This week Diana and John got baptized! Yay!!

 I was totally going to send you some pictures but I forgot to bring my camera cord, so maybe next week. The services were both very good and both of them got their temple recommends at church on Sunday so hopefully they can go do baptism's soon. John is even going to stay until next Sunday so his friend Ricky, our Elder's Quorum President, can ordain him. So that will be really cool.
 Other than that we really didn't do too much, mostly just finished teaching them the lessons that they needed and going to interviews and stuff. And most of our other appointments cancelled. We had zone training too, which was good.
 One super funny thing that did happen this week was that it was Sister Bowen's birthday! Kind of. On Wednesday we had dinner with John and Ricky at Olive Garden. It was the girl at the table next to ours birthday and so of course they announced it and sang to her. Well, then John and Ricky got the idea to tell our waiter that it was Sister Bowen's birthday too. She kept telling him that it wasn't so they didn't do anything but they mentioned it every time he came over and they even threatened to announce it themselves if Sister Bowen wouldn't let them sing to her. She took away all of their knives because they were threatening to clink them on the cups to announce it.
 That evening we had a lesson with John and Ricky and Tony and we told him about what had happened. So he suggested that we announce it over the intercom in the barracks and ask everyone to sing ha ha but that didn't happen either. John also tried to get us to take all of the ice cream in his apartment as a birthday present.
 Well, then on Friday after our meeting our zone was having lunch, and the Redd and Restler Elders came out of the kitchen with a cake and started singing happy birthday to Sister Bowen. They had also, completely unrelated what had happened on Wednesday, without even knowing about it, decided to pretend it was her birthday too! So then of course after that, every day since has been her birthday. It's been pretty funny.
 This week we also had dinner at the senior couple in our ward's apartment and we managed to find our that he used to be a mission president (we had suspicions but they never said anything directly). So they told us lots of cool stories about that and a lot of random cat stories too. So if you ever want to know any funny cat stories let me know.
 Something that I have been thinking about this week is obviously baptism but in relation to that Moroni 8: 25-26 and Moroni 7:43-47. They talk about how we have to be meek and lowly in heart in order to have the Holy Ghost. And how the Holy Ghost will give us faith and hope and that hope will give us charity, which is the pure love of Christ. But also how we can only retain that through prayer and diligence (Moroni 6:3). Anyway, I know that we always talk about enduring to the end but I just love how much of a logical process this is. We have faith and we want to repent, we repent and we want to get baptized, we get baptized and we get the Holy Ghost, in order to keep the Holy Ghost we have to be meek and lowly of heart and have determination, those characteristics lead to Charity, which is what makes us Christlike and worth or and wanting to have the Holy Ghost. I don't know, maybe that doesn't make sense but it makes sense to me and it's my spiritual thought so that's really all that matters!
 Well, I hope you all have a fantastic week! Talk to you soon!
 Love,
 April

Mexican Coke?

So, let me start with the coolest news first, both John and Diana are planning on getting baptized this Saturday! So this week will involve a lot of prep work to get all of that done. John is also moving on Tuesday to Las Vegas so then I promise you all won't have to keep hearing about him. The crazy thing though is that Sister  Bowen is also from Vegas and he is going to be moving into her old YSA ward. 

This week we also visited John at the hospital and it was pretty much the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. He had some kind of nose surgery and when we arrived he was still pretty heavily sedated. The nurse told us and his other two friends who were there from the base that we had to try to get him to stay awake so that he could go home. It didn't work out too well... He would wake up, we would have a crazy conversation, and then he would fall back asleep. He kept asking us about where the grey table was that he put his important stuff in and whenever we told him that there wasn't any table he would get super mad at us. He also had us pray with him and asked me to tell him a story but he fell asleep in the middle of both. He told us about the friend that he took to the airport that morning, who was on his way to Afghanistan and every once in a while after someone would say something he would say "You have to say in the name of Jesus Christ amen!" Ha, the nurse also had us spoon feed him Jello and he kept falling asleep and then waking up and being super confused. When we taught John his second to last lesson yesterday we also had to show him what a baptism looks like by watching one on The District because there hasn't been one that he could go to so who knew, those videos are actually useful sometimes.  

