13 February 2012
Hey Family!  Here I am in the Cyber (seeber) thanks for the letters Dad, Mom and Kevin.  The rest of you ... write me one! :)  
Happy birthday Adam! 
Love, Hna Tew


What!  
There have been so many birthdays in the family.  I was going through the ages of the grandkids in my head.  This morning I realized Tanner is going to be six when I get back.  Bah!  That one freaked me out.   
Kevin  Thanks for the letter.  It sounds like the kids are growing up.  Tanner is reading from the Book of Mormon!?!  What! ¡Felicidades! 
Dani:  Good luck with the baby!  It would be cool to see pictures next week if there is a baby, but I know everything will be pretty crazy.   I hope everything goes well! 
Dad:  Thanks.  All of my letters to the president are archived in the page from which I send them.  It will be interesting to look at all of them and see the mission and my Spanish at a glance.  
Sarah Cotton:  Have fun in the MTC!  Wow.  Thanks for telling me about that.  I hope she does great. 
Mom:  Thanks so much for the email!  

Dad, you requested that I mention my investigators by name and tell you how they´re doing.   Well, we only have one family that is progressing right now.  It´s Dimas and Ivania.  They came to church!!!!!  yes!  Isabel, a muchacha from the branch picked them up and took them to church.  We passed by their house at 8:00 yesterday morning and Ivania was all ready to go!  Church doesn´t start until 9.   They are going to get married on the 22nd, so I´ll let you know how the wedding goes!   Woo hoo!  They are going to the church activities too.  Everybody in church was shaking hands and hugging Dimas yesterday.  He hasn´t been active in the church for a long time, and everyone was really suportive and glad to see him.  It was really a challenge for him to return to church.  But he went! 
    We are teaching 11 other families.  But we really haven´t taught very much to any of them.  Abel and Marcela came to the noche de hermanamiento and really liked how everyone participated and how we talked about studying the scriptures.  They attend a lot of different churches and we explained that we´re going to teach them how Christ organized his church and how we can recognize his church today.  He liked that.  So.. tonight we´re going to teach that!  
   Aracely and William are Catholics but they don´t go right now.  Aracely uses a wheelchair and says that the church has abandoned her.  William works every other day and couldn´t go yesterday to church, but Aracely wants to go next week with him.  
   This is funny.  We are teaching 2 families that we found with Hna Castro.  Miguel and Rosario and their daughter Teresa and her husband, Pedro.  Teresa has gone to church a lot but a long time ago.  Pedro and Teresa are going to accompany us to the church too next week because Pedro has the day off.  They both like the missionaries and they are truly grateful that we visit them.  It´s nice to go somewhere where the people like you.  Rosario goes to some weird church and doesn´t show any desire to understand or learn.  But we were teaching about baptism and the Holy Ghost with her and Miguel and she just closed her heart and her mind to everything we said.  But we asked Miguel what he thought and he said something like, well, I guess my baptism wasn´t complete.  I´m missing something.  I´m not sure if I´m ready to get baptized yet, but my baptism that I received isn´t complete.  YES!!!!  he has a humble heart.  He is an eskimero, which means he sells ice cream, Eskimo is a brand, and he has to sell sundays.  He´s afraid of his boss.  Anyway, the funny thing is that we found a lady named Maribel and we started teaching her and she was super receptive.  She said things like, oh yeah we need prophets for sure.  and Joseph Smith was just an instrument in God´s hands.  Hna Zapeta and I were like si. Amen.  Asi es Hermana.   But she told us that her schedule is crazy and they were going out of town to sell their chairs they make (everyone in Masatepe makes chairs that are super sweet).  So, we passed by another day and they were all working.  We asked if we could share something with them and she said yes.  We asked the husband to join us and he said claro.  So we basically shared the same thing over again.  And he (Miguel) was super receptive too.  He understood. also, Maribel remembered what the priesthood was.  Everyone gets confused about sacerdocio (priesthood) and sacerdote (priest).  I was so impressed.  The difference is that they WANTED to learn.  Partway through, Rosario showed up and i was like, what!  It turns out the Miguel is her son too.  So we´re teaching 3 families in the same family.  They are cool.  Miguel and Maribel visit different churches too. So, hopefully they will be able to go to church this Sunday.  I´m really hoping that these awesome families will make it to church.  
    We are trying to teach according to needs a lot more now.  We ask questions like how long have you been married?  What´s your secret? Como podían lograr cinco años juntos?  Tiene una manual sobre como ser un buen padre?  Sabe como hacerlo?  It´s a lot more fun to get to know people, joke around a little, explain where we´re from, what are families are like (Thanks for the photo book Cheryl!   I use it all the time and it keeps my photos safe!) and that our purpose is to help families be happy here in Masatepe and happy alla in heaven.  I love meeting new families that are open.  They are usual young, starting out.  Yesterday my companion and I both felt impressed to contact a couple.  Ana Argentina and Jose Luis.  We asked lots of questions and then he said, well, I think it´s fair that I have the chance to ask some too.  So he basically asked us what compelled us to be missionaries, why don´t we stay in our house and sleep instead of walk the calles and talk to people, and don´t we miss our families?  It was cool to basically bear our testimony about why we are here.  She said she would go to church with us. He´s not sure because of his work.  We need to put a lot more baptismal dates.  
      WE haven´t been able to find Lenin again yet, but we´re going to find him soon!  We dropped Manuel and Ena because they aren´t completing their commitments and Ena says she doesn´t have time.  
     Another family, Evelin and Jose are pretty funny.  He doesn´t want to listen to us, and as we approached the house he took off running.  Literally running.  haha.  Afterwards he gave some hilarious excuses and I told him not to lie.  haha  It was so funny.  His wife is interested and believes that prophets are necessary.  But at the end, they tried to make some comparison with the Pope and then they got confused.  But she really wants to know. Okay,  
I feel like we experience a lot more things now. I recognize and work with the Spirit more now too.  But there´s still a ways to go with that skill.  We´re teaching more people, we talk to more people.  I miss you all a lot!  But the time goes by so fast.  It´s crazy.  
Love, Hna Tew