How are you? Sounds like all is going well and you are now freed from
the slavery of the school year.... now to enter the maybe more psychotic
slavery of summer. Yay summer!!!
Anyway. Hope you know I love you all dearly :)
This week was pretty great!! It FLEW by, but they are all really
starting to fly by to be honest. It is really crazy. ON Monday for Pday
we made pizzas with the Fowlers which is always a fun Pday. Then we
played a few really violent rounds of Uno (which is still called Uno in Spanish, fun fact, I was hoping it would be called One.....) Then that
night the Fowlers had a Family Home Evening and we were able to bring CLEICI!!!!!!!!! I
was beyond excited. I don't know if I have mentioned her lately, but she
is a less active who we have been working with my whole time here in Nasca. She is amazing. She is 21 and about to have a baby, the end of
this month!!!!! She hasn't come to church since she found out she was
pregnant, but we have been able to have some amazing lessons with her
and she really wants her baby to have a gospel foundation, so she is
working really hard to get back to church. It was a perfect F.H.E. about
seeing the hand of God in our lives and the Spirit was very strong. It
was a great night!
On Tuesday I had exchanges with one of the other sisters in Nasca and it
was really good. I think I learn more on the exchanges than the other
sisters who I am supposedly helping. We had a lesson that afternoon with
Lizbeth (Enrique is away in the mine on the weekdays) and she was a
little discouraged. They are having a lot of opposition in getting the
money together to get married (it is insanely expensive and complicated
here) and their whole family is telling them they are making a mistake.
We were able to talk about following the prophet and left a Liahona with
a talk by President Monson for her to read. We have been praying and
working super hard for them this week. They are seriously so special,
and I know that is why they are being faced with so much opposition.
Satan knows how great they are.
On Wednesday we found a new less active named Gloria! She is really
confused about church doctrine and what she believes, but she has a lot
of desire to be able to be able to listen and work on gaining that
testimony back. We were able to explain the importance of the
restoration of the church and the doctrine of Christ. Ever since we
had the last training with President Douglas, not a lesson has gone by
that we haven't talked and testified of the doctrine of Christ. It is
truly a daily pattern of life. It is how we come to be disciples of Him
and be worthy to return to Him :)
On Thursday we had a lesson with a recent convert from the other branch
about family history and committed him to prepare to go to the temple on
the 13th of June. He is super prepared and has a really strong
testimony of this gospel and of the Book of Mormon. We are getting a lot
of people ready with hopes that we can take 15-20 people to Lima to go
to the temple on the 13th of June, which is also the day of transfer
calls. Pray for them!! That night Hermana Mendez and I ended up talking
about the mission and what we had learned and the meaning of life. Haha,
but really it is amazing, It just continues being amazing to me how much I have learned in such a short time. I thought I knew a lot before the
mission.... but I didn't.
On Friday I was reading in Doctrine and Covenants 59 verses 8 and 12. In the footnote of
verse 12 (it is 12a in Spanish, no se in English.) It talks about what Christ wants us to offer to him. The song "What Shall We Give?" from Christmas started running through my mind and I realized that all He
really wants and all that we can really control and give to Him is
ourselves and our will. Then, that night we taught Lizbeth about keeping the sabbath
day holy and it was awesome. She had told us that Fernando had like a
parade thing for school (there is ALWAYS school stuff on Sundays here. It is terrible) and that they weren't going to be able to go. We were
able to teach the doctrine of the sabbath day and how we would be
blessed for observing it and why it was so vitally important. She
was like, Wow I understand now, I can't even miss one Sunday, one day of
taking the sacrament. We will be there. There will be other parades, but
not other opportunities to remember my Savior. She is seriously
awesome. Their family is one of the most prepared families I have ever
taught in my whole mission, maybe the most prepared.
On Saturday, we had a lesson with both Lizbeth and Enrique and we were
super nervous because they were expressing a lot of doubts about getting
married and other things we had taught. We went into the lesson praying
for guidance and it was once again an amazing spiritual roller coaster. Their questions are directly from the Book of Mormon, and the Spirit is
constantly guiding us to scriptures that answer their questions. They
had to push back their wedding date, but they are now planning on being
married on the 11th of June, and baptized on the 12th. They are even
more determined to get to that goal, and they are working very hard to gain
strong testimonies of the Gospel. In reality, they already have them, but they are just in the process of accepting it :)
Yesterday was a pretty great day in church! Lisbeth, Enrique, and Fernando came as well as Cleici and all her sisters. I know that this
branch is ready to grow, and now we are just working on the members and
helping them to be strong. It is a really young branch, but there is a
lot of potential here:) I can't wait to see it in 30 years, seriously.
Every week I am continually amazed by the power of the atonement that I
feel and see every single day. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Christ paid the price for each and every one of us, and that he suffered
all our sufferings. That is real and literal, infinite and pure. I know
that Christ lives, and that this is His church. I know that He loves
us, and wants us to succeed and return to Him :) I love him, and I am so
humbled to be a representative for Him for 18 months.
I love you all!!! Have a great week! Share the Good News!!!!!!
Hermana Lauren Bailey
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