These people are just so great.

Please don’t get mad buuuttt I forgot my camera cord again. I will really try hard to bring it next time! Hermano Bernal caught an armadillo yesterday and the pictures are hilarious. He and Hermana drove us to church and on our way home he spotted one, pulled the car over, and chased this armadillo down. He kills me! I’m pretty sure they are my favorite. 

Well now that I just said that, 20 other people just popped in my head that I have claimed are my favorite. These people are just so great. Seriously have some forever friends down here in Louetta. 

One of them is Maria Juana Gutierrez. She is so shy and quiet but oh man I think we are really becoming best friends. Yesterday we stopped by because she couldn’t go to church and I just was giving her this huge lecture about how she is breaking my heart. She was just laughing and then was making some smart comments back. She is a clever one. Literally though this woman is amazing. And we had one of the most powerful lessons with her this week! She is planning for baptism for March 1st. She has a lot of doubts but it really trying to prepare herself. She feels different and knows its true. It’s just a big decision so she is a little scared. At the beginning of the lesson she said something to the effect of not wanting to do this anymore. She then walked out of the room. Hermana Baxter and I just turned to each other and mouthed, what the heck are we suppose to do. We just sat and waited. When she came back in we were all just quiet. After a little, some sentences were exchanged and we shared some scriptures about baptism by proper authority. We invited her right then and there to pray about baptism. She did and boom spirit was so strong. She immediately opened up the Book of Mormon and started reading. Guess what she opened up to? 2 Nefi 31 o sea, the doctrine of Jesus Christ. She read it all the way through out-loud. At the end she said I need to get baptized. We then started talking again about baptism and when we brought up the date she said, well I just want another answer. So she prayed again and boom, the spirit was so thick. The key in this whole lesson was that we were quiet and we just let the spirit teach her. It should have been off the district! I am so glad we just had her pray and then didn’t try to force anything on her but really helped her have an experience with the spirit. One of the most rewarding lessons because I learned how powerful the spirit really is in our teaching. We are here to create experiences. 

We also had a killer lesson with Francisco Juarez. He told us on Tuesday he wants us to come by more because Sunday to Sunday is a really long time and he just wants to learn everything. On Thursday we visited him again and brought his friend Hno Gaytan. It was awesome. He told us that he has fears. It was getting close to 930 so we couldn’t stay to find out his fears but my studies on Friday and Saturday were focused on him and his possible fears. I have never prayed so hard for the gift of discernment. It was awesome because when we went into our next cita with him on Saturday night, all the scriptures that I had found for him were exactly what he needed. I only know that because he told me it all makes sense now! The moral of the lesson was that faith and fear cannot co-exist and if we don’t act because we have fear of messing up, we don’t actually have faith. It was so great. Yancy came with us and shared some cool experiences from his mission. When we had to leave for our next appointment Francisco was so sad! But he told us that he wants to accompany us to a temple visit this week and that he is really wants to see another baptism- luckily, there are 2 this Saturday! He is getting so close. He finally understands that us being humans will make mistakes but as long as we have faith in Christ, we can be made whole time and time again. 

I just want to end with saying how I know that the atonement is real. Christ

Heals hearts and fixes broken things. I know that our Savior loves broken things because that means he can fix, enlarge, and strengthen them. We can be made better because of him. Go read Moroni 10. Literally sums up everything. I love you all! 

Keep praying for these people!!! Miracles are happening. 

Keep smiling too, 

Hermana Parry