Faith is at the root of every miracle

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lame email last week! It really was such a busy day.

Anyways, my last two weeks have been really good. Ismael is doing well; like, so well. 
Last week we had a lesson and the first thing he said was, "I was reading the Book of
Mormon and it says you don't have to know everything to be baptized!" and in our heads 
we thought, "That is exactly what we've been telling you for two months!"  Ismael is funny
because he really does receive his answers through the scriptures.  Things don't click for
him when we say it but it does when he reads it.  So right now he is praying about being
baptized which is super exciting.  

We had President Aguilar, one of the counselors in the Mission Presidency, come to our 
area on Sunday to go teaching with us.  He is one of the most outgoing people in the 
whole world.  He will talk to everyone.  Several times he pulled the car over to the side of
the road so we could get out and talk to people.  He also has such a way of putting
people at ease.  It really taught me a lot about talking to everyone and showing genuine
love and interest in people.  

We went to visit some members with President Aguilar.  They're having a hard time
right now because their two teenage boys are making really bad choices.  We started  
talking to the parents and the mom just broke down in tears.  It's hard, especially
because the parents don't really have a good relationship so the mom doesn't feel
like she has anybody to talk to about it. We went over again on Saturday and the mom
started crying again saying that she doesn't feel like God is listening to her.  It seriously
is heartbreaking.  It's hard because there's nothing anyone can do to affect their choices.
Mom, could you send me the titles of some conference talks that you think would help 
and I'll find and print them in Spanish for her?

We also had Zone Conference this last week which was amazing!  We had talks from
President, Sister Samuelian, the APs (Assistants to the President) and one of the STLs 
(Sister Training Leaders).  It was so uplifting.  One thing that one of the APs said that was
just so cool was that pride is Satan's facsimile for faith.  Why is pride at the root of every  
sin?  Because faith is at the root of every miracle.  He related the story of Ammon in the   
Book of Mormon when he was rejoicing so much about all of the people who had joined
the church and his brother, Aaron, was chastising him for being prideful but, in reality,   
he was being faithful.  It was so incredibly interesting.   President talked a lot about love.
He said that this work is a work of love and that's why Satan hates it; because he hates
love. He can't understand it.  He said that love needs to be our motivating force always.
It really was an incredible conference.  He talked about how Heavenly Father could do
this work all by Himself and He could do it a lot better than we can but He allows us to
participate because it helps us to learn, to grow, to love.  President is the most prophetic
person I have ever met.

Congrats to everyone who got their mission calls, that's so cool!  Missions are amazing!

I got my Ipad back! Super exciting but we don't have WiFi in our apartment anymore.  It's
not a big deal, though.

Hahahaha, Mom!  I was literally just telling my companions all about your flower thieving
habits so your email cracked me up and I read it to everyone.

Here are some more pictures from our hike a few weeks ago: 

Last week on P-day we went to a member's house who has a skate ramp in their garage:

Just a little P-day fun... (if you can't open, try Internet Explorer or another browser) 

We saw this guy walking down the street with ducks following him.  He said they are his  
pets and they think he is their mom!

S'mores Oregon style at a member's house!

Love you guys!   Happy Memorial Day!

P.S.  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY about the accounting!!,!,,!,  

Note from Mom:  We just told her we found out she was accepted into the Accounting

Program at the BYU Business School.  She will defer until Fall 2015, of course.  I also

found out from our email "chat" that they are on bikes most of the time now.  She says,

"It's just so beautiful out. It's amazing to be on a bike!"  And, just for the record, I plead

the fifth on the flower incidents.