Tue, Feb
5, 2013 3:55 am
Here's an
overview on our work in our area:
We continue to see SO many miracles every day! And it is so great to not be half deaf anymore!! Because of my good recovery I am trying to work as hard as ever to show my gratitude to Heavenly Father for helping me recover so quickly.
We had 21 lessons last week with almost half of them being lessons with less active members and the lessons with member are mostly with family members of less active members. It has been amazing working with the less actives. They just want to be loved and cared about. They just want people to notice them and talk to them. A lot of them have been forgotten because of all the recent changes in our Ward. We are still waiting for a new Bishop to be called and the Ward is still recovering from all of the big families that have recently moved back to their own countries (mostly all last summer, including the Bishop and his family). The members that are active continue to be strong and faithful. We finally have gotten into almost all of their homes, with the exception of a couple. If they don´t sign our food calendar, we approach them personally and if they say they have no time, we stop by their house anyway during random times of the day. It has really worked to our advantage and we have begun to make wonderful relationships. Plus, a few brownies deliveries also helped out. J
Our baptisms:
We are working on getting both Fausta and her daughter Cristina to the temple. Cristina has one daughter 20 years old; who is an atheist...We are trying to talk to her about the gospel....not going well yet. And she has one son, Daniel who is 7 years old. He will be 8 this year and we are working on preparing him for baptism by first trying to get him used to going to Primary. His name is Daniel and he wants to go on a mission someday!
It has been so exciting to see this family progress. Cristina gave us the information of almost all of her less active siblings who live in Spain. Lots of work for us to do!
Lupe's husband Nelson is attending church now and they are preparing to go to the temple, J but they are moving back to Peru in March...darn. The church needs them here in Spain...but they are amazing. They just bought leather bound, tabbed triples and Bibles. When they opened them up they acted like children opening presents on Christmas! They were so excited and started crying. Nelson even kissed his book! I have never seen anything like that! It was amazing to me. How blessed we are to have the scriptures in our life. They are so sacred and should be treated as such-not thrown around, or on the floor, or stepped on, etc. They are letters from Heavenly Father specifically written to us. Nelson and Lupe are amazing examples and have the most incredible faith. They are doing so well and now have visiting teachers and home teachers. :)
Xavi, originally from Uruguay, (his Dad served a mission in Arcadia, California) is doing great. We want to visit his siblings who also live in our area with their families. Xavi´s Dad was inactive for years, but he finally became worthy to baptize his son! He now is the 2nd Counselor in the Sunday School Presidency!!! :) Xavi´s Mom and her family are all members of the church. They all live in Uruguay still. She is now reactivated and is Secretary in the Relief Society!!! Both the parents received their callings this last Sunday. The baptism was beautiful-probably the most spiritual one I have been to in the mission. It was incredible. Xavi´s Mom invited her friends and wants to get them to listen to us! When I first started in Hospitalet First Ward this family was one of the first that I met. We visited them almost every week and now they are all active and they all bore their testimonies in Sacrament meeting on Sunday and the Dad even said that they are working on going to the temple now to be sealed as a family!!!! WOW!!! Talk about miracles! They all bore their testimonies in the baptismal service, also Sunday night. It was beautiful. Everyone was in tears. More than half of the Ward attended the baptism and the Primary children sang a song. Hermana Rivera and I were privileged to give the talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost.
Xavi is an incredible child and is 8 years old. He has the most faith I have seen in a child. It is because of him that I really came to understand the commandment to become as little children-submissive, meek, humble, etc. He is so intelligent and so willing to learn. He just wants his family to be happy and he wants to go to the temple someday with them. He encourages his parents to go to church. He reminds them that they need to sing hymns together and read their scriptures together and pray together every day! He is a very loving child with strong desires to be a missionary someday as well! He has changed my life with his example and testimony. He is incredible and it has been a blessing to teach him. He will reactivate his whole family-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...I know it. I am excited to see where this family will go and to see all the miracles that will happen thanks to Xavi.
We continue to see SO many miracles every day! And it is so great to not be half deaf anymore!! Because of my good recovery I am trying to work as hard as ever to show my gratitude to Heavenly Father for helping me recover so quickly.
We had 21 lessons last week with almost half of them being lessons with less active members and the lessons with member are mostly with family members of less active members. It has been amazing working with the less actives. They just want to be loved and cared about. They just want people to notice them and talk to them. A lot of them have been forgotten because of all the recent changes in our Ward. We are still waiting for a new Bishop to be called and the Ward is still recovering from all of the big families that have recently moved back to their own countries (mostly all last summer, including the Bishop and his family). The members that are active continue to be strong and faithful. We finally have gotten into almost all of their homes, with the exception of a couple. If they don´t sign our food calendar, we approach them personally and if they say they have no time, we stop by their house anyway during random times of the day. It has really worked to our advantage and we have begun to make wonderful relationships. Plus, a few brownies deliveries also helped out. J
Our baptisms:
We are working on getting both Fausta and her daughter Cristina to the temple. Cristina has one daughter 20 years old; who is an atheist...We are trying to talk to her about the gospel....not going well yet. And she has one son, Daniel who is 7 years old. He will be 8 this year and we are working on preparing him for baptism by first trying to get him used to going to Primary. His name is Daniel and he wants to go on a mission someday!
