This week was great! We had a double zone conference with President and recharged our spiritual energy. I'm learning a lot of simple things I can put into practice to have more success. Small ways to better recognize when people are really prepared for the gospel.
Yesterday, our zone leaders sent us a message saying we needed to be really persistent to get people to come to church. We passed by for Alfredo and Mirna and they were already dressed and ready to go to church so we said we'd see them there, but our goal was to bring two families to church so we set out to bring another. A couple possibilities fell through and we were left with one other couple who had commited to come to church. We had passed by their house a little while earlier and the mom said they weren't home, but we didn't think that was true so we went back and check 15 minutes before church was about to start. As we imagined they WERE home, but had just barely gotten up and weren't ready. We told them, ´That's ok! You still have time! We'll wait here for you!" and they tried to tell us, "No, it's fine. Wait for us at the church. We'll arrive within a half hour!" But we knew that if we left them and waited for them at the church they wouldn't show up, and we were already gonne be late so we didn't want to show up late at church without investigators. We said, "No, we'll wait here while you two are getting ready. We don't like arrive at church alone. We like to walk with friends." Then a few minutes later, again, the lady tried to tell us they would just meet us there, but we weren't leaving without them. So we waited and they finally got all ready and came with us, but we were about 40 minutes late to church and they only had time to hear the last talk. But we conviced them to stay for the gospel prinicpals class. And Alfredo and Mirna came as they promised so we were able to reach our goal of having two families at church! Woo! A tender mercy from God. This week, we're hoping to break the record of two and bring 3 families to church. In my whole mission I've only been able to bring at most 2, but I'm determined to have 3! In total, we had 8 investigators at church, so it felt like a pretty successful Sunday. This week we're preparing Alfredo and Mirna for baptism. They are sooo positive and I just know they are prepared to be baptized, but please everyone pray for them and that everything goes well this week for their baptism and confirmation!
Juan finally got back from El Salvador yesterday and seems really excited to go to church for the first time this Sunday. We are now teaching every single person in that house. I'm not sure if I've already mentioned that we found Reyna by way of her sister-in-law Flor, who we contacted in the street. We kept showing up at their housing looking for Flor and she was never there and then finally we showed up one time and she was there, but she didn't want to receive us, so we asked Reyna if we could share a message with her. After about 3 visits with Reyna, we realized we needed to invite everyone in the house to listen to our message, so we started teaching Marta and Juan, and later Reyna's brother Pablo. Then later the other brother Mario and finally this week, Mario's wife Flor decided to sit in on a lesson so we're teaching her too! And she wants to go to church with her husband! So cool! God works in amazing ways.
We found this seemingly nice family this week who were super positive in the first lesson- they accepted a baptismal date, commited to praying about the Book of Mormon, and commited to coming to church this Sunday. But when we passed by this Sunday, the husband said he wasn't gonna go to church because he had a horrible headache. We tried everything to convince him to go, but he wouldn't budge. After church, we went to visit them to teach a lesson and the husband would even let us come in through the front gate. Instead he shouted at us from the patio to come back next Sunday. The wife was down the street running and errand and when she saw us, she hid from us. So we pretended like we were gonna go visit another person and turned the corner and waited a while. When the wife thought we were gonna she went back to her house. 2 minutes later we showed up and called out to her, but she completely ignored us. What on earth?? I don't understand why the suddenly don't want to receive us. I'm sure someone told them some lie about the church. But hey, it's better to realize after just the first lesson that they don't want ti progress than after many lesson, as it happened with Luis and Mercedes. Also, another investigator stopped receiving us and we found out later it was cuz her neighbor told her that Mormons give people $20 when they get baptized. It's so sad that people will so easily believe lies without even trying to find out the truth. She had never even gone to church to see how it really is.
We ordered zone t-shirts and they turned out awesome. They're red and on the back we have the names of each missionary in the zone. Today we played soccer as a zone. It was really fun, but it was sooooo hot outside I felt like I was respirating fire. By the time we finished playing, I think my face was pretty much the color of my t-shirt haha.
Well, that's all for this week. Love you all! You're always in my prayers!
Hermana Hawkins
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