Miracles 10/14/2013

I feel to say that I know what it is like to step from the earth into the Celestial Kingdom. That has been my experience this last week. I was transferred to the Louetta West area in the Louetta Ward, which is about 20 minutes East of my old area. Pretty much the same, but yet so different!

My life has been one beaming cascade of miracles ever since Transfer Tuesday.

Miracle 1: my companion is Hermana Hale. ANOTHER sister who was with me in the MTC! She and I hit it off right from the get-go six months ago. Negative. Seven months. wow. She is from Idaho. She wears a baseball cap during personal study and has the best laugh in the whole wide world. She is 100% REAL and completely dedicated to working as hard as she can. She and I taught more lessons in our first 1 1/2 days together than we are used to teaching in a week. She and I both have such high hopes for this area and want to give it our all, which makes the work really easy and the miracles flow! The best part about Hermana Hale is how easy-going she is. Absolutely nothing upsets her. When we bottomed out the car: wonderful laugh. When a strange man tried to set up an appointment with us because he thought we were...less than moral...:wonderful laugh (funny story. We actually used Spanish to communicate to each other how we were going to get away from this guy. I can use Spanish as a defense weapon now! He was like, "What, are you from Mexico?" To which we responded yes and then executed our escape plans.) Hermana Hale just laughs at all the little daily trials we have because of her underlying faith that God is good and all is well!

Miracle 2: Our second day together we were present at the most amazing lesson I have ever experienced. This man just showed up to General conference based on a distant cousin in Mexico recommending it to him. Then he asked to meet with us, and when we came to his apartment with a member for a lesson, he basically said, "I want to know everything about your church and your prophet. I love everything I hear. I want to know this whole process of becoming a member...I hear it takes a year?" To which I blurted out, "Oh no. Only 3 weeks!" :) Then I got a hold of my gleefulness and we taught him the powerful 1st lesson (which is something the President has developed here and which we are promised that if we strive to use with all our new investigators our baptisms will double.). He soaked everything in for two hours, just nodding his head and asking a billion questions and exclaiming, "Oh wow. Que Padre! (that is so neat!)" I love when people actually understand what an apostasy is and the need for a restoration and then are like...So what did Joseph do??! It is like giving candy to little kids. As we finished talking about the Restoration he asked, rather excitedly, "So...why isn't everyone a member of your church?? What are you doing to spread this message??" He will be baptized in 2 weeks with his kids and is already talking about the friends he is going to invite. He is a wedding singer. At one point he whipped out his phone to show us that he is friends with this SUPER famous Spanish actor that is in all the Spanish soap operas. (Have I told you about the Spanish soap operas or Novellas? In every home, there is pretty much constantly a novella playing. Constantly. I have the theme music memorized to Corazon Indomable (untameable heart)). Based on the squeals coming from the hermana we brought with us, I would say his friend is a pretty big deal.

Miracle 3: I have a queen-sized bed that is like a marshmallow cloud. I used to always joke about how maybe when I got transferred I wouldn't be sleeping on a cardboard box anymore. And Heavenly Father gave me a queen sized bed. It may seem silly, but to me that is the perfect example of what I have learned this transfer. That Heavenly Father is in all the details and sometimes He lets you live life without any trials whatsoever. My back has even stopped making weird popping noises in the mornings. Being in Louetta West is helping me body and soul.

Miracle 4: There is a less active family in our ward that the Bishop has asked us to focus on. Why are they less active? Because they have to work their Taqueria (taco restaurant) all hours of the day, ever day. especially Sunday. So every time we go by to visit them at the Taqueria, they bring out GIANT Aguas de Pina (blended up pineapple juice) and tacos and then always refuse to let us pay for them. Aguas de pina are manna from Heaven. Think Strawberry Daquirri's from Turks and Caicos. Ah the work of salvation is sweet. I just hope we can help them begin coming to church.

Miracle 5: SEVEN investigators came to church yesterday. SEVEN. that is more than I have seen come to church in my entire mission combined. I don't know how it happened or why other than that this area is bursting with people the Lord has prepared and their families. That is another amazing thing about Louetta. Of the 29 less actives in our area alone, about 80% of them are part member families. So right there we have huge potential for investigators.

The first few days when I woke up I couldn't believe I was still in Louetta, on a marshmallow mattress...with Hermana Hale a few feet away. We both feel that this area is going to explode. We are constantly busy, and when plans fall through, almost immediately a necessary alternative presents itself.  Miracle 6.