It has been so exciting to see this family progress. Cristina gave us the information of almost all of her less active siblings who live in Spain. Lots of work for us to do!
Lupe's husband Nelson is attending church now and they are preparing to go to the temple, J but they are moving back to Peru in March...darn. The church needs them here in Spain...but they are amazing. They just bought leather bound, tabbed triples and Bibles. When they opened them up they acted like children opening presents on Christmas! They were so excited and started crying. Nelson even kissed his book! I have never seen anything like that! It was amazing to me. How blessed we are to have the scriptures in our life. They are so sacred and should be treated as such-not thrown around, or on the floor, or stepped on, etc. They are letters from Heavenly Father specifically written to us. Nelson and Lupe are amazing examples and have the most incredible faith. They are doing so well and now have visiting teachers and home teachers. :)
Xavi, originally from Uruguay, (his Dad served a mission in Arcadia, California) is doing great. We want to visit his siblings who also live in our area with their families. Xavi´s Dad was inactive for years, but he finally became worthy to baptize his son! He now is the 2nd Counselor in the Sunday School Presidency!!! :) Xavi´s Mom and her family are all members of the church. They all live in Uruguay still. She is now reactivated and is Secretary in the Relief Society!!! Both the parents received their callings this last Sunday. The baptism was beautiful-probably the most spiritual one I have been to in the mission. It was incredible. Xavi´s Mom invited her friends and wants to get them to listen to us! When I first started in Hospitalet First Ward this family was one of the first that I met. We visited them almost every week and now they are all active and they all bore their testimonies in Sacrament meeting on Sunday and the Dad even said that they are working on going to the temple now to be sealed as a family!!!! WOW!!! Talk about miracles! They all bore their testimonies in the baptismal service, also Sunday night. It was beautiful. Everyone was in tears. More than half of the Ward attended the baptism and the Primary children sang a song. Hermana Rivera and I were privileged to give the talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost.
Xavi is an incredible child and is 8 years old. He has the most faith I have seen in a child. It is because of him that I really came to understand the commandment to become as little children-submissive, meek, humble, etc. He is so intelligent and so willing to learn. He just wants his family to be happy and he wants to go to the temple someday with them. He encourages his parents to go to church. He reminds them that they need to sing hymns together and read their scriptures together and pray together every day! He is a very loving child with strong desires to be a missionary someday as well! He has changed my life with his example and testimony. He is incredible and it has been a blessing to teach him. He will reactivate his whole family-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins...I know it. I am excited to see where this family will go and to see all the miracles that will happen thanks to Xavi.
We had another amazing miracle...We have 3 fechas!
Pabel and Evelyn finally can be baptized! They are from Honduras. They have one daughter who they are trying to bring here to Spain this year. Evelyn´s parents are members and her little brother is going on a mission to the Dominican Republic! Evelyn´s sister lives here and wants to be baptized but works all day every day. Her husband is arriving here to Spain the end of this month and we have plans to teach him! Pabel is the only one who knows about the church in his family. Pabel and Evelyn have been like members of the church for about a year or two now. They will get married on March 21st and baptized on March 23rd, and confirmed on March 24th. The whole Ward is planning a celebration. Everyone is excited and anxious for them to finally be true baptized members of the Church. They are faithful and even participate in every class. They have assignments instead of callings. I feel blessed to be the missionary that can see them get baptized because every missionary has taught them. We see them once a week for a Family Night and they always want us to invite investigators so they can help us teach them! They are amazing.
The other fecha is a miracle. His name is Roy and is 18 years old from Venezuela. His girlfriend is a member who goes to the Barcelona First Ward. Just a year or two ago Roy didn´t even believe in God. He shared with us a special experience that he had. He said sometimes he would say kind of a prayer to himself, but he didn´t know if there was a God until one day he had a distinct impression that someone was listening to him and that he wasn´t alone. He met his girlfriend and they started dating and she started bringing him to church with her and to JAS activities. He loved the people and made friends quickly. The missionaries started teaching him, but he told us it just wasn´t his time yet. A few months passed by and he told the Sister missionaries in the First Ward that he was ready to receive the missionaries again. They taught him the first lesson and then he decided he needed to meet the missionaries in the Hospitalet Ward that he should be attending. We met him yesterday and taught him the Plan of Salvation. I have never explained the Plan of Salvation in such depth before in my entire mission. He was hungering for the truth. He just wanted more and more answers. He told us that he has doubts but that he doesn´t know what his doubts are until the missionaries answer them and he realizes that they are no longer doubts. It was amazing teaching him. He told us that he wants to do this for himself and not for his girlfriend. He wants to serve a mission someday! He is getting baptized the 23rd of February.
People are prepared! We need to find them! We have been contacting a lot. Getting lots of referrals and working hard! We are being the most obedient that we can and we love the work. The 12 weeks program is also helping us a ton and we are learning a lot every day.
Love,
Laura
Laura
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