Dear Family,
What a week! I really enjoyed working with Hna Reales for a week. Even though we only spent a week together, I learned a lot from her about how to plan more effectively.
My new companion arrived on Saturday. Her name is Hermana Hannah Pullan and she is from Payson, Utah. She was an art major at BYU. So far we have a lot in common and get along really well. She speaks almost no Spanish, but we are going to work on that.
After the meeting this morning, I decided to teach Hna Pullan how to do contacts. I tried to focus entirely on helping her be confident and helping her understand how to contact people. Sometimes she didn´t know what to say and some people didn´t listen, but she kept trying! I was impressed by how hard she tried and how much she wanted to share the gospel. I felt the Spirit that Hna Pullan brought with her from the MTC, and it helped me be excited about the rest of my mission and about helping her learn. I´m so excited for the opportunity to train and to learn from Hna Pullan! I really need her spirit to help me stay focused for the last 2 transfers of my mission. I think if I just focus, like I did this morning, on helping Hna Pullan be the best missionary she can be, I won´t have time to worry about anything else and I will be happy and excited about the mission.
Last week I was able to find and teach Daniel and Rubén, who disappeared the week before. And we started teaching Daniel´s mother too! Daniel told me he finished reading the book of Mormon and that now he wants to read Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price! He says he really wants to get baptized too. He is one of the strangest investigators I have ever had. I was explaining the Word of Wisdom to him this week and I told him his body is the temple of his Spirit. He told me "Oh, that makes sense, because the spirit has the same form as the body." What? How did he learn that? I asked and he said "Inspiration." Apparently the reason he knows the Book of Mormon is true is because it says a lot of things that God already revealed to him. It´s kind of weird. I think it has to be a good thing, as long as he doesn´t think he is destined to be the next prophet.. . .
Unfortunately, neither Rubén nor Daniel nor Daniel´s mother came to church on Sunday, so this week I have to figure out how to help them with that commitment.
The biggest focus of my week was helping my investigator, Brian, get a testimony of the Restoration. I wanted him to be baptized because he had a testimony, not just because his aunt and uncle wanted him too. So we taught him about the first vision again. I decided to tell it to him like a story to help him imagine what it would be like to be Joseph Smith. The next day we asked him if he had received an answer to his prayer and he said yes! He said he felt happier and more excited to work-- he decided that was his answer. I asked him if he believed the church was true and he said yes! On Saturday he was baptized! It was really special to be able to help him gain his testimony.
My investigator Andrés is doing really well! He met every goal we set for the number of cigarettes he was allowed to smoke this week. He smoked the last one on Saturday and on Sunday told me he will never smoke again in his life! Now his daughter, Julia, has baptismal date too. I´m pretty excited about it.
Well, I am out of tiempo. Thank you for your emails and have a wonderful week!
Love,
Ellis
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