This week we also had a lot of authentic Mexican food this week and even the authentic Mexican Coke. You know what's kind of a bummer though? I'm not really that crazy about it. As Sister Bowen said, "I'd rather have New Mexican food than Mexican food and Taco Bell than Taco Cabana." But... what can you do? I'm starting to be really grateful for seafood and fish though. 

We went to a suicide awareness/ prevention class this week. Now before you start freaking out, it was something one of our members was doing for a ward activity. It was a condensed version of the one that he teaches for the military. Man, that would be a rough job, to just teach suicide prevention all day every day. The class was good though and our member who taught it looks exactly like Matt Meese from Divine Comedy/ Studio C, so that was a little weird though.   

Other than that though it's just been a bit of the same old same old. We had to teach chastity twice this week... I'm convinced if you can successfully make it though a chastity lesson with a YSA investigator you can successfully manage any other conversation in life. Especially if after you talk about it one of the investigators says "Yeah... I don't believe in families. I think they're just kind of a waste of time." um... oh...  

Elder Guymon, or "Jacob" as he's now known, who I and half of the zone here served with in Albuquerque (seriously, everyone here has been to the west side) was wandering the mission this week so we all had to avoid him (we're not supposed to get together with old missionaries) and secretly look for him. Ha, ha poor Sister Bowen. Everyone we talked to was telling us "did you hear Elder Guymon is in town?!" and she was finally like "Who is this guy! Why is he so great!" And... I won a game of Monopoly last p-day, so you know, nothing new. 

Here since we usually go out to eat it can be hard to share a spiritual thought or a dinner message, so usually what we'll do is read a scripture or two and then talk about it. We like to play a game though where we share something and then we have the member share with us. When we played earlier this week a recently reactivated member told us about when he was a kid and his dad would open up to a random page and have him guess who was speaking. He talked about how he got to know the different prophets personalities and speaking styles. I thought that was a super cool idea. I mean, even though Mormon is abridging most of the book in The Book of Mormon, each prophet still has different "specialties" or things that they emphasis and there are lots of excerpts that are quotes from them. And the Bible is written by loads of different authors.  I know that a lot of times we read through the scriptures and don't really take into account that these are real people! And not only are they real, but they are different people. When we look at Nephi and compare him to Alma and compare them to Daniel, we see completely different personalities, even though all of them were prophets. Anyway, I thought that it was an awesome idea and a cool and new way to study the scriptures more. So, try out the test, have someone open to a random page and see how you do. I know that I want to practice more. 

Well, I hope you all are doing great and have an amazing week! 

Love, 

April    

we have a problem with Slurpees.

