If not, that's okay because nobody else here does either. Welcome to Coita as it's called, and I finally know how to spell it. :)
Everything the light touches is ours. :)
So this may just have been the most amazing week ever. I don't even know where to start. I guess if you want a full description of Coita you can go through all my descriptions of Tapachula and imagine the opposite. Haha not really but it is very different. Because we're in the mountains and it's super breezy and nice all the time. The first day after I finished writing y'all we went out and just hit the ground running, we had great lessons, great contacts and GREAT WEATHER (yay..!). Day two was the same story but more. We met new people, taught them, and everyone was just accepting us and accepting baptism and saying "Wow I didn't know this before." We went to see a family who invited us to lunch in an hour because our lunch appointment fell through, and in that hour we went out to find an investigator and found her daughter instead in their shop. She invited us in and we taught her the restoration and she accepted baptism, said the prayer and in her prayer started to cry and thanked God for sending her this sign. As we were leaving I said "I don't know what the heck is going on but I really like it." My companion agreed and said this was NOT normal. So we're just really enjoying being companions in this golden place.
Our view from the roof of the mansion
Hermana Coronado is from Houston, Texas and is pretty new in the mission, she got here 3 months ago when I started training Hermana Castillo, but her mom is Mexican and she grew up learning so she already speaks really well. We're more or less at the same level and speak fluent spanglish together with sentences like "Donde vivimos again?" "From the purple thing hacia abajo four cuadras." But it's kind of fun being a pair of gringas because EVERYONE just stares at us and wants to know what in the world we're doing here, and when we contact them they're already interested. And everyone gives us food. But that's okay because we walk a LOT. Like a LOT more than Tapachula with more hills. I think the area may be 6 times as big but I think it's great because there are so many opportunities.
So let's talk about some of the wonderful people who are about to get baptized. Not all of them because let's be real here. First I just really like this story that happened before I got here. There's this couple, Citlali and José Luís that have a little baby girl. He's a return missionary who'd had something happen four years back and accidentally fell away and she was a member of a different church. But she basically began talking to the missionaries and through her conversion brought him back to the church and got baptized in August and they're now preparing to go through the temple next year. He's back and fully activated and what's more, he's our ON-FIRE ward mission leader! And now they're just the cutest most powerful little family that ever happened and are helping us teach Citlali's best friend V. who is so ready and sure about baptism, she was definitely prepared beforehand by Heavenly Father. We always start to teach her a lesson and then she starts giving all these great insights and basically teaches us, and in all her prayers she asks that her baptism will come quickly. She just needs to go to church a few more times and on the 11th of October she'll be there. Her family isn't super supportive but she has an uncle and aunt in Tuxtla who are members and they drive out sometimes to go to church with her to give her support. So awesome. YAY V.!
A. is all ready for this coming week, he just needs an interview with the mission president for some things he wants to talk about. We called President last night and asked and he asked us if they could take us to lunch as well when they came out. OKAY!
C. we just started teaching this week. She's been to church several times with her mother-in-law, with whom she is now living, and started asking questions in her mind if there really was another church that was true, as she's grown up very Catholic all her life. She's been very confused all week, but we had cool lesson after cool lesson and taught the Restoration. It's been cool to see her progress. The first time she just wasn't sure. The second time she said she felt Joseph Smith was a prophet but wasn't sure about the church and baptism. We had invited her for the 27th of September. She was also wondering why so many hard things are happening to her as she's searching for the right church when so many other people seem to be just fine and aren't doing anything. So we talked about the hard truth of opposition, and all that the prophets through the ages had suffered, especially Joseph Smith and the Savior. One thing I read this week in the conference magazine from April was "Why didn't they leave the Lord alone? Why? Because He is the Truth, and truth will ALWAYS be opposed. Why didn't they leave Joseph Smith alone? Why? Because he taught the truth and the TRUTH WILL ALWAYS BE OPPOSED." By the end of the lesson she pretty much told us, Oh no I have something going on the 27th what should I do, should I be baptized before or can we do another day or what? And we're like, well something just changed. We ended up postponing it until the fourth since it looks like she won't be home all weekend. But since then she's gone to the church and feels like she's received her answer. WOW.
And we did see and hear many more marvelous things, all of which cannot be written in this email at this time. Ah, but ONE more. Right now we're in the branch of Ocozocoautla, but very recently it's doing REALLY great and we made a branch goal to become a ward by December. But I think we can do it by next month. Yesterday we all had the first ward council in months and got together and made a plan, headed by José Luís (mission leader) and got SO much done. So get ready for Ward Ocozocoautla! Stay tuned!
Love you all a ton!
My princess staircase
Princess beds
Spiritual Jacuzzi time
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