Hermana Jones week 71

So I can't believe that this is the last email I will be sending home in the mission.  Crazy how fast time flies in the mission.  

So last preparation day we walked up tons and tons of stairs to get to the giant Christ statue. The statue is really interesting becuase it is big but not thaaat big but you can see it from really far away because it is up on a hill.  I have seen it my whole time here in Lerma even though it was about a half hour bus ride to get there.  Then we had to climb tons of stairs.  I felt like I was going to pass out at the end because the altitude is pretty high here.  When we finally got there, I was so confused because it is so much smaller than it seemed to be.  Especially at night when they have it lit up and it is the only thing you can see on the hill it looks huge.  Then I remembered 2 scriptures while I was there the first was by small and simple things are great things brought to pass and the other one is in Matthew 5 when it is talking about how we cannot hide our light under a bushel but put it on a hill so all can see.

This week has also been exciting becuase the open house of the Mexcio City temple is Aug. 14 so everyone is getting excited.  Also our ward mission leader took all the recent converts in vans to go see the visitor center next to the temple. That made me really happy they could go.  The ward is working a lot with us to help the recent converts because the ward is baptizing a ton.  

In the last 6 months as a ward there have been 50 convert baptisms. It is really exciting how fast the work is moving here. In these upcoming months they are planning on dividing the ward and in these last 10 years they have divided the stake 4 times and are planning on dividing it again!  Sometimes I cant even believe how many people are accepting the gospel here in Mexico.  It makes me so happy to see, though.  

Anyway, this week I was studying faith and something I learned from the scriptures was the steps we take to have faith. 1.we have to have a desire 2. then we have to believe we will obtain a testimony 3. then we have to experiment on the words of Christ 4. then there is the trial 5. and then we obtian a testimony.  I found the part about the trial interesting-- without the trial we never can obtain a deep and abiding testimony. 

Anyways I hope you guys have a great week and make lots of new friends in school!

Love,

Hermana Jones