Week 8 in Mexico

I can't believe all the crazy things happening this summer.  Pretty soon both Hal and I  will be out in the mission field. I can't believe that everyone is getting so old. It kind of makes me sad because I remember all the times at Grandma Rain's house with all the cousins.

Also, Allie's cake was amazing! My companion didn't believe that she made it. She was confused because she thought that Hal and Audrey were the ones getting married. Sometimes we have a little difficulty comunicating :) I think that I figured out how to send pictures so I hope they send. 

Every week here seems to get harder and harder, but more and more rewarding. This week our goal in the zone was to have 20 baptisims, which was 4 baptisims for every companionship. This seemed pretty impossible because you need 4 assistances to church to be bapized and we had 2 investigators with one assistance. We decided to look htrough our carpeta for people with assistances and we found one girl and taught her. Although we didn't have any baptisims I learned that when you have a goal in mind and are constantly praying for inspiraion you are so much more productive. We had 3 new investigators come to church and 3 inactive members come to church with us. It was so amazing. 

I think my testimony of eternal families grew so much this week. We have an investigator, Angeles, that we contacted and all I said was somos representantes de Jesucrito y nosoros compartimos como es posible para su familia vivir junta por eternidad and she started crying after one sentence. It turns out that she has a little girl who is 2 and she is 7 months pregnant. About a month ago her parents and her husband were coming to pick her up and they were in a car crash and all three of them died. She is one of the most amazing people I have ever met and she came to church with us this week. Also we are teaching another familia. La familia Maya and they have 4 children. We have been teaching them for 2 weeks but this week their 6 year old boy was playing in the forest with his brothers and a tree fell over and smashed him. By the time his brothers got his parents, he was already dead. It was one of hte sadest experiences to talk to his parents aferward but at the same time I could tell them with all my heart that they could see their son again. 

My new town of El Oro is like the Bible Belt of the U.S.A.  There is every Christian religion I have ever heard of, and much more, and the people know their Bible so well. So that is one thing I think I have learned a lot of in this area is my Bible.  Especially the New Testament, I finishewd reading in two weeks. I never knew that I would have to find scriptures in the Bible saying that Jesus is Jehovah or anything like that. There are a ton of Jehovah's Witnesses here.  Even when we started talking to this 16 year old girl, she started whipping out Bible verses. Sometimes I don't think I would even be able to say anything in resonse in English, not to mention Spanish, so I am so happy my companion is a pro. 

This week was also hard because there are a lot of people here who are really against our religion. I was spit on for he first time in my life, there have been people who just say terrible things to us and make my companion cry. Luckily, the vocabulary I learned is nothing that they say, so I don't understand any of the bad things they say and my companion won't tell me what they say. People invite us into their houses, just so they can insult us. We had people let their dogs loose on us. All I can say is there have been some days this week that I wasnt exactly feeling great, but a scripture that I love so much is in Alma 26, which is a scripture that I have probably read a lot, but I have never read a scripture that has  helped me so much. I especially love verses 27 and 30. 

Despite all the hard things I have experienced, some of the most amazing things have happened here, too. There was a member of the church that when we walked into her house all the furniture she had was two folding chairs and a piece of wood on bricks for her kitchen table.  She had no lights in her house, and her walls were the side of the mountain with a dirt floor.  We talked to the Branch President about her situation, and he made an announcement, asking all the members if there was anyone who could donate any used furniture they didn't want because there were some members of the church without furniture.  I was in shock when after church, the woman came up and talked to the missionaries and Branch president to offer one of her two folding chairs because she felt so bad that someone didn't have any furniture. I seriously almost cried right then because she was someone who literally had nothing but she was willing to give more.

Also we got tons of investigators from teaching piano lessons, which has probably been one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life. I also conduct choir and play the piano, which didn't sound like it was going to be much fun, but I have never had so much fun in my life. For some reason, in our tiny branch we have more youth than we do in our ward in Chicago and everyone in the choir is 25 and younger.  There are tons of little kids in it too.  It is so fun because they sing so loud and so badly, but you can still feel the spirit because they love what they are doing and they want to sing so badly. I think if I could make a list of decisions that changed my life it would definitely be going to BYU and going on a mission. I hope you guys are great and have a great week!

Love, Hermana Jones