Happy 4th of July
Monday and Tuesday were pretty slow and we unfortunately didn't get to see many people, but we still had some great experiences! And then, Tuesday night, all the missionaries got together at one of the churches to spend the 4th of July there (we weren't allowed to be out proselyting for safety). It was SO much fun, I took a few videos - we had a short little devotional, where Elder Janda, who's from France, thanked us for all being there to celebrate the independence of his country, America, even though we were all immigrants. It was pretty hilarious. I was spontaneously asked to play the National Anthem on the piano and botched it, but it didn't matter. I used the decorations you sent to decorate the gym and we played a bunch of games in there and just enjoyed our time together. Driving home, we got to see some of the fireworks which was a tender mercy!
And then, we got to go to the temple Wednesday morning!
It was a surprise, we were told just the day before, but it was definitely a welcome surprise. I felt so much peace and love from the Lord as I was there, and was again incredibly grateful that I was sent to a mission where I have the opportunity to go to the House of the Lord often!Wednesday was FULL of miracles, but I'll just talk about one to save time - we had an extra hour of time because some of our plans fell through, so we prayed before leaving the house to know where to go. As we got in the car, Hna Hanson says, "Let's go try the potential we have in the apartments." The story behind this apartment is literally just that someone told us they thought they heard someone speaking Spanish inside. So it was a sketchy referral, we didn't know anything about them, and the few times that we'd knocked no one had answered. But we followed the prompting and headed over, and heard a vacuum on inside, so we at least knew someone was home and we were going to figure out if they spoke Spanish or not, or were even interested. Well, this man comes out, introduces himself as Luis, and yes, he does speak Spanish. He says, "Yeah, I know quite a bit about Mormons, but I've never tried it out." I felt the Spirit super strongly and just said, "Well, we're going to invite you to try it out." He smiled and said, "Okay, sure."He didn't have a lot of time, and we had to travel to another appointment on the other end of our area, so we only were able to talk to him for fifteen minutes. But at the end of those fifteen minutes he agreed to read and pray, and committed to be baptized on JULY 29TH if he knows it's true!!!!!!! It was seriously SUCH a miracle!!!! Pray that he'll get his answer and follow through!!!
There were a couple of less exciting things - we were really excited for Sunday, because we had 17 investigators and potentials who had agreed to come to church ... and literally not a single one of them showed up. Which was really disheartening, but I'm deciding to grow my faith instead of start to doubt! I still believe we'll have four baptisms this transfer!
The other frustrating thing (that was also a miracle, really) was that we tracted into this member, and he got super excited when we told him we were Spanish missionaries. He told us that his neighbor has been investigating the church. Here's the thing - she's been meeting with the English missionaries and going to the English ward, but she doesn't speak English!!!!!!! She has an interpreter who's coming to her lessons and going to church with her, but she doesn't catch quite everything and wants to participate in Gospel Principles but can't. We texted her and she was SO excited, she had no idea that there was a Spanish ward let alone Spanish missionaries.
In other news, our AC broke AGAIN, Hna Hanson and I have been unintentionally matching our outfits every day which is just ridiculous, and this morning in the shower I looked down and THERE WAS A SCORPION CRAWLING ON MY FOOT!!!!!!!!!!! One of the most TERRIFYING moments of my life!!!!!
I've been learning SO MUCH from the Old Testament! I love it! In Joshua 10, there's a story about one of the battles that Israel had with the kings of the Canaanites. They were vastly outnumbered, but the Lord told Joshua not to fear, that He had delivered them into their hands. Well, in verse 11, the Canaanites are running away and "great stones from heaven" fall on them, and the scripture says that more people died from those than from the men of Israel battling them. It truly shows who won that battle, and it wasn't the children of Israel!
2 Nephi 9:52 - "Let your hearts rejoice." This phrase stood out to me so much. Joy is a choice, though at times a hard one to make, and the Lord will help us as we seek it!
Joshua 23:6 - this verse relates being courageous to keeping the commandments of God, and I'd never associated that word with obedience before. It was really interesting, and gave me a new perspective!
Anyway, just some of what I learned this week! Hope you're all enjoying your scripture study as well!!
Love,
Hermana Garner
Here are a couple of videos from this week
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