This week Sister Bowen and I learned that we have a problem with Slurpees. In the three weeks that we have been together, we have gotten them three times. Always we blame the heat and often we use the excuse that we can talk to the people inside (which we do, don't worry!) but, we have recently made a decree that it is getting out of hand and have banned slurpees for at least the foreseeable future. As you might have guessed, this is what I have been reduced to talking about because it seems like not a lot has happened this week.
 This week we had a lesson with our investigator Karen who is obsessed with the second coming. She is afraid of / excited for all of the fire and brimstone and all of that. She also love The Book of Mormon but, thinks that if she just believes it in her heart that is good enough and she doesn't need to go to church, get baptized, make and keep covenants etc. So, it's a work in process. It's crazy how many people don't' seem to believe that we have to actually do things here in this life. That if we really did believe it in our hearts that our actions would follow. I guess I never really realized  before I started understanding more of what other Christians believe how unique the idea is that Heavenly Father put us here for a purpose, to learn and become better. Not to suffer and grovel for his forgiveness so maybe we can make it back to heaven. Not that forgiveness isn't a part of it, but it's an entirely different mindset, which makes a big difference.
 This week we also had exchanges, Our STL's are Spanish speaking again but luckily I got to stay in our "English" area. We had a lesson with one girl who can understand English but can't speak it. So she couldn't talk to me and I couldn't really talk to her because I didn't know what she was saying. So.. she and Hermana Espinoza had a lesson... We also had a lesson with Diana. I don't remember if I've talked about her before but she and her sister are dating members, one of whom is in Brazil on a mission. She has a date for the 8th and so far things are going well. We were able to teach the word of wisdom which in my opinion is the trickies lesson because so many people have trouble with it and she really doesn't have many concerns, and she said that she is excited to get baptized, so that is good. Hopefully her sister will come more too. I have a slight concern that she's doing it more for the boyfriend than for God but hopefully I'm wrong.
 Oh, I also had shawarma this week. It tasted exactly like a gyro. I honestly don't even know what the difference is. So it was good but I was a little disappointed that it wasn't more, I don't know, different. There are a lot of interesting places to eat around here and I think I told you that we go out to eat a lot so hopefully I'll get the chance to try some more interesting food. I also went to Texas Roadhouse for the first time. I told Sister Bowen that I was just waiting to go because I knew subconsciously that someday I would be in Texas and that's where you have to have it.
 John continues to be super cool. We had a lesson with him on Thrusday and were planning to put him on date for the 14th of August. He told us though that he got his discharge papers that morning and would be going back to Las Vegas on the 3rd, after his surgery the next Thursday. We were kind of bummed but he said that he wanted to continue to meet with missionaries when he got home so that was good news at least. About an hour later though on his way home he sent us a text and asked if it were possible for him to get baptized on the 1st before he left. And that his friend Adam who referred him to the church wanted to fly in for the service. Ha, ha so we said yes of course but then started freaking out when we realized how soon that was and how much more we had to teach. So we may or may not have texted him the Word of Wisdom (because in order to get baptized you have to be living it for a certain period of time) but don't worry, we actually taught it on Sunday and because He's awesome he was fine with it all. He found out yesterday though that he actually doesn't have to leave until the 12th so naturally his new date is the 11th. Probably the best FHE activity every right?!
 We did a few hours of service this week helping a recent covert and her daughter Raven helping them get ready to move They are moving into seriously the middle of nowhere. It takes almost 2 hours for us to get to their new property.
 We also had interviews with President Miller this week. When we told him that we had 16 investigators he asked what our secrets were. Ha, an area the size of Canada? Too bad too a good number of them aren't progressing. He also told me to read the mission library so I've started that. I only have two of the books but they're the long ones and I'm sure it won't be hard to find the other two.
 This week I gave a talk in sacrament about finding happiness in the gospel so that's what I've been thinking about recently. There's a cool scripture in psalms 126:3 that basically says "The Lord has done good things for us, and we are glad". I talked about how we need to remember the happiness that we've felt before, focus on gratitude, recommit to consecration, and become brand loyal to the gospel  (that's how you work consecration and missionary work into a talk secretly). It really has had me thinking though, Heavenly Father wants us to be happy, that's his goal for us. All we have to do is look for it and act on what we need to bring it to us.
 Anyway, I hope you all are doing well and have lots of fun summer plans. Happy soon to be August!
 Love,
 April
 oh also, attached is a picture of our church building. It's not a great picture, I just took it real quick to show you what it looks like so I'll have to take a better one later. I guess it's actually the first LDS building in Texas. It kind of reminds me of a cathedral.

let me tell you about John, the coolest investigator since sliced bread.

So sorry if the e-mail ends up being a bit short, I had to write kind of a long one to our hero President Miller so I'm a little short on time.

