Week 69

Well today is memorial day, one of my most favorite days of the whole year when I am a real person.  I love Memorial day, because Woods Cross has a big pancake breakfast and then it is the NCAA college lacrosse finals!  Well for the second year in a row I am not there, but that is ok because I am a missionary and that is way better then lacrosse....wow, I am having a deja vu moment....maybe I have already said this before!

Well, either way, yay lacrosse and also yay missions!

This last week was a pretty good one full of all sorts of excitement and drama!  I had no idea that missions were so dramatic.  But it all turned out ok.

Monday night we had a really great lesson with Celia!  She is so stinking cute!  It was an extra cool lesson though because her Aunt, Uncle and cousins(who are not members) were there with us.  Well we were teaching about tithing and then tied it into temples and how when we pay tithing we are helping to build temples and then making a way for our families to live together forever.  Well the Aunt really really liked that and then Veronica(Celias recently baptized grandma) shared with her daughter in law all of the blessings she has recieved so far since being baptized.  The daughter in law agreed to have missionaries come visit her in Tempe to explain more.  It was just so neat!  The Gospel is SO cool!

Tuesday was a fun day, we met some new investigators.  Heather and Glen stopped the elders in Walmart and asked if missionaries could come by and teach them.  So we stopped by and had a really great lesson.  Turns out that Glenn is a member and Heather is not.  Heather wants to get baptized and wants Glen to do it.  Glen wants to baptize Heather, but needs to get the priesthood and has some WoW struggles.  But they have great faith in the Lord and they believe in the power of prayer.  We talked about the process of Glenn being able to baptize Heather and they seem really commited to doing it.  They are really great.

We were also able to visit someone, completely directed by the Lord.  This sister has been struggling with her husband deciding that he no longer wants to be involved with the church and her children following him.  But we were able to sit down with her and just feel the spirit together and help her to remember her faith in the Lord.  It was really special.

Wednesday was one of those really fun missionary days where you spend the whole day outside, knocking on doors, looking for people to talk to....and no one answers and noone is outside.  Haha.  The Lord likes to help you appreciate the days when things do work out I think.  Then on top of that, we had a really strange meeting with our branch president, and there was some discussion about postponing our baptism.  What a way to end the day.  But even though the meeting is NOT what I wanted to have happen, it actually was really good and gave us a good opportunity to lay out our expectations for our branch and what we expected the members to do as far as helping recent converts.  I thought I got a little bossy at some points, but the Branch President said he really appreciated my comments.  Just proof to me that when we bring the spirit into any situation everyone is able to learn what the Lord wants them too.

The rest of the week went pretty well, not to much excitement or disappointment, just pretty normal.  But on Saturday night when we got the text "Plan your baptism" from Presidente, all things got crazy.  It is really hard to plan a baptism in less than 24 hours, but we made it work.  And Sunday was the greatest ever.

Sunday, Celia was baptized by her grandfather, Emilio, who was just baptized 2 weeks ago and had recieved the priesthood that afternoon.  It was so special to me for a lot of reasons.  First, all baptisms are special.  Second, the opening prayer was given by Destiny, who I taught a few months ago!  Third, watching Emilio use his newly recieved priesthood to bring his granddaughter into the waters of baptism!  SO SO amazing!  It was just such an incredibly special day for me.  I love that family so SO much and I am grateful that I have gotten to witness them coming in to the fold of the Lord one by one.  Such a magnificent blessing.

Well everyone, that was my week and man was it marvelous.  I hope that you all have equally as great.  I am grateful for all the love and support I feel from all my friends and family back at home.  I love you all!

Until next time America,

This is Hermana Parry...signing off.