Payaso

Good Afternoon Hermanos, Hermanas y Elderes! 

Payaso = clown. It's my companions' favorite word in Spanish

The first part of the week wasn't really easy. We had 6 in our teaching pool, 1 is sick, the other 2 are starting to ghost us and the rest are in mexico. Finding is not easy in this area either. 

We were at a council with the district and we were showing our key indicator numbers (new people we are teaching, people on date, etc.) And we combined our totals and discussed our goals, And Hermana Dababneh said that we should achieve the standard of excellence of 12 new people to teach in our district, and we said "finding 3 people next week is not achieveable for us" and she replied: "not with that attitude" and at first I was offended by what she said but I got over it because she just doesn't understand what the work is like here in Mt. Lewis. I am really grateful that I am reading and working on charity because it is helping be bounce back from hard situations and forgive a lot easier. 

I don't know if you remember Marina from last week, she is the girl that came up to us in church that wanted to join us for our lessons. She came with us one night and we knocked together, and we prayed that she would be able to participate in a non member lesson and immediately after knocking doors, Hermana Groves gets this impression to meet this family that was gone from Utah for a while and we knocked on the door and the whole family was there! We shared a message about the Book of Mormon and the parents opened up to Marina about how they are scared when we ask them questions that they don't know and Marina shared her testimony and helped them a lot. I am so happy that she got to participate and she is SO excited to go on a mission!

Then the next day we found this recent convert that was taught by English but had a very Spanish name so we went to go see if they spoke Spanish or not, and apparently we knocked on the wrong door because it was a duplex. But really, it was the exact door and the exact time we needed to knock. We get invited in and there was a Family of 5. They had Maria Guadalupe on the door so we knew that they were not members. We started teaching about the Book of Mormon and Hermana Groves shares this Scripture in 3rd Nephi 18 when the Nephites see Jesus Christ and come up to feel the marks in his hands and feet. She asked them to think of what he would say to you if he was in this room. Immediately, I feel the strongest manifestation of the Spirit that I can ever remember in my life. I felt a burning in my chest and I felt strong emotions of peace and Power. I knew that I felt it, and I knew that they felt it too. They were moved and knew that we were representatives of Jesus Christ. They are free on Sundays and they also mentioned that they pretty much follow the word of wisdom because smoking and Alchohol is just not good for you. I am so grateful that I got to experience this opportunity to be with them and I am so excited to see how they grow in heir relationships with Jesus Christ.

I think that now that I am in a place where finding people to teach is so rare and precious, every time we meet them we want to do everything we can to help them find the answers they are looking for and help them come closer to christ. I guess what I am trying to say is we pay extra attention to our friends. 

Hermana Groves was having a hard time with TIWI (meaning it wouldn't let her log in to drive and it was 8:50pm) so Elder Jeppsen let her unplug it to get home on time and she was so excited. It was a bit scary but I trusted her lol 

I hope you like the pictures this week. We went to Zone Conference and 5 drawings of Jesus were on the walls and I was so extatic that I could use my art for good in this misison! And the face that I was making with my companion happens a lot. We went to a different "Zone Conference" if you know what mean... the twilight zone.

One last thing, we needed some encouragement to exercise so I drew ammon and put the scriptures where he cut off the arms of his enemies "with great power" so if you need encouragement thos week, I would highly suggest putting that photo on your lock screen or you can print it out too.

Nos vemos!

Hermana Vestel