My very first Saturday here in the mission
field, I placed a Book of Mormon with a man named Jose. I knew little to no Spanish
that day when I first met him so all I told him was to read the book because it
was true. Immediately, I loved this guy! I remember making Hermana Serrano
drive over there 3 times a week to see if he was home. There was something
special about him. Plus it was my first real missionary experience and it was
so awesome! When we would try to stop by, he was never home and his wife
was not too fond of us. After a while we backed off and then finally we made no
more attempts. However, yesterday we had were walking around his neighborhood
and got the impression to turn around and knock on his door. And Jose answered
the door! I asked if he remembered me and we starting joking around, having a
good time. The best part about it all was that he told us that he has been
reading the Book of Mormon!!! He told us to come back on Tuesday so that we
could explain it a little bit more to him. He said he would only give us a
little bit of time though because his wife is really against us. But I will
take whatever I can get. So if you want to pray that her heart will be softened,
I think that we will see some miracles with them. He is golden. You look at him
and he just radiates the light of Christ. Man I love Jose!
Alex is still avoiding us, which literally
breaks my heart! But the great thing is I think we just picked up his younger
brother Omar. The first time we met the Jiminez family; I knew Omar would be
the one who would be super receptive to the gospel. He kept saying "ooo
wow" when we were explaining things to him about prayer and our Heavenly
Father. Anyways, yesterday we decided to stop by the Jiminez house so that we
could talk to Alex about coming with us to church. We stopped over there at
about 1015 and the service started at 11. Omar and his friend opened the door.
He invited them to come to church and Omar replied saying "I was actually
thinking about coming to church today." How perfect right? Alex wasn’t
able to go for some reason or another but it’s ok because Omar and his friend
wearing a cut off shirt and beanie came! We roped them in by saying that we were
singing. It worked and it was awesome. We sang "mas cerca dios de ti"
sin piano. It was the prettiest rendition. Also it was super stormy yesterday
and there was thunder shaking the building while we were singing. It was pretty
awesome! Omar and his friend decided to stay for Sunday school as well. The
only problem was Omar's friend doesn’t know any Spanish. So they came to the
14-18 year old class that we were substituting for. We had prayed the night
before to know what to teach these kids and we all came to the conclusion of
Chastity. So our first official lesson with him was chastity. We thought it
might be uncomfortable but it was so awesome! He was asking all these really
great questions and the spirit was so strong during it. We were very blunt too,
which really helped clear things up for the youth. There was one part when I
was talking about the blessings of being chaste and Omar turned and asked me if
I really believed in those things. I said without a doubt. And you know I do
know that without a doubt. He kept saying how he never knew that it was such a
big deal to not live the law of chastity but if it is in the scriptures that it
must be true. It was a really awesome experience. Taught me never to be
uncomfortable or shy about what we believe. It is truth. Teach it with
confidence and the spirit will be there to testify.
This week we also sang in the pulga with the
Elders. We stopped and started singing in a vacant booth. It was amazing! The
spirit was so beautiful. Sure maybe it was a little weird to get started but
once the spirit was there; we knew that we had to be there. Occasionally we got
a little crowd. It was usually just children- like I've said before; we need to
all become more like children. The best part was that the booth across from us
is a member! She was baptized in Mexico and lost contact with the church when
she came here to Texas. Crazy how we had no idea that we were being guided
directly to her! We are going to start doing that every Saturday. It was so
much fun and there are a million people there. It is like the little
markets that we were at in Guatemala! But not as cool ha-ha I still love it
though because the people here are my people! I am starting to feel like I know
everyone in this area. It’s awesome.
Anyways, I love you all so much! Have fun sailing
this week. It’s tempting to say that I wish I was there but in all honesty, I
love my Tejanos too much. Seriously though, have so much fun!
abrazos y besos,
Hermana Parry
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| Singing at the Pulga |
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