We're happy over here! People are progressing and the ward is beginning to explode action!
Iván continues to do great, although he does stress me out. Haha not really. Our lessons consist of me asking about or giving more homework, his attention span of a puppy, me pulling back his attention and his quick hilarious comments throughout the lesson (he talks faster than anyone I know) that I usually ignore until finally I just start laughing and then everyone else does as well. One day as he was leaving and we were arguing about whether he would bring his daughter to the activity that night, he left and I was like "Ayyye I feel like I have a 30 year old son" and my companion and the members with us all started laughing and told me that I did. But he'll always be so special to me and it makes me so happy to see him continue to progress like never before. This week he relapsed one day and felt awful and we happened to pass by right afterward without having planned to do so and that helped him a ton. Angeles got him to lift himself back up and show up at his appointment with us that evening and he was back at it that fast. He's thrown himself into attending a daily class the church offers, something about self-dependence, and is doing all his homework and coming every day and that has helped him to focus in positive things. Overcoming an addiction is SO HARD and it's impossible alone, but we're seeing lots of miracles.
I forget if I mentioned Damián before, he's the brother of the neighbor of our investigator Greisi. We started teaching Greisi and her next-door neighbor Janís outside of their houses in the evenings and one night Janís's brother came home and asked us if we were from the mormon church and that he had a friend in another city from our church. We asked if we could teach him one day and the following Saturday taught Janís and him and he accepted the baptismal invitation. Well he's hard to find because he works a lot but one night we were passing and suddenly homeward he comes bounding (?) with two friends. Upon talking with them we found that they had both been baptized before but for one reason or another had lost touch with the church and we talked with all of them about what they remembered, about baptism and the spirit was so cool. They talked about how they had been childhood friends but had lost touch and only recently had been brought back together and then one of them brought up how cool it would be if they all went on missions together. We started guessing where they would go and I can't even describe what a cool night it was. Such humble great kids, all about 20 years old, and we invited them to come to church together THIS Sunday. One by one they looked at each other and said "Yo sí puedo...tú?" until they'd all committed to come. Then we set a baptismal date for Damián and the other two were like "Aaaah, te vas a bautizar!" [Ah! You're getting baptized!] It was a beautiful thing.
Sunday Violeta accompanied us to pass for all the investigators and when we got to Damián's house he recognized her from school, and asked if she was new as well. She humbly said yes, and he said it was his first day, all proud and nervous, it was beautiful. And then we entered the chapel and all the priests who were already there greeted him and asked where his brother was, and turns out everyone already knows Damián and once again I'm left with the question WHERE WAS OUR REFERRAL? Aw well.
Well I ran out of time today, but I've been learning about Jesus this week in Jesus the Christ. Such cool stuff. How because he was mortal he had the capacity to die but because he was a God he didn't have to. He could have lived forever and ever on the cross, but because he CHOSE to give up his life in the moment he did so and nothing forced him to die, death was conquered. I wish I could go more into that but it'll have to wait.
Love you all!!!
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