First let me tell you about John, the coolest investigator since sliced bread. I think I told you a little about him last week, we met on base and his friend from Utah referred him to us. He went to Church last week and we talked about the Gathering of Israel. Well, we were supposed to meet with him on Tuesday but he and his friend ended up getting into a car accident. Everyone was fine but, it kind of messed up the plans for the day. We rescheduled though to meet with him on Friday and it was great! He told us that he has really bad anxiety sometimes because of being overseas and so he was really worried when he got into the accident because he didn't have any medicine with him or anything. He also said that he friend (who was driving) got really mad and started getting mad a God for what happened. "How could you do this to me?!?" etc. John said "I was thinking about how we were talking about missionary work in church and to share with people, so I told my friend that she should read The Book of Mormon. I admitted that I hadn't read it yet but that I had heard a lot of really good things about it and had a good feeling about it." And then he said that after he shared that everyone started to calm down and he was fine even though he didn't have anything for his anxiety with him. What the! Who is this guy? That's actually the second time though I've had an investigator say "I just had this feeling that I should share this spiritual thing so then I did." Man, I wish I was cool enough to not only recognize but to act on promptings like that! And then he went to the YSA dance that night, the church clean up the next morning and the activity after and took off work to go to church the next day. So, here's the problem, he's moving in a month! Ah, the curse of the YSA ward. So, we'll just have to work fast right?!

This week we also had dinner with a recently reactivated member. He told us that when he left the church as an early teenager President Hinkley was still the alive. And then when he started coming back to church President Monson was the prophet. He was telling us how he kept wonder "Whatever happened to the Hinkley guy?" until finally someone told him. I don't know, it was funny when he told it, ha ha. The other crazy thing though is that we were talking about where we were from and Sister Bowen told him that she was from Nevada. He said "Oh, I know someone from Nevada, we used to work together. His name is Aaron Thomas." Ha, and I was like "His name is what?!" But, turns out that it's a different guy. So Aaron Thomas I know has a doppleganger running around Nevada somewhere.  

We had a bit of a set back with a few of our other investigators. One of them didn't understand the Word of Wisdom and then was mad that we had to move his baptism date and another one "Wants to be baptized, but isn't sure if he wants to be Mormon" but hey, set backs are just another day in the life right? Oh the up side, we had a good pass off lesson with a girl named Anna. She has a coworker who is a member of the church and when she asked him how he keeps his skin so soft he told her because he follows the word of wisdom. When she asked him what that was he said to ask the missionaries and here we are, teaching about the word of wisdom, and other things... Ha, strangest referral ever but hey, it works.

Oh, I have also learned the Souper Salads is a very disappointing place to eat. It is pretty much the salad and soup version of Pizza Pie Café. I strongly suggest avoiding it, if you get the chance. Also, Chubby's is a fantastic place to eat if you get the chance. As far as I know, it only currently exists in El Paso but, if you see it you should go.

As far as a thought for the week, something that is good and bad about a YSA ward is that it has a good number of recently returned missionaries in it. That's good because it means that people are missionary minded and are willing when they can to come out with us. It also means though that we hear a lot of "Well.. when I was on my mission, we did it this other way!" So I have been thinking recently about stewardship, revelation and the order in which Heavenly Father does things.

We had one member pull us aside after church and tell us that we were doing our job wrong (according to her) and that if people in the ward (including her) decided to be less active it would probably be our fault. Interestingly enough, that's actually the second time on my mission I've had someone say something like that to me, although for different reasons. So, maybe that means that I'm really an apostate missionary driving people away from the church, I guess that could be true, but probably what it means, is that we need to stop and think about stewardship, and who has not only the right, but also the duty to say something like that. First of all, not a random ward member, but someone who has keys to missionary work and the stewardship over this area. So, my companion, the ward mission leader, the bishop, the stake president, the district leader, the zone leader, or the mission president.

But, I think the same thought can be extended to how we view all church callings. As part of sustaining leaders that means that we also sustain and respect their stewardship. And as part of magnifying our calling, it means that we will do all that we can to help and recognize those that fall into our stewardship as well. Of course that doesn't mean that other people can't have good ideas or help, or anything like that, but it does mean that they are not entitle to revelation on how things should be done. Which means that, in the end, the decision has to come down to the person who (as long as they are living right and doing all they can) has the right and obligation to receive revelation, make corrections, and make decisions for that area.

Anyway, a long and rambling thought but hopefully it makes sense!!

Love you all and talk to you soon!

April     

When you're going from 93 to 103, it's really not that big of a difference.

