HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

In honor of Valentine's Day I wanted to share one of my favorite scriptures about Charity (1 Corinthians 13: 1-2) 

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."

First off, what is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal? Extra noise right? Exactly. It doesn’t matter what we say to these people out here as missionaries, if we do not have charity towards them, all of it will be unnecessary noise. Love must be the motivation of our actions. I can talk until I am blue in the face but it will profit these people nothing unless I love them! That is why we are commanded to pray with all energy of heart for this gift! Because it is only the pure love of Jesus Christ that is going to change these people and ourselves! 

I know that that is something that I am really trying to work on out here. Loving these people as God does and literally seeing them as my brothers and sisters. Its something I have to pray for because that is not something that we can make ourselves do. God is the fountain of all love therefore we have to access this kind of pure love through Him. 

As for this week here in Louetta.. WOW! God is so good to us. in just 4 days we set 5 baptismal dates. The amazing thing is that these are people who literally found us! It is amazing to see how God has prepared them and literally put all the pieces together so things work out just perfectly. We are really trying to teach these people to turn to the Lord and gain strength in Him right now because trials are going to hit them while they try to get closer to God. We saw that last night with Elmer and Maria but we had a really good lesson about how living the gospel exactly gives us the strength to overcome. 

I am really excited because 2 of the 6 upcoming baptisms are part member families! Little by little more of them will join them so they can get sealed in the temple. As for Fransisco, we are still working with him! No date yet but he wore a really nice suit to church on Sunday! He was excited about it so obviously I am excited about it. We are working with them to get married! Pray for some miracles. I know that they will happen! 

I don’t know if you remember the man Fabrizio Modenessi from when I was in Gulfbank. Well he is the one who always bought us pupusas and gave us mangoes. He is always smiling in the pictures! Anyways, he came to Louetta Ward yesterday!! I just about fainted. I love that man! He is the king of being lost and found. This time we really hope he stays! We are having a huge family home evening tonight with the Sanchez family, their cousin who is preparing for baptism, and Fabrizio. It will be a party. 

Zoe kept the word of wisdom for one whole week! She only drank cafe once and it was on the eighth day. Is that not amazing progress? She also got a new job that will allow her to come to church more frequently! She committed to ley de castidad this week and is really praying about her date. Still nothing is set with her. 

Transfer calls were last night. Honestly I am grateful I am training because if I weren’t, I probably would have been switched out. I was joking around with Hermana Espinoza on Saturday telling her how I already have 6 months in this area and I might get switched out so you should probably just come to church already. She just looked at me and was so serious and said; if you leave no one will visit me. In the moment I was so happy to know that she felt my love for her. I’m glad I have 6 more weeks to get her to church! 

We stopped by to visit our little Vietnamese friend this week. Here was the advice she left us this week "marry a man who will take you to buy French fries even though he wants BBQ." 

Bottom line, this week was amazing. God loves His children- ALL of them. I am grateful for the atonement because it stretches me to be more and do more. Honestly, I would be so crushed by the stress in this world if I didn't know that I have a Savior who makes it possible for me to do all things. 

Keep Smiling, 

Hermana Parry