The right place at the right time

Hi everyone!

We had a couple of really cool experiences this week. It's been kind of funny with the World Cup playing because whenever there's a game on, everyone we try and visit is half listening to us while they watch the game over our shoulders until we're like, "You know what? Why don't we come back at a different time."  It literally derails our whole schedule. But, from what I understand, it ended yesterday so it shouldn't be a problem anymore.

For our district meeting on Friday, we talked all about fear vs. faith and how much our fear inhibits our ability to grow in faith. We all talked about different fears we have on the mission or other things that prevent us from being as faithful as we possibly could be.  Similar to what we did the first day we got here at the beach, we wrote all our fears down on a piece of paper. But this time, because it was Elders planning it, we didn't just peacefully dig a whole and bury them in the sand. I guess they had collected an old TV and a toilet from the side of the road during the week. So, we lit the pieces of paper on fire that had our fears on them, put them in the toilet, and then proceeded to smash the toilet and the old TV with a baseball bat. Sister McCrite and I thought it was interesting but the elders really loved it. I mean, I guess that's one way to destroy your fears, right?

We had a few really awesome lessons this week. One was with a guy named Juan. I'm not sure if I told you about him; he's an older guy and this was the second lesson we taught him. He actually reminds me a lot of Uncle Gary. When he was first found, the missionaries told him about the Book of Mormon and he said, "That's amazing! Why hasn't anyone ever told me about that before?".  We read 3 Nephi 11 with him which is the chapter when Christ comes to the Americas. He really loved it. He wants to be baptized but just needs to talk to his wife about it. We're hopeful that she'll be open to it and that he'll be able to get baptized.

We also had another amazing lesson with Clara's daughters yesterday.  We taught the steps of the gospel of Jesus Christ which are faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.  The way that we decided to teach this is to talk about it as a cycle.  As we talked about each step, we wrote it down on a piece of paper until they all formed a complete circle. We've taught it this way a few times before and it just makes sense. When people are having a hard time and not progressing, it's easy to look at that cycle and say "Okay, where are you getting stuck?"  Because every step in that cycle is necessary, we can't just skip around.  You can't truly repent if you're just going through the motions and not acting in faith. You can't receive an answer to be baptized if you haven't done anything to develop your faith. And it's a cycle that requires work; it's not a passive cycle. It's a lifetime process.  Anyways, they really identified with that. They are seriously the sweetest, most faithful girls in the world. They want this so eagerly and they are quick to recognize the truth of it. I love them.

One more story that I want to share. We were driving down the street one night and noticed a woman walking down the side of the road struggling to carry what looked to be very heavy groceries. We pulled over onto the very next road we could and went to go help her. By this time, she was about a block ahead of us. We started walking as quickly as we possibly could without scaring her. We were about five feet away from her when the bags got too heavy.  She gave up and set her groceries down to take a rest. What perfect timing! We helped her carry her groceries the rest of the way to her house and she was really grateful. She told us the next time we were in the neighborhood to please stop by.  I'm grateful that Heavenly Father put us in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to be able to serve in such a simple way.  It was a witness to me that God is aware of us in all of our struggles, even if it's just carrying groceries.

A very special happy birthday to my favorite Zoey. I love you very much!

Last Monday for p-day, Sister McCrite and I went on a picnic and an adventure so here's some things we found!

Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Meise