I am so excited for Ben and his mission call to Brazil! Yes, that is where Brian served (he came back in December). Ben should add him on facebook so he can ask him questions. I know Brian will love to help. When Ben contacts Brian, can you ask him to tell Brian that I got the package he sent me, that it was amazing, and that I´m glad we are friends? Also, I need Brian´s address in AZ again because I accidentally threw away the package wrapping that had the return address. Thanks.
Here is what happened this week:
On Tuesday I was assigned to give a 5 minute talk on obedience during district meeting. I started out thinking of it as just another box to check off, but I really got into preparing it. I found all these great scriptures to share and realized a lot of things I´ve learned about obedience. As I was preparing the talk and giving it I felt the Spirit telling me that Heavenly Father is really proud of me for being obedient and I realized all the blessings I´m getting for obeying certain rules that are sometimes really hard to obey. It was a big boost to know that even though I´m not perfect, Heavenly Father knows I´m doing my best and is happy with me, and it helped me want to keep obeying because I´ve realized that it is always always worth it.
The rest of the week went pretty normally, but yesterday we had some great thing happen.
First of all, our investigator Elvira who we hadn´t been able to visit for a while, agreed to come to church with us. She came to sacrament meeting and really liked it. And her energetic grandchild miraculously stayed quiet so Elvira could listen to the meeting! Elvira says she wants to come again! She thinks she is busy this weekend but we are going to try anyway to help her come to general conference.
Our second great thing was teaching for the first time to Reina y Esmeralda. Reina was a reference from the tormenta blanca last week. She has three attendances (has been to church 3 times) and used to listen to the elders. Her nephew got baptized, but she never did, I think because she didn´t feel ready to give up smoking and coffee. Esmeralda is her 13 year old grand child that she is raising. Reina said she loved the lesson 1 folleto and that it feels true to her and she committed to pray about it. Esmeralda hasn´t read the folleto yet, but she liked what we shared and said she would pray too. Apparently she just naturally likes going to church, and she wants to come to mutual and go on Sunday to see what our church is like. I could really feel the Spirit while we were teaching them. They are just such good people and they are very sincere in their desire to know if it´s true.
Hermana Schneider and I have decided this week to worry less about our own performance and just focus on the investigators-- because we have a lot of good ones! So this week we are going to focus on Graciela and her family, Elvira, and Reina and Esmeralda and try to visit them every day so that they can progress and have fechas. I really realized last transfer how effective daily contact is, so I'm excited to try to apply it better in my area.
Every week Hna. Schneider and I are learning better how to work together and help each other. I've honestly been really stressed out about being a senior companion and how to balance leading the companionship with working as equal partners, but Hna. Schneider is helping me figure it out and slowly it is getting easier. I realized today that I've been stressed because I knew it was important to share the responsibility and let my companion help, but whenever Hna. Schneider took more responsibility I felt like I was being a bad senior companion and not doing enough. Ridiculous, right? So this week I'm going to worry less, let Hna. Schneider do as much as she can, do my best to do my part, and not feel guilty about it.
I hope you are all doing well. Keep keeping me updated. Thank you so much for your emails! I love you!
Love,
Ellis
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