Like A River

This week was full of ups and downs. I learned more about the meaning of faith, had some cake, jammed my toe, went to stake conference and counted my many blessings.

 We started off well, fixing a few problems and we headed into the week with a lot of enthusiasm. We were able to see progress with a few people we are teaching. We were excited because  Antonio accepted a baptismal date again and everything seemed to be going well. We saw little miracles throughout the week. 

On Tuesday, we ate lunch with a sister who taught us how to make gorditas veracruzanas. We helped mixing the dough and pinching the gorditas to give them their shape. That is the hardest part! You have to pinch them right as they come off of the stove and, needless to say, you got to be quick or you burn your fingers doing it. We laughed and learned a lot from her wonderful testimony she shared about God answering prayers. We sure did leave smiling. 

On Wednesday we decided to try something new that we had found in a talk by Elder Anderson while preparing for the conference we had with Elder Valenzuela. It talked about the use of social media. Here in Ciudad Juarez, we as missionaries don't get the opportunity to use social media, but the members do! Following example of the talk, we asked them to open Facebook, Instagram or Whatsapp. We asked them to think of a friend or to go through their list of friends and pick someone they feel impressed to talk to. We asked them why they chose this person and then help them share the gospel in a little message, scripture or video. We have had some pretty cool spiritual experiences come from this. 

As we were walking to another part of our area afterwards, we noticed a bit of commotion on the other side of the street. It looked as though a husband had pushed his wife into the fence and took off. She sat down, defeated, and started to cry. We stood, unable to move on the opposite side of the street. However, I felt something that can only be described as the Spirit. I felt an unreal, strong impression that we needed to cross the street and give her a Book of Mormon. I took longer than I'd like to admit to get up the courage to cross the street and talk to her. The only thing that came out of my mouth as she was talking on the phone was, ‘Can we give you a hug?’ She looked up with tears in her eyes, she shook her head yes and hung up the phone. We gave her a good long hug or two and told her how much God loved her and how great she is in His eyes. She calmed down but now with a different kind of tears in her eyes. It's so easy to forget the grand love our Heavenly Father has for each of us. We get so caught up in daily life that we forget that we are indeed of great, divine worth. It was a tender experience for me to be able to help someone feel the love that God has for them. I think everyone is entitled at some point in their life to be able to share that love with those around them. As we share God's love with those around us, we will be able to feel God's love more fully for us.

Something that I learned this week was patience and faith. I learned that we have to do all that is within our power and then trust that God has the rest in His hands. This Saturday we were supposed to baptize Antonio. However we filled the font and as the members began to file in, set up a set up a cake and finished getting ready. Soon half an hour passed by and then another hour and the members slowly left one by one. We were left alone in the chapel with a full font and without a person in teaching to be baptized. As we tried to contact him on the phone, we were unable to get a hold of him. We waited a good four hours until finally calling it quits and emptying the font. It was a hard feeling to describe. The entire time this was playing out I remember thinking to myself that this is a test of my faith. That I had to be calm, do all in my power to fix things, and trust that the Lord had the rest in His hands. As we finally made it back to our apartment, we decided to have a little bit of cake to make us feel better :-) At the end of the day I learned it was a valuable lesson. We're excited for this week to come and we know that God is preparing his children and that is our job to look for them. I am so very grateful to be in this mission and to be able to serve the Lord and his children here in Mexico. I love you all so very much and hope that you're remembering to say your prayers ;) 

Enviando Amor De Mexico.

Here are some pictures from what happened this week. I hope you enjoy them :-).