Five

hola familia y amigos!

Thanks for your uplifting emails this week. Im glad everyone is safe and sound and back in SLC. In Guatemala, Life couldn´t be better for me. This past week was a complete wonder. I don´t know how else to describe it. I´ll tell you all now why I had you praying for the number 5. We had a special assignment to find, sit down and teach, and make a return appointment with 5 families, in Antigua, the week before Semana Santa. I don´t know if it was something that had never been done before or just if they wanted to get our spirits up or what. Our spirits were never down, but we accepted the challenge with excitement and determination. That might not seem like a lot, but you wouldn´t believe how rare it is sometimes to find a whole family together. Sometimes its just the mom, just the kids, the dad and the kids but no mom, etc..but its so special and always our goal to be working with as many full families as we can. It was so awesome to see how the families we found, were fruits from our steps on other days and even from last week. I wish I could tell you all the steps we took and how guided and blessed we were. We even had some surprises!

For example, The Hernandez family was a family we contacted in the street when every one and their dog was out looking at the processions for Semana Santa. Two days later we were in their house teaching them part of the Restoration and talking about what they had learned from the pamphlet that they had ACTUALLY read. That was Monday. Then on Tuesday we had an awesome family home evening with Marco and Claudia, who were our new family. We had two member families with us and a recent convert who lives in this house. Marco loved it and was so grateful everyone had come to support him and his wife. Before I start with the next family, I have to tell you that last week when we were going to meet some of the members...its weird to think that I only have two weeks here...but right as we were leaving the familia Martinez´s house, a neighbor walked in and greeted us and said, óh nice to meet you, come over and visit me anytime! So that was great, we noted hna Margarita and said we´d come back next week. We ended up visiting her on Friday of this week and thought that she just lived by herself, but it turns out that she lives with her daughter and son in law and two grandkids! And they were all home when we went to visit them! So that was miracle family 3. Then later that afternoon we went to go visit Dora, but on the way we saw a struggling mom trying to carry her daughter and big bag from the market and things did not look they were goin too well for her. Even though we were going to be late to Dora´s we agreed with my companion that we couldnt let this little lady struggle and not help her. I was praying the whole way that somehow the Lord would bless Dora not to leave before we got there because we knew she had to leave at a certain time. But we finished helping this lady up the hill, got her address and then ran back down the hill to Dora´s house.
Dont worry, Dora was still there and so happy to see us! Getting ready to leave and right when we had just been talking about how we were going to try and convince Doras husband to accept getting married and then baptized, we decided that we had to meet him first because he works a ton! So we were discussing how best to go about this when lo and behold who comes prancing in the door...Dora´s husband! He literally had come home for five minutes from work to find a paper he needed and we were there, he was dropped into our camino. The most interesting part about it was that we realized, had we not helped the little lady in the street, we would have gotten to Dora´s earlier and left earlier and missed Dora´s husband! We learned that it´s always better to listen to the spirit because the Lord will take care of the rest, even if it doesnt seem like the most logical thing to do. We talked to Luis, doras husband about coming to church on Sunday and that his wife had some really important things to talk to him about. Then he agreed to stay for the prayer and said he would think about coming to church with his family. Puchica! That was great. Then on Saturday we were lead to the familia Lacan and Marquez, both families we had contacted the dad in the street playing with his kids. Pilas ellos. Finding them in appointments back to back was unreal. We couldnt believe how much the Lord was blessing us and his other children. Then yesterday after a great Stake Conference and a windy, tired way back from Chimaltenango to our cook´s house, we had an appoinment with Emelia and her three daughters. It turns out that Emelia is a widow of 9 years and has desires to change her life and be with her family forever. Love that! She´s great. So that makes up our 7 pilas families for the week, they are all awesome. The best part about it is that not even all of them are Evangelicals or some other religion that is against Catholocism! Some of them are catholics but still want to hear our message. We are so excited to find more this week and keep working with them! This work is marvelous.

The Savior lives! I know that this is an important week for us because we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know, without a single doubt that He lives and is my personal Savior. To carry his name on my chest and on my heart is the biggest privilege I could ever have. Remember Him, love Him and obey His commandments, and this will bring you happiness in this life and eternal life.

Love you all, hope you have a great Easter week! Good luck with the Easter hunts and neighbor parties, what a great missionary oppotunity! mol, ps I got to play the flute this week! It was only for five minutes, but I´ve missed my little flute! so fun! Love you lots, write me a lot!