Tuesday, July 18, 2017

JULY 17, 2017

Hey y'all, 

This week was seriously filled with miracles! It was an incredible week!

We had our district meeting on Friday and we were able to welcome two new missionaries to BR. One of them, Elder Maldonado, is from Mexico so speaks perfect Spanish is going to be such an asset to the work up here. Fun fact for yall: Louisiana has the highest population of Hondurans outside of Honduras. I am quoting at least. 

Classic story of the week: After a long exhausting few days of transfers we decided to hit up a local fried chicken/ wing shop. You can imagine it wasn't too hard for us to find one haha. 
We went to this little hole in the wall place and man it was soo good!! They were using some serious butter fo sho! It was just so funny though, because we got some Ghetto punch. And let me tell ya about Ghetto Punch. You can find it at most hole in the wall places. Just picture this: Kool-Aid with like 10x as much sugar in it and you got yourself some Ghetto Punch. I about fell off my rocker, let me tell ya. I don't know how these people do it. They don't mess around down here.

Update: We were able to meet with Sheryl a couple times last week and started asking her some of the deep questions like, "If God commanded you to give up tobacco, alcohol, coffee, or tea would you do it? She whole-heartedly said that she would. She is so faithful and so prepared it is incredible. She has been a street preacher for 40 years just out spreading the good word! She said that when the sister missionaries met her almost 30 years ago the first time, she just wasn't ready to accept it. But now she is! It is so exciting! 
The miracle of this story was that her friend Taiwan has been listening in to the discussions the last few times, and we had a meeting with him to bring him his Book of Mormon. So we show up at his house and he invites us in. He was like, "Mom, I want you to meet some friends." As we walk in we conveniently walk into a full on Bible Study!!!! Let's goo!!! It was so awesome. There were like 7 people all there together on a Saturday afternoon just having a little session. What better time to give an investigator a Book of Mormon then with 7 other people there?? They were all eyeing that thing like a piece of meat haha, it was sweet! We just started having a book of mormon lesson right then and there. It was amazing! And the first time we met Sheryl was when she was having a big ole bible study for her neighbors as well. Man these bible studies are legit! And get this, Silvia, the pastor lady doing the bible study is good friends with Sheryl. They went to Bible school together growing up. It is so exciting! I can't wait to see Sheryl and Silvia having Bible studies at the church and we just start inviting crowds of people. I can see it now! #Miracle#Gottafindmorebiblestudies
It really is amazing to see the pieces of the restored gospel in other faiths. They all have so many pieces, we just have to help put them all together!

One more miracle I want to share:

A couple weeks ago we took a Priest aged young man, Joseph Sant, out tracting with us. Of course we wanted him to have the best experience ever, so we were praying something amazing would happen. Well, we didn't find out the full story until Friday night. Here is the story: 
We knocked on a woman named Allison's door, and she opened it and told us we had just woken her up from her afternoon nap. We apologized of course, but continued to tell her about what we do. She told us that she was in the process of being "saved" and would get in contact with us again. We then knocked on the next door and a lady named Danielle answered. She grew up with mormon friends that all went on missions and such, but she wasn't at all interested it seemed unfortunately. Well, on Friday night we planned to meet with Allison at the church for a tour and a lesson, and we brought a young married couple. Allison shows up and Danielle gets out of the car as well!! They both came, it was crazy! We shared a powerful lesson with them about the P.o.S since they had such deep questions, but the miracle of the story is this: Allison told us that the day before we knocked on her door she received her very first Bible from a friend. She started reading it and everything. Well, that night she had the worst nightmare of her life. Then, we knocked on her door the very next day. She told us, "I just can't deny this."
I couldn't deny it either, that was such a miracle. I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father is guiding us as missionaries every single day. He knows exactly where we need to be at the right time. 

On Sunday, the Spanish Branch had all of the missionaries give a talk. Well, that included me. Bless my heart for sure.  I thought that if I bore my testimony on fast Sunday that I would be off the hook, but I guess you can't hide especially when you are a missionary haha :) Anyways, both experiences have been so great for me. Even though I may not like to admit it, I can tell you that learning Spanish has been a bit of a struggle. Granted, we have so many other things we are doing with responsibilities and all/tons of English work popping right now/not to mention living in the U.S. and having limited exposure to Spanish culture really. However, that being said, I can truly say that Heavenly Father has magnified me enough to do it. I bear my simple testimony that He strengthens us and magnifies us far beyond our own capabilities. He blesses us with the ability to accomplish anything that he asks us to do as long as we put our faith in Him. It is the truth.

Hope everyone has a blessed week! I love all y'all! 
Love,
Elder Wilson