August 18, 2014

Hola familia!
Primero quiro dicer "Feliz cumplisnos mama!"
Happy Tuesday! We changed our preparation day to Tuesday because this
morning we got to go to the Chicago temple! Man, this church is
awesome... And so true. Well, it's been a great week... I learned a
couple of very valuable lessons.
First, God is a master planner: we taught a lesson to our investigator
Maria and had brought a member with us. Maria's little 3 year old kept
turning the tv on and disrupting the lesson, our member wasn't too
happy about that. So she decided to take responsibility of the remote
control to counteract the distraction. That was helpful however after
we left the lesson and drove to our next appointment we received a
call from our member who apparently had walked out the door, still in
possession of the remote control - note to members present in lessons:
don't steal. Anyway, we decided to meet Hermana Ortega at the Cermax.
As we walked back to the car I saw a man and asked him if we could
give him a card. El se llama Rafael. And he said yes, and then I just
straight up asked him if we could come and share a message with him
and his family. He said, "ya, how about tomorrow at 12 then my wife
will be there too." They are awesome! Nothing is coincidence these
days.
Second, God tries your faith before the miracle. On Saturday we left
the apartment with high hopes and about 5 set appointments. However,
one by one ever appointment either fell through or was a no show. So
that day was spent knocking a lot of doors and we didn't get into one.
It was rough because after a while you just get a little tired of
people telling your their not interested... I mean this is the most
important thing you will ever hear and your telling me that your too
busy or love the bible. Guess what. The bibles not enough. Anyway, it
was about 7:00 and we were about ready to head back to go find some
dinner. We were in north Aurora so decided that we would just walk to
the closest members house to see if they were home. It was about a 15
min walk. As we walked we saw a women outside her house watering her
flowers. We began talking, her name is Cindy so that was a good
conversation starter. She eventually invited us in, and we taught a
restoration lesson and she is GOLDEN. It was a very powerful lesson,
she is so prepared. Unfortunately we have to transfer her to the
English missionaries. God works miracles according to our faith, but
most of the time he makes us wait after the trial of our faith. That
just makes it that much better.
And third, I have learned that my dream of baptizing a 80+ year old
Hispanic may be a pursuit of a lifetime... They are all just too
catholic.

Well I hope you all had an amazing week. I can't believe school is
starting again, I remember school getting out for the summer, it flew
by.
Good luck Melissa with your new job, good luck at school Alex! Les
quiero mucho! Espero que puedan tener muchas oportunidades a compartir
el evangelio con sus amigos. Feliz cumplianos mama y estoy emocionada
a ver potos del boda de Julia. Also I know cami is having her baby
soon, krystle and Melinda get married in the next few weeks... If you
get a chance to see any of them tell them hi for me!
Hasta luego!
Hermana Johnson

I was wondering if you could find the current address for Dana
Peterson for me pretty please :) muchas thanks.