Hello from Mexico!! Oh, I mean, El Paso, Texas! It's kind of like the same thing though, you can literally see Mexico from here and everything is in English and Spanish. Speaking of which, I am trying to learn a little bit of Spanish stat to help me out around here. Any advice bilingual friends?

 So this week has been a bit crazy. Last Tuesday I went to three transfer meetings. The first one was at 7 in the morning, when I found out that I was going south. After that we all got in a van and drove 4 hours down to Las Cruces where I went to another transfer meeting and found out I was going south again. So five our us got into a truck and drove another hour to El Paso where I went to another transfer meeting and found my new companion. I also found out that I'm back up training this transfer, which means I either did a good job last time or a bad job, ha I'm not sure which. Sister Bowen is great though, especially for only being 6 weeks out! So I think things will go well.

 We cover the UTEP University ward, which as you probably guessed is YSA. Our ward boundaries are huge! We have 2,000 miles a month! We cover three zones and two stakes. It's actually pretty similar to the boundaries of the Armar YSA ward but its crazy that two people cover that alone, one of which has only been out for 6 weeks and the other one who just got here a week ago! Our ward also covers the army base here Ft. Bliss, and so our ward is probably 40% military, 40% university students and 20% just other YSA's. It's an interesting mix but I like it. It's actually really fun to be able to work with and teach people your own age and when YSA's say that they'll do something they usually actually do it! Oh, I also use the word ward generously. We technically are but we probably have about 75 active members. And, it's even more transient than a regular YSA ward because of the school and the base but, I think that things will be good. They're also not afraid to invite or talk to their friends about the gospel. We've already had like 10 referrals since I've been here, which is more probably than we had all of last transfer! But, every ward has it's strengths and weaknesses. We don't get fed a whole lot and usually when we do it's pizza or Chipotle or something. And it's hard to get member presents because they are always studying or out doing something. But, I have a good feeling about this place.

 Also, don't listen to the crazy people that tell you it's so hot that it will melt your face down in El Paso. It's only about 10 degrees hotter and honestly, when you're going from 93 to 103, it's really not that big of a difference.

 This week we picked up two new investigators, one of whom is doing great! He was actually given to us by a friend of his in Utah, who somehow found our number and called us. After getting lost at FT. Bliss (it's fine, it's just a military base, no one looks at you weird when you're wandering around...) we had a fantastic first lesson with him. When we told him about the apostasy he said "Oh! So that's where all of the other Christian churches came from!" Yep! Didn't even have to explain that. And he even came to church on Sunday! Ha, I felt kind of bad though because our Gospel Principles lesson was on the Gathering of Israel, which can not only be kind of confusing but also is all about missionary work, and then the third hour lesson was on temples. When we asked him how he liked it after he told us "I was super confused. I thought I was in a temple this whole time but I guess not." So, bummer, but now we have more things to talk about right?

  I also really like whenever we get the chance to teach military because they totally get authority and how if you don't have that authority, it doesn't matter what you do, it's pointless.

 We also had some great contacting experiences this week. Who knew that such a thing was possible right? We went to try and contact a referral who wasn't home but we decided to talk to his neighbors instead. It took us two hours to finish the street because of how many people wanted to talk to us and we were able to pass off 5 referrals. So that was pretty cool.

 As far as a spiritual thought goes, I read something in Deuteronomy today that I have been thinking about. It's chapter 8 verses 3, 17 and 18. Which is similar to Mosiah Chapter 2 verses 21-26. It talks about how we are nothing compared to God, how He is the one that gives us everything, even our bodies and our breath. And yet the only thing that He asks of us is that we keep His commandments, which He has only given us in the first place so that we will have guidance, find happiness, and be able to become more like Him. How incredibly selfless is that! There is a quote by Elder Maxwell that says "Consecration is the only surrender that is also a victory." It comes from the talk Settle This in Your Hearts", (which I will admit that I haven't read, I saw the quote at the beginning of "The John Tanner Story" but it looks good so you should all ready it). All Heavenly Father wants for us is what's best for us. We don't always believe it but it is always true, and He promises that if we ask Him, He will confirm that to us. My goal is to always believe what He wants is what I want too, and then to act on it.

