Miracle of Conversion

September 7th 2010

It's P-Day yet again! Already, the day is flying by. This morning, our entire district went hiking up Saddlerock! It was so much fun and I really enjoyed the time we had to better get to know all the Elders in our district. My email time is short today, due to a much longer detailed email to President I gave this week, but I will try to type fast and include all the fun details of the previous week!

Now for the highlights:

1) On Saturday, us sister missionaries out here in Wenatchee had our first 24 hr companion exchange! President Palmer wanted to do a "trial run" for us sisters, and so we had special permission to organize the exchange; meaning the junior comps switched and went with the other senior comps. SO, Sis. UImer (who has only been out 4 wks) came over to this part of the Lord's vineyard. It was overall a great experience. Different not being with my lovely daughter, Sister Perez, but still good. We witnessed many miracles on this day. One of which being that I had to be the one to speak Spanish more, because I've been out much longer (trust me, that was interesting lol) But the Lord was on our side, as he always is. And we had an AMAZING lesson with Jessica Mendoza. We took her on a church tour, and the spirit was so strong that it truly took over and we were able to witness the miracle of conversion begin to take place. Many more details on the tape, but basically as we let the spirit guide us, Jessica was very touched by the spirit and told us she had never felt anything like it before. She told us that she felt like she had finally found a place where she belonged and felt she had gotten her answer. We extended the baptismal invitation, and she wasn't sure because she had already been baptized before. So we worked to resolve her concern, with the guidance of the spirit, and before leaving she accepted the soft baptismal invitation, saying she would pray about it. We helped her to recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost, and told her of all the blessings that come from having the gift of the Holy Ghost. This was a miracle in and of itself, and Jessica is progressing nicely. We are going to continue working with her and her family, as there are many more conflicting details....but in the Lord's due time, we know she will be ready to enter on the path that leads to the Celestial Kingdom. Oh what a blessing it was to be able to be apart of this. The Spirit truly is the miracle worker in conversion to the Lord.

2) We had a great day yesterday, starting out the week to a good start. We found 3 new investigators! Interestingly enough, my Spanish got better almost over night! Last night, I believe it came out better than it has my entire mission. We taught quite a bit in Spanish, but also found a new English investigator. Her name is Marcia, and she is just great! She is probably one of the most interesting people I have met on my mission. She may be a little "out there" in the stories she told us yesterday, but we are giving her the benefit of the doubt. HAHA. She brought a smile to my face, and I may have had to keep myself from busting up and laughing at some of the funny things she said, maybe more than a few times. Oh Marcia (pronounced Marsha). She is about 67, single, and lives alone. More funny stories to come, I'm sure. We also found another investigator who lives at the hospitality house (this will be our 5th one). So....I guess we are just going to convert the entire hospitality house. Eh, why not right? lol.

3) In other news, Neftali is going to be ordained to the priesthood this coming week! Yay! Exciting! Koty has been doing great, he is a rock in his testimony. Let's see...we haven't been able to find Rafael yet, unfortunately rumor has it that he started investigating other churches. We're afraid he might have gotten anti-ed or something. SO please keep him in your prayers. We really felt he was sincere in learning about the gospel and about wanting to get baptized. He was so great in our lessons and just the cutest older man I've met, but the adversary was really beginning to work on him. We haven't been able to find him or contact him for over a wk and a half now. So please pray.

Anyway, I'm out of time. Yikes! I better send this soon! Um, family thank you so much for writing! It was greatly appreciated! I will be writing back and sending a package today. Know you have been in my thoughts and prayers a lot this week! Grandma, thanks for writing too! Mel, thanks for the email. I've really missed hearing from you two so its good to hear you are doing good. Megs, thanks for the letter too! And Dana, thank you for always sharing your spiritual experiences with me and for writing me too! Love you all! Have a fantastic week! I miss you.