Stressful, but awesome!

Hola Everybody!

Hermana Wallis and I forgot to take a pic again. But we'll have one next week, promise!

 

This week was awesome! Stressful, but awesome! It's just kinda tricky transitioning to only having two heads to remember everything we need to do instead of three, but Hermana Wallis is adjusting great and has been a HUGE help already! She's picking up everything really fast and we're going to have a great transfer!

Our investigators are doing so well and Dora might be getting baptized this weekend! Scheduling complications with stake conference still might push it out to the 11th, but we'll finalize everything tonight with them. 

Dora and Jose are doing so amazing! They came to church again yesterday and the branch is really embracing them! They have tons of fellowship in our tiny branch and they're loving learning and progressing! And last night for a branch activity we went to the chapel and watched "The Testaments" (absolutely my favorite church movie, if you haven't seen it you have to youtube it or find it somehow!) and we all ate sourdough waffles after so basically it was the greatest thing ever, and Dora and Jose were able to come to that too! There wasn't a dry eye in the chapel when the movie ended and Dora was especially touched. We're so happy for them and to see how they continue growing!

And we found two really amazing new investigators this week! Alicia was a former investigator that we went to try to contact, but she wasn't home so on our way out we made sure to talk to everybody and ask everyone we talked to if they knew anyone we could help and we were referred to so many different people and apartments that I think we spent about two hours there and as we were finally heading out we saw one last woman and stopped to talk to her and it was Alicia! 

She was excited to see us and our first lesson with her went really well and we're excited to keep teaching her. And then we were in Dora's trailer park and we felt like we should knock just the last corner trailer in the few extra minutes we had. So we go over and knock and the woman who answered was Lupe, who's a regular at the English class we teach! She was excited to see us and said that of course we could come over and teach her the message that we share! The first lesson went great with her as well and we're excited to see how she progresses!

This area is so blessed and Hermana Wallis and I are going to continue to see so many miracles!

Something really interesting that found in personal study this week was a story that I don't remember hearing before in the New Testament. It's Matthew 16:5-12

 5 And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

 6 ¶Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

 7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.

 8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?

 9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

 10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

 11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

 12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

And I really LOVED this story because the disciples, all incredible examples of faith and being great servants of the Lord, just got caught up in one of their mistakes that they missed the bigger picture of what Christ was trying to teach them. He essentially had to tell them "don't worry about yourselves and your weaknesses and everything else, I can make up for all of that, just focus on what's really important." 

That was so comforting for me this week since it's so easy to focus on what we lack and what we're not quite doing right, but if we just take it all to the Lord, forget ourselves, and focus everything on Him and His teachings then everything will work out perfectly. When we simply do our best, He always makes up the difference. 

I love you all and your Heavenly Father loves you even more! Have a great week!

Hermana Martin