea! Such a blessing and a miracle to help us be able to return our focus to the work and the people that we are serving and teaching. It may not seem big to you guys but it was a huge blessing to us. It was yet another chance for me to see that our Heavenly Father truly knows us and the issues we are dealing with and that he loves us enough to help us, even with silly things like registering cars!
I am so thankful for all of you guys and the blessings that you are to me in my life! I am excited for Sunday but there is a lot of work that needs to be done before then so pray for us! We need all the help that we can get!
I love you guys! And once again . . .
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL!!!!!
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