Flapjacks

Every week gets better as a companionship. Making adjustments to our plan helps us so much to get better little by little. At the beginning of the week we were struggling with our friends, our most progressing friends said no to baptism, our other friends weren't opening their doors and we passed off 2 families and 7 new friends were passed off to other companionships. We thought that Heavenly Father was ready to close this area at the end of the transfer. But then soon after we started to have a stronger companionship, we started to teach with the spirit and find more elect people to teach. Things are not perfect but we are a strong companionship now and I am grateful that the lord is able to put his children into our hands. 

We had a final pass off lesson with a family that moved into J3 and Hermana Camela took it so well. We were talking about how we call "pancakes" in english but me and Hermana Spaulding looked at each other and agreed that we call them flapjacks (she's from north carolina and so I am pretty sure I picked that word up from Virginia. I have been learning a lot of new words from Hermana Camela. 

Relief Society Activity 

Me and Hermana Camela went to this really sweet relief society activity and they had a lot of testimonies shsred from recent converts and recently becoming active members and I looked at Karla (one of the recent converts that I had the privelege of baptizing) and I asked myself "Does she have a testimony?" Because at this point in my mission, all of the recent converts that I have baptized are inactive now. All 10 of them. It is amazing to be a part of this work, but at the same time I struggle with the thought that all of them are inactive. 

Ximena

Ximena was a miracle. We knocked on her door and entered her house and we had a lesson with her and her Father. Her father is very Catholic, and so we (tried)to teach the doctrine of Christ and he responded with reading big passages of scripture in a different version of the bible. Ximena seemed to roll her eyes the ehole time we talked. We introduced the Book of Mormon and I read 3rd Nephi 11 where he shows the marks of his hands to the nephites to show them that he is the savior of the world. We invited him to continue learning with us and he said no, he is fine where he was at. I had the prompting to reach out to Ximena because I felt that her time was now to hear more and so I asked "What do you think about this scrupture? Would you like to learn more?" And she said that she loved our scripture and she does want to learn more! He interrupted her and staerted to say "sorry we can't i'm too busy with these 2 other kids" and she turned to him and looked at him in the eyes and said "You may be busy, but they didn't ask you. I want this" and he scoffed and told her sje can do whatever she wants. My friends... she is 15 years old. She stood up to her dad like that. We went outside and she closed the door and said "my dad talks about a lot of bad things about your church. But I have been reading that bible my entire life and I want to learn more". We told her that it is okay to have doubts and questions and if she writes them down and asks us we can answer her questions next time. She is such a powerful soul and I want to do everything I can to help her because I know that this is going to be a difficult road for her, but she is ready and we are ready to help her. We are meeting her on Wednesday.

We were teaching a lesson with a friend outside and as we were teaching the Restoration of the Gospel this car passed behing us and whistled at us and we were trying so hard to not laugh from the thought that we just got whistled at. 

I don't have much time to write more but Would you pray for Me and Ximena? My back is slowly returning to injury and I am just trying to survive these last 2 weeks left of this transfer. 

Thank you! I am so grateful for the support!!

Hermana Vestel