So talking to the fam yesterday was awesome! It gets me pumped up to keep working hard!
This week was a roller coaster that is for sure! Last Sunday we had dinner with our Branch President's family and after we met with him and talked about the area for about two hours! We were talking with him about how finding has been a challenge lately. He sat and thought for a minute and then said "I want you to go visit my dad". We were so stoked that he trusts us enough to send us to visit his family! He also gave us the address for his sister's family. Oh man! Way to start off the week with two awesome referrals! It was also nice to be able to take some things off his plate as well. It is so great how connected we are with the leadership in our Branch. It makes getting things done so much easier.
So on Wednesday we had zone meeting. One of the things the zone leaders were talking about is Family History. We have a family history center in our area so they encouraged us to use that as a finding idea. They also passed out these books called "my family" that people can use to fill out information to put into websites and to do the temple work for, etc. When they passed those books out, Hermana Blackford and I just looked at each other and laughed. Family History isn't a huge thing in the Mexican culture so we just kind of ignored it and figured the English missionaries would have more success. So later that day we went to go contact our Presidents sister. We had tried once before and no one had been home. Well this time they were home! The sister came out and was talking to us and told us that her brother is a member and we told her that we know him and then we talked about family for quite a while! After about 20 minutes of talking, we started explaining our purpose as missionaries and how we share a message of Jesus Christ and help others to increase their faith in him. She told us that she is an active catholic, but them invited us in to show us a figurine she has of Christ and then we started talking about family again. We asked if we could share a message and she said sure. We started with a prayer and she loved it. Right after, she started asking us questions about things she had heard about temple work, and how we baptize for the dead. She also started asking questions about family history. The whole time she was saying these things I was thinking "no way, we are about to use family history in the Mexican culture". It just all fell right into place! Her daughter (who is about 30) was telling us that she likes to do family history work, and the woman (her name is Frances) was telling us that she wants to get started on it while her Dad is still alive so they can get information from him. We told them about the family history center and how they can help to get started and that it is all free and they both seemed very excited! They want us to go with them to visit the center this week! We set up another appointment to go back and talk more about their questions relating to the temple. It will be the perfect opportunity to teach the plan of salvation. We are so stoked to go back and get to know them more and help get them more excited about family history work!
That night we also went to visit Ernesto. We walked in planning on watching the restoration video to talk more about the role of Joesph Smith and who he is, because we had heard on Sunday, that he had talked with someone at church and thought that we worship him. Well, before we could even mention that, he started listing off some of his doubts and concerns with the church, primarily, how people had shared their testimony's and had talked about Joseph Smith more than Christ. He was also bothered by the fact that people were saying that this is the true church. He believes that as long as we believe in Christ and are doing things to follow him, we are saved, and that all churches are one body as whole because we believe in Christ. We spent about an hour an a half addressing these concerns and bearing very strong testimony of them. It was probably the most spiritually exhausting hour and a half of my life haha But incredible, because I felt so guided by the spirit. We ended up inviting him to pray that night and ask Heavenly Father if this is the path he needs to continue on.
The next day we went back and he said he had received his answer that this is not the path for him. We were devastated. We left him with our testimonies and let him know that he is always welcome to come to church whenever he wants. It was a hard moment but we know that it is just not his time yet.
So the rest of the week was pretty rough. Lessons kept falling through and people just weren't home so we were getting pretty down. Friday night we went to visit a member. Hermana Larson is awesome! She is like our grandma in the Gila Valley. She could tell that it had been a rough day, so she decided to take us out for ice cream. It was totally a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. She is such an awesome lady and we are so lucky to have her here.
Well I hope all is going well! This week is going to be a good one! We made a goal as a zone to all hit standards, so we are excited to see how it goes!
Love you all! Stay strong and remember who you are!
Love,
Hermana Lundquist