 Well, I hope you all are doing great! Talk to you soon!

 Love, April

PS the picture is a random tree we saw. Yep, this is Texas.

Today is my last day in Rio Rancho.

Today is my last day in Rio Rancho. At least for the next 6+ weeks. Tomorrow is transfers and I'm getting myself shipped off to somewhere new! Ha, every time we go somewhere since we found of Saturday Sister Markus says "Last time....." like, "Last time talking to people on 2nd street..." So, we've had a lot of "Last times" in the past few days. I did keep telling people that I knew Heavenly Father was just waiting for July to send me down to El Paso but I'm hoping that that's not true! I'm kind of crossing my fingers for Santa Fe because it sounds cool but of course where ever will be great.

This week we did a lot of service. Rio Rancho has a weird weed ordinance where if a city officer notices that you have weeds in your yard you get a warning and if they aren't cleaned up by a certain amount of time (I think 2 weeks) you get fined for it. So lots of people need help weeding, especially older people. This week we did a few hours of weeding and then we helped a member in our ward lay the ground for a gazebo they are building, that was kind of fun. We were hoping too to be able to help another member to lay some tile but it didn't happen. We were able to have a really good experience with our weed pulling service though. Our Spanish Sister tracting into one of our do not contact members who accepted the offer for the 4 of us to come weed. I knew her since she had become a do not contact soon after I got here and we were able to help her and set up another time to see her again! So service does soften hearts, who knew (ha, probably everyone)!  

This week was also as I'm sure you all know Independence Day. It was a pretty regular day for us except that we went to our ward's BBQ in the afternoon and watched a few fireworks with some of our members in the evening. Most of the exciting stuff happened after we went home though since it really doesn't start getting dark until around 8:30 and we had to be home by 9. We were a little worried though that our neighbors were going to burn our apartment down since they were lanunching stuff towards the roof. Thankfully though, it didn't burn down and we are all still alive. Oh, we also went to 3 BBQ's this weekend and were invited to another one so we probably won't be eating hamburgers and hotdogs for a while. That reminds me, did I tell you that last week I had pizza 5 times? It's weird, it's like every once and a while everyone just decides that they need to make the same thing. Something in the water I guess... 

Our ward mission leader also got released this week, which I would be more bummed about if I was staying around, He was awesome and it's always sad to see a go leader go, but we met with the new one yesterday and he seems like a really good guy that is going to do really well. The only challenge for him though is that he only moved into the ward about a month ago. So Sister Markus will get to teach a new comp and a new WML all about the ward, ha she will do great though. 

Well, that's about all we did this week, a few lessons, including my first drop lesson where we dropped the investigator (usually they just ignore us until we give up) which was so much like a DTR you would have thought we were back at BYU, but that's about it. Speaking of BYU, we had our apartment inspectors come by this morning. We forgot about it until last night and them we were to buys to clean so we had to do it in the morning. It wasn't bad but especially with getting all my stuff packed up it reminded me of the end of the semester at school where you're trying to pack, do finals, finalize your storage and all of that and your landlord comes by to inspect your apartment, which you promptly forget about until the morning of. Not to worry though, it went fine. 

Well, I hope you all have a fantastic summer and continue to do awesome thing! For my thought I'm going to steal the quote and question that President Miller sent us today. “If we teach in the manner the Lord has prescribed, he can send his Spirit to edify and enlighten those whom we teach. If we do not teach His way-if we teach according to our own knowledge and according to our own intellect, and if we slavishly tie ourselves to our own preparation or to someone else’s wisdom or text-our teaching ‘is not of God.’….

If we rely on debate techniques or sales methods or group psychology, we are preaching the gospel in some other way, and it is not of God…
Intellectual things-reason and logic-can prepare the way, and they can help us in our preparation. But if we are tied to them instead of to the Spirit of the Lord, we are not teaching the gospel in the Lord’s way.
The Lord stressed that truth when he said: ‘Put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good-yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit’ (D&C 11:12)
This is the way we must teach the gospel”

My question for you, “Why is it so difficult for most of us to believe the Lord will speak through us?”

