Halfway!

Nine months.

I swear that I got here yesterday.

I can’t believe that it is going by so fast!

Feliz cumpleaños (Happy Birthday) to everyone at home. I am really horrible about remembering what day it is.  But happy birthday!  Everyone is getting so big and grown up. 

This week we had intercambios with the hermanas from La Espiga.  Hna Vela y Hna Camez.  They are super great girls. They have super powerful testimonies. I went with Hna Vela and everyone gave us food. We drank from coconuts and then they cut the coconut up for us to eat. It was so good. It tasted a lot like almonds.  A HUGE almond.  We had it all day, munching along the way but it never got smaller. We didn´t know what to do with it because we were also given bananas. Then tamales. It was great because we didn´t get hunger during the proselitismo and we needed the strength because we helped move one of our recent converts from her house. Phewph. 

After that, our whole district got food in the plaza near our house. It was really fun to have more people there. 

We found a really really awesome family this week. No, two families!  They are so great. They understood everything we taught them.  We asked questions and they responded after thinking for themselves about what it means to repent and how every step of the gospel is important.  We were going to look for an antiguo investidagdor in one part of our area that we haven’t visited before and we hopped in a mototaxi and said "um you can drop us off here" because we had no idea where to start. So in that spot, we started walking and we heard some kids playing so we climbed up the hill where their house was and asked for some name, (I don´t remember which name we used), but the whole family was there talking and they were so friendly and they let us in and we chatted and we taught them the third lesson and they accepted a baptismal date. But they were almost impossibly perfect so that we weren’t sure if they understood.  So we asked them again if they would accept to be baptized and they said yes again. What is really awesome is that they already know the bishop in our ward. They work together.  Talk about wow how the lord works. He places us in the right situations all the time. He has so many people prepared.

We also found a family who want to learn so much about the gospel. They have a daughter who is super ready, she just needs a friend to support her. We will go with one of the young women to visit her. She is really really smart and super excited about the gospel.

We went to the council of leaders again this week. Hna Jara and Hna Evans both bore their testimonies because this was their last consejo. It was actually really sad. Two of my companions are leaving the mission for good!  My mother (entrenadora-Hna Jara) won’t be here to support me. I have to be a big kid. Not gonna lie. I cried when she gave her testimony. Their missions are over. I am going to miss them super bad. 

I am learning to be a more loving person who shows emotion. It is hard but little by little…. you know how it goes. It is really hard. 

Today for p-day we played a whole bunch of games. We played volleyball and we played with balloons and we played with cups and then we ate and now we are here writing.

I hope that all is well!

I pray for you! I love you! Feel free to send me pictures of your lives. I don´t care if they are glamour shots but glamour shots would be welcome too, jaja.  I want to see you people. Sheesh. :)

I love you all and I want you to know that every time we teach the restoration of the gospel my testimony grows. I feel the spirit testify of its truth. I haven´t seen God nor Jesus Cristo but I can tell you that I have felt their love and that this is the true church of Jesus Christ, restored by a modern-day prophet named Joseph Smith. We have a prophet hoy in dia also named Thomas S. Monson. I know that he has been called of God. I love this gospel. I love my savior Jesus Christ. I have a testimony of these things. If you want to strengthen your testimony, share it. Pray. Read your scriptures. Then act on what the spirit teaches you. You will grow to be strong in your belief, but you have to act.  A testimony doesn´t come without sacrifice on our part. 

I know these things are true, and I share this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.