:)

Howdy, ya'll!

We just finished week 4 - only 2 more weeks left in the transfer. Super nuts!

We had Zone Conference this week, and it was pretty intense. Our Mission President is a very inspired man, and he's also very intense, so coming out of zone conferences and interviews always feel like a little bit of spiritual purging. But it's good :)

President talked a lot about faith, and how if we really have faith we show it through our works. So he talked a lot about obedience, and how we need to show our love for the Savior through our actions, and how this mission is a time to learn how to be obedient so that after the mission we're obedient to the ultimately even more important things (things that will help our future families - family home evening, daily prayer, scripture study, etc). That's one of the things I really appreciate about our mission president - he focuses on the after-mission. I've heard stories of mission presidents who are super focused on the mission and tell their missionaries to leave all other thoughts behind, but President Maluenda is very aware and focused on how the mission is going to help us be the mothers/fathers we need to be after. So I'm learning a lot, and it's cool to see how I really can be different because of the mission. Anyway, I learned a lot and left feeling edified and more faithful.

 

We went to Bayview this week! It's this little teeny town out in the middle of nowhere, but it's BEAUTIFUL (hence all the pictures). I've liked different parts of Texas, and Brownsville is much more fun than I expected, but Bayview is the first place I've ever though "I could definitely live here." It's tropical with lots of citrus trees, and the lots of land are all really big so the neighbors are relatively close, but not suffocating. Also, all of the houses are built along a Resaca/lake, and it's like a little bit of Paradise.

 

So remember the story about Jorge? The guy the Elders found? So we tried by every singe day this week and we could never find him/he had to leave or couldn't talk. So we were pretty sad/frustrated, and just wanted to find him. Finally, on Saturday we were determined to find him, so we stopped by 3 times, and the last time it sounded like maybe people were home, but nobody was answering. Ugh. So we walked to another part of the neighborhood, and did some other things. The Zone leaders (who found him originally) called to see if we'd had any luck, and so they ended up coming. Elder Cruz knocked down the door (almost literally) and we finally got the (very-drunk) dad to open the door, and told us Jorge was sleeping. After a lot of persuasion, the Elders talked him into letting them go wake him up, and we talked with him for 10 minutes and made arrangements for him to come to church. We had two people who previously said they could give him a ride, and when Sunday morning rolled around BOTH of them fell through. Earlier that morning I had poured my cereal and was saying a prayer over it, when I felt the impression that I needed to fast. I was trying to justify it away "but I already poured my cereal!" but decided I should do it. So when all the craziness of finding a ride started happening I was so grateful I had that prompting - we called EVERYONE we could think of, even our less-active members and nothing was coming through. I was pretty frustrated, I felt like we had worked so hard to get him to come to church and he was ready, and we couldn't find anyone. Finally 1/2 before church, the Elders found an older member to take him. We all met up at Jorge's house, and seeing Elder Cruz come out of the house with Jorge was one of the happiest sights of my life. Church went really well! I gave a talk on member missionary work during sacrament, so I got to sit up on the stand and Jorge was paying a lot of attention, and after church he said he loved it (and he wasn't on drugs this time - hollah!). It was such a miracle and it was a really big lesson in "after ALL we can do."

Also, yesterday we found a cute little family that wants to learn more and the sister of Sarah (The mystery girl we found who had been taught by elders), but we still haven't found Sarah... ha.

 

Well, believe in miracles! They happen!

I love you all - keep up the good work :)

Love,

Hermanita Reynolds