Lesson Learned

Hola familia y amigos,
This week we finished teaching all the lessons to a 12 year-old girl named Aryeris. She is great and totally ready for baptism. After each lesson, she always explained her understanding of the theme in her own words. Her grandma is a member, but her parents aren't. Well, she was going to be baptized yesterday and we had already talked with her dad and he said he wanted to support his daughter and that he would sign to give permission for her to get baptized and Saturday Aryeris had her baptismal interview and passed. But yesterday, we talked to him again to see if he had signed the papers we dropped off at his house and he said that his wife wasn't in agreement and that it was a decision of both so we needed to persuade her. So we went to talk to her and tried to explain the importance of a baptism with the proper authority and what a blessing the gift of the Holy Ghost will be in the life of Aryeris because she's in her adolescence. But she insisted that Aryeris is too young to be baptized and doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong or how serious baptism is because it's a covenant with God. It was so sad. We learned our lesson that you talk to the parents and ask permission right off the bat instead of waiting till after you've taught all the lessons... But the mom say she will permit Aryeris to keep visiting the church so I really hope she does. I know it wasn't effort wasted and that the things we taught her will bless her in her life.
This week we had some great lesson with Judi and Engel. (The both drink and Judi smokes). Normally, when we pass by their house on the weekends, one of them is gone or drunk, but when we passed by on Friday, they were both home so we had a lesson with them and set a baptismal date for April 6th. Then on Saturday when we arrived, they were sitting playing cards together!! It was so good to see them together and happy because they fight a lot. Yesterday, again, we found them in the house together and had a lesson. They're both reading the Book of Mormon and drinking less and Judi is smoking much less! It's so great to see their progress! Engel still struggles with praying and has some doubts about Joseph Smith that we did our best to clear up yesterday. He prayed for the first time in the end of the lesson yesterday too! We've invited them to church so many times, but they still haven't come. However, yesterday the commited to coming this Sunday so I really hope they hold true! I think what they really lack is maturity. They like to goof off in the lessons sometimes and start laughing when we try begin singing a hymn with them. But we know that they have desires to change and that slowly, but surely they will experience a true conversion. A cool thing with Judi: In one of the lessons this week, she shared a scripture with us (2 Nephi 2,:4) that she'd found and it was the exact one that we'd been planning to share with her!
We're teaching a guy named Jaime who the missionaries were teaching 2 years ago but had to drop because he went to Costa Rica and he has a baptismal date for March 23rd. We had a lesson with him yesterday afternoon and he kept saying, "Es correcto" (it's true) to the things we were teaching. He also said he knows the Book of Mormon is true. Awesome! It seems too good to be true! Maybe it's just because we're had to work so hard with our other investigators to help them overcome their challenges, but it felt easy. Who knows what will happen, but I have great hopes for him.
We haven't had a single investigator at church for weeks now and it's a real bummer. Our goal for this week is to have 2 families at church!
Welllll, I'm out of time and I can't remember what else I was planning on writing because I lost my agenda. Boo hoo :( Hope you all have a good week. Everybody send congratulations to my brother Weston who is a daddy as of this last week! :)
Con mucho amor, Hermana Hawkins