Wednesday, June 11, 2014 - Week 42

Hey! How`s it going? I have had a super great week!!! I don`t know where to start so I`ll just go in order by day. Haha. So with this new goal of ours to visit the members, we`ve really been getting lots of help. There are 2 sisters in the branch that go out with us to do visits every week. One on Thursday for 2 hours and one on Saturday for 3 hours. It`s been so good. It really helps to have their friends teach them. On Thursday we had a reunión de consejo. I can`t for the life of me remember how to say that in English. It`s the meeting for all the leaders in the branch. Mom you go to it. Anyways, our branch president is awesome, but he really needs the help of everyone else. He talked pretty straight forward to all his leaders that they need to start helping in the missionary work and helping people feel welcome and how to help our little branch grow. I think people were a little shocked, but it was super good. I hope they all took it to heart. On Saturday we went out with 2 sisters to visit some inactives. We went to one of the sisters houses after and she happened to be killing a chicken when we arrived (that is normal here… they kill their own chickens and cook them). It was sooooo disgusting. She slit it`s throat and it was flapping around for like 30 seconds before it finally died. It was so sad. They she plucked it and started cooking it. They even found an egg and 4 soon to be eggs and they eat those!! EWWW. After taking pics I had to get out of there fast! Lol. We didn`t have the consecha on Saturday because our branch was going to the temple and wouldn`t be able to help us so we`re going to do it another day. This Saturday we have a branch activity that we planned. We`re going to have lots of water games and food and we`re inviting EVERYONE. It should be fun. On Sunday 3 of our investigators went to church! Emily, Sonya (a new investigator) and Jose Manuel. All the members were really welcoming. We couldn`t teach Jose Manuel this week, but we`re going to put a baptismal date with him as soon as possible. Afterward we went to eat lunch at our branch president`s house which was so fun! We ate rice chicken and beans, and garlic bread, and bananas, and cake!! It was so good! That night we went to visit a family in the branch that we`ve been visiting for about a month now. When we started visiting them, the husband didn`t want to participate, wasn`t going to church consistently, they weren`t having FHE or praying or reading their scriptures, and the wife is excommunicated but still goes to church. Anyways... it`s been an interesting process. Slowly the husband has started to participate and like I told you last week, they have started doing their FHEs and praying. Well on Sunday he spoke with the branch president and said he wanted a calling in the church (which he has never accepted in his 10 or more years as a member. AND he told us in our lession with them that he has a goal now to get sealed to his family in the future and baptize his wife when her year is up and his daughter that is almost 8!!! Just 2 months ago he was inactive!! I feel so good. I don`t know if we had any part in it, but if so, I`m so glad we`ve decided to focus on the members. Also 2 nonmember husbands of women in the branch came to church! It was a super great day. Monday we had exchanges and I got to be with my grandma of the mission for a day! (our mom is our trainer, our grandma is the trainer of our trainer). On Tuesday we got to do some service with the American dentist that came! He doesn`t know any Spanish so he needed translators. So we went to this little school and he did check ups on kids and we translated for them. It was so fun! It felt good to be the one that could talk to both people and be able to translate everything. I also had the dentist check out my tooth. He said the filling looks really good and there`s not really anything I can do to prevent a root canal, but he said for now it`s fine. I don`t need to go to the dentist. But he said if I start having the pain every day and need to take medicine for the pain, then I should go. Right now it doesn`t hurt that bad and it`s not every day so I`m going to wait. I`m glad I could get it checked out though. After that our mission leader went out with us for 3 lessions with investigators. He`s preparing to go on his mission so it`s really good for him to go out with us and the elders. So yesterday (the reason I couldn`t write) we had a sisters conference with all the sisters in the whole mission! It was so fun! We ate pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, played some games, and then had training for a few hours. 12 sisters spoke about how to seize the day in different ways. EX: with gratitude, with love, with boldness, with service, etc... Then we ate lunch which was super fancy! Hawaiian haystacks IN a pineapple! Then Pres Douglas spoke to us and gave us each a rose! I think they will be sending you pics. And then we ate chocolate fondue with fruit, donuts, cake, etc. Pres Douglas told us that in Feb 2013 this mission only had 14 sisters. Now we have 64! It`s amazing! Well that`s about it. Haha. Okay that was a lot. Sounds like you guys have been super busy too! How does it feel Jamie to be graduated now?? How weird that no more of the kids are in high school anymore. Sounds like the banquet was fun! How was the baseball game? Happy Father`s Day dad on Sunday! I`m so glad you`re my dad! I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Hermana Woolf