August 30, 2010

hey there fam fam!!
So this has been such a hard but such a wonderful week!!! my new companion is nothing short of amazing. i just love her to pieces. so like i said before her name is hermana thompson and she is from las vegas. she is a red headed bombshell and is seriously just on fire. she is diligent, obedient, hard working, spiritual, studious, christ like... well i could go on and on but we can just say i have been blown away. she is SUCH an amazing missionary and i am so so excited that i get to be with her. we have this amazing book that is called preach my gospel that we use to learn how to be missionaries and she is what i call a walking talking preach my gospel. amazing. haha well i guess i can stop raving about my companion now. just know i am in good hands and am really really happy!!

we have been workin our little bums off this week trying to get this area to take off and it has been quite the adventure taking over the area for me. i am just a baby missionary still so i guess the Lord knew I could do it even though it has been really tough. I was able to get my companion around and help her to get to know the area pretty well this week, in fact i think we have been able to hit up all the places that she needed to be acquainted with so now we are just plowin through. we have had some really funny adventures this week... well you may not think they are funny.... but we were laughing pretty hard. i was going to attach a picture of my war wounds from one of the adventures but i guess the email cant handle too many so i didn't. turns out the dogs here really hate my comp and i. we were clapping houses earlier this week when all of a sudden three huge dobermans come lunging towards an open gate and my companion has this immediate reaction to push me toward the dogs. anyway we both try to start running but since she pushed me i tried running and tripped over the sidewalk and biffed it hard face down, i just curled up in a ball expecting to get mauled and save my face. turns out the dogs were trained to stop at the gate so they had stopped and there were just a bunch of people that were playing soccer in the street that just stopped and were looking at me as i was laying on the ground in pain, greatful that i didnt get attacked. i got some nice road rash on my knees and some rocks in my hands but all was well. i was laughing so hard i had tears all the way home, but in a bit of shock that i was still alive haha. i know not funny to you but dont you worry i am well protected. all is well though so dont you fret. other than that dogs just hate us.... i am blaming my comp and her red hair haha, my other comp and i didnt have any problems with dogs but now for some reason every dog just wants to eat us.

well i could tell a million funny stories this week but more importantly are the miracles we were able to see. unfortunately alot of the members in this area were not to fond of my old comp so we have been doing clean up work trying to gain the trust of the members with my new comp. she is amazing so it has been really successful so far. she is super organized and ready to work and they all seem to be really happy so far so we are looking forward to working with them and continuing to gain their trust. we have found some really amazing new people to teach this week and actually found two this morning. one is named ruben, he is divorced, had three children, 3,6,11 he has full custody of his children and is working as a painter. he is looking for a way to raise his children correctly with how hard the world is and has been touched by how the gospel can help him to raise a strong family. this morning we found carla and cecelia. carla is about to be a mama of her first child and is living with her boyfriend and they have a really rough relationship. she has a mountain of problems that i could not even imagine having to deal with but we know the gospel can help her. then there is cecelia and she is a little spiritual powerhouse, she said that many of the things we had taught her were things she already knew but had not been taught beforehand. we are beyond stoked for all three of them. there is one more that really has been amazing this week, her name is soledad. we ran into her while clapping doors one day, she was sitting on a cement wall with some of her friends outside of her house and we walked up and started talking to her and all of her friends started to mock and laugh at us. i was feeling really uncomfortable because i am still getting used to stuff like that, but my companion was able to really just talk to her regardless and soledad was really engaged in what my companion was teaching, we made an appt to go back and have visited her once since. once again when we went her friends were there laughing but everything just seemed to fade away. she is 18 and has a baby and really wants to be able to raise her baby correctly with how difficult her world is, we are really looking forward to teaching her and watching the gospel change her life.

paula, richard, dameon, jaque and juan are moving right along. paula and richard should be getting married within the next week or so. we went with them this week to post their marriage in the paper for appeals. its a really weird system here, they have to post their marriage for appeals before they are actually able to be married. but we are sure all will go well. they are amazing and i love them so so much. jaque is such a light in my days right now, i cant tell you how much i love being with this family and watching them grow in the gospel.

i want to leave you with a spiritual thought that i read this morning from the church magazine. it says ¨giving up is not an option. without delay, turn to the Lord. exercise all of the faith you have in Him. let him share your burden. allow his grace to lighten your load. we are promised that we will ¨suffer no manner of afflictions, save it were swallowed up in the joy of Christ.¨ never let an earthly circumstace disable your spirituality¨ I love this quote and am so greatful for the truth that it speaks, we never have to face our challenges alone, and we can choose to let these challenges shape us into the people that our Heavenly Father intends for us to be. Our challenges make us strong and our Savior helps us to endure through them.

Jess