I don't know why it would be hard for us to believe, maybe because we feel like we aren't worthy, or maybe because we don't understand or recognize how or when it is happening. Maybe we are too afraid to try? Whatever it is though, I promise that the Lord will speak through us if we let Him. When I first came out and first started talking to people, I wanted to know why I didn't always know what to do or say. God says like a million times in D&C open your mouth and it will be filled, and other such similar things. And here I was with no idea what to say, I felt like my mouth was open and nothing was happening. Someone in one of our meeting though talked about prompting of the spirit though. When you think of a prompter, like in the theater, it doesn't give you every word, it only gives you a few, to get you started. Then you do the rest yourself. In the theater of course it is something that you have memorized but, the Spirit works the same way most of the time. It will get you started, but because the purpose it for us to learn and grow, it wouldn't do us any good to just be told what to do all the time! You'll get what you need and then you do the rest! 

Anyway, talk to you all soon! 

Love, 

April 

having a lot of lightning

This week has been kind of a slow one for us, we only had two lessons and one was basically a drop lesson, which is never fun. We were able to have a really good lesson with Mia though about the Restoration and we committed her to read The Book of Mormon and pray about it, which she agreed to do. It's excellent for Mia since we starting to think that she wasn't really that interested. We were also able to get back in touch with Greg! Which is fantastic since we haven't heard from him in over a month and we get to meet with Paul next week. This upcoming week is looking like it is going to be really good, and it will be interesting to see what New Mexico is like for the 4th of July. Mostly we worked with a lot of less active members this week and we are thankfully seeing some good progress with them. So that has been super good.
The only really bad thing this week is that our most progressing investigator Ruben is moving to ABQE. But I'm sure the missionaries over there are great too. We were able to attend a baptism with Ruben this week too, which was great until some old man tried to set us up with our Zone Leaders. I guess he thought we were YSA's (there was a YSA activity going on at the church at the same time). He was very very persistent that we pair off and go to the dance. It was probably the most uncomfortable thing that's happened in the past I don't know, week maybe. Ha, awkward things are happening all the time it seems. We also ran out of miles this week since it's the end of the month so we did a good amount of walking this week.
The Relief Society in our ward is also super into birthdays and so they asked us to deliver some birthday cards to some less active members. So far there haven't been any bad experiences but a few interesting ones. The best one so far has probably been the member who had a swimming pool (one of the inflatable kid ones) right in front of their door. Maneuvering around that one in a skirt was a bit of a challenge! So, if you ever want to stop someone from coming to your house, just put a swimming pool in front of your door. But I can't guarantee that the missionaries won't still try.
We've also been having a lot of lightning storms recently, which I guess means this alleged monsoon season is coming. I still don't really know what that means or what to expect, but the storms have been pretty cool. It's interesting; there is a lot of lightning and thunder but almost no rain.
I don't remember if I told you guys or not but I am reading the Book of Mormon backwards. It was actually Sister Morco who gave me the idea, I had never heard of it before then. It's cool because instead of following of focusing on the story too much, you can focus on the individual doctrine that's in the chapter. Right now I'm in 3rd Nephi so I still have a long way to go but, if you ever want to mix up your reading a bit you should try it. But, don't do it unless you've already read it forward at least once first! Something that I've noticed recently is how often God tells people to record what they have learned or what is written. Christ actually chastised the Nephites for not writing some of the prophecies that they had been given and in many instances when records have been lost or destroyed people are told to write them again, like with Jeremiah. We've been talking to a lady about the importance of writing and how it can be a benefit to yourself even more than your posterity (although they can certainly benefit from it too) and it makes me realize that I probably should be less of a horrible journal writer. I just write too much, but, I know that it's important! So we'll all commit or recommit! Keep a record of your life; you will have more gratitude, peace of mind, reflection, and sense of purpose if you do.
Well, hope everything is going well, have a good 4th of July!
Love,
April