After teaching an real investigator at the CRE : "It was good...I just felt so happy. Because that´s what I am going to be doing for the next 16 months."

Email  Sept 14

Hola Familia. 

It has been a miracle week!  Really good.  

We had a lesson with an investigator this week at CRE.  Hna. Ayala´s sister, Madeleine gave us a reference and the reference came to CRE!  She got taught by the missionaries three times in one day.  Hopefully it was a good experience for her.  Madeline was with her (Maria)  The elders who taught her first came out of their lesson and talked to us about what they had taught.  They had taught her about the restoration.  We decided to talk about prayer and how the gospel blesses families, because Madeliene had told us that it would be good for Maria to hear about how the Gospel could bless her family.  She was kind of shy, but she did talk to us, and she prayed at the end of the lesson.  I think that she hadn´t really prayed in order to ask for things before, so we asked her to pray in order to ask for things that her family needed.  It was good. After CRE, we walked home, by the gas station, and I just felt so happy.  Because that´s what I am going to be doing for the next 16 months.  I can´t believe almost two months have gone by already.  Wow, I need to type faster....

We also had a lesson this week with Hna. Ayala.  She is "an investigator"  named Jennifer, and Hna. Ayala taught Jennifer on her mission, so she´s playing a person  that she taught and knows very well.  We actually got to see a picture of the real Jennifer.  Our first lesson with her was a little strange.  Jennifer showed us her house and how she was fixing it up and how she made crosses out of glass and then sold them on the street.  We told her about God, families, prophets, and the restoration.  We gave her a Book of Mormon and told her about it and asked her to pray about it too.  She said she would, and we asked her to pray for us just to close our visit.  She was confused because she only prays the Lord´s Prayer.  And she told us she was sad for us because we weren´t following the example of the Lord.  She told us to go read the Bible and change our ways.  So we told her that we would talk more about prayer this time.  We had a lesson plan and were going to read the intercessory prayer and some other good scriptures.  We taught her in the comedor and started by praying and then asking her how her reading went.  She was supposed to read 2 Ne 31 I think.... I don´t remember, but she had decided it was better to start at the beginning. So she had read the introduction and the testimony of the three witnesses.  She had some questions about who the Lamanites and Nephites were, so we talked about that.  And she had other questions about how it was translated and what language it was in, and if the people who wrote the book were the people who killed Jesus.  So, we pointed out some things in the first page like 600 BC and the language of the Egyptians, and we asked her why it was important to read the Book of Mormon, what we need to do to receive a witness of the truth, what it means to meditate in your heart... stuff it talks about in the introduction.  She told us that she was starting a journal so she could write about what she was reading in her own words.  (And I´m pretty sure my mouth dropped)  and she said she wanted to read the whole book.  I asked her if she understood why prayer was important, and I don´t really remember where the lesson went from there, but it was awesome.  We asked her a lot of questions and she responded, and there were a lot of pauses, but they were good pauses and at some point we asked how she felt.  She told us that she wanted to change her life and be able to return to Heavenly Father (She told us later that everything she said to us, her investigator had said to her)  The spirit was so strong.  It was awesome.  I knew that I should invite her to be baptized, but I first thanked her for her testimony. I just thought about it for about thirty seconds, and there was just silence.  And then I asked her Seguira el ejemplo de Jesucristo....and she got this smile on her face and said yes.  After the lesson she told us that it was a good lesson because we followed the Spirit and we answered her questions using the BoM,  In Preach my Gospel it says that those are the two greatest tools that we have.  She also said that she thought for a second that I wasn´t going to ask her to be baptized.   And she thought if Hna Tew doesn´t ask me to be baptized, I´m not going to talk to her for a very long time.  Anyway, it was good.  And I want to have the Spirit like that in every lesson, because that was crazy. 

    Yesterday we went contacting, and I want to tell you more about it but here´s one story.  There was a little boy in the street about 6 years old and he was crying. He only had one shoe.  We talked to him and some niños had taken his other shoe.  His mom wasn´t home, and he was soooooooooo sad.  It was hard to understand him because he was crying.  I didn´t really know what to do, but Hna. Wilkinson talked to him a little and tried to make him feel better.  We started walking up the street and there were two policemen that were there.  The little boy started to talk to them, and I think they took him to his uncle’s house.  There was a group of women across the street and they saw.  We went over and talked to them, and they were the most promising contact of the day.  Contacting is hard, and I´m not very good at it because it´s hard to have faith to talk to every single person you see.  Or knock on every door.  The abuelas, the security guards, the people who are walking fast.  But I´m going to get better at it.  Okay have fun with Stake Conference.  I have a lot more to say but no more time!  Love to all of you.   I´m leaving for Nicaragua on Monday, I think, on a plane BYE!