Ups, and ups!

So I'm trying to figure out how to write a letter now because I got very unfairly onslaughted with too many emails talking about people getting married and my sister going on dates and stuff and I'm just wondering how everyone grew up so fast and can we all just push pause for 9 more months please thank you for your cooperation.

Anyway. Transfers were today. Aaaaaaand WE'RE STAYING HERE (and there was much rejoicing (yay...). But seriously. We're happy :) Everyone knew I was staying but my companion was pretty convinced she was gone, so she said goodbye to everyone, left her address, took pictures, but then when we were in a lesson with Zoila she started crying and then said the prayer and asked that we wouldn't leave, so then we knew it was a lost cause and who knows how long we'll be here now. Can't work against the Faith of Zoila. So sweet. 

But this was a crazy week, we had tons of success. Super high numbers in everything, even we were shocked as we looked back at them. We found lots of new people, invited EVERYONE to be baptized, and lots of them accepted. The trick is getting them to church so that actually happens, but some of them came. President came to our ward and talked to A., and he's getting baptized in the next few weeks! He's super happy to put it very very mildly. 

So there's this man we're teaching named J. Really J....ías but it's all the same, right? He's a lifelong friend of a member, and he's the sweetest guy, he's like 40 years old but his growth was stunted because of lots of abuse and mistreatment all growing up and he's like a little kid. We used to teach him and he wouldn't say ANYTHING. Ever. We didn't know if he was understanding anything we were saying. But with time he's warmed up and now he answers our questions with a big smile after a few seconds. We've made a lot of progress. Where we used to talk about baptism and he would suddenly go all closed up and quiet (we found out it was fear of his family, who he doesn't even live with), he has now decided he wants to. Last time we met with him and asked if he had any questions for us and he went silent for a long time, which we thought meant no, until we realized he wanted to say something. We asked what it was, and he said "Sometimes I'm sad." My companion told him we are all sad at times but how Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and that's why He wants us to pray and follow His Son. That was just a huge moment, because it was the first time he opened up to us even a little bit like that. So sweet. 

Well more stories next week, I know it was shorter today but I love you all the same! Have a great week!

(PS sorry there's no pictures today. We picked the wrong internet cafe and nothing's working.)

Pure Faith. But seriously.

So without any ado at all, I'll just start talking about Zoila, because to be honest, she was my week.

Zoila is A.'s sister, the guy waiting for the go-ahead for his baptism. She used to always quietly kind of peek in from the other room but when we invited her she was shy and didn't come in. Well last Wednesday A. wasn't home and we asked if we could talk to her. So we shared a little message, and were really impressed with her sweet spirit and strong faith. We invited her to baptism in 5 weeks since she has to attend church 5 times first, and she accepted. Well then she told us she used to go to the Mormon church years ago, for about 5 months. We started running through earlier dates in our heads and thinking when she could be ready, and suddenly I just felt this urging to invite her for next week, so I did! And she got a little freaked out, but didn't say no. Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. She was on crutches, broke her foot four months ago and it never healed right, and now she couldn't walk right and had lots of pain. We continued to visit her the rest of the week but weren't sure exactly what would happen; she told us she was going in for some kind of surgery Monday. 

Well, Monday we went and saw her and turns out she had gone to the bone man, not even a doctor, and he rebroke her foot and put it right, without anesthesia or anything. She was lying in her bed in so much pain, and with tears in her eyes, she asked "My baptism was this Saturday, wasn't it?" I promised her that if it was her desire and she had faith, she would be able to be baptized. We prayed lots that week and took a brother to give her a blessing a couple days later and OH MY GOODNESS she was on CRUTCHES again! I was like, are you crazy? But her foot was doing really well and she said she was practicing for Saturday. She got a blessing and loved it, and every day we taught her lessons with everything she needed to know, but she's a retentive little thing (word or not?) and she remembered everything we taught her. On Friday before her interview she said she was studying all her pamphlets for three hours before the elders got there, and she knew everything he asked. He was concerned she hadn't been to real church in 10 years, and maybe we would have been too with any other person but we're like, LOOK AT HER, she's hobbling around and studying all day to be baptized as soon as she can! He called President who gave the go ahead.

Annnnnd, Saturday! Welcome to 101 Problems with a Boiler. She can't be in cold water and we had plans and backup plans to heat up pots of water, buy a couple electric water-heaters and try not to get electrocuted, and then we found out we had a boiler! But...nobody knew how to work it. Don't even worry, said the two gringas and our humble branch president. We'll just figure it out! 

Right.

Lots of button-pushing and spark-flying later, I was like, I'm googling it. So we went on the church computer and looked up the company and ended up calling them and asking how to work it. "When did you buy it?" We don't know, we're from America and we're trying to baptize a cool lady. Finally the nice man walked us through, and after another 30 minutes we got it! We RAN to eat lunch, make copies and get back to the chapel just in time for it to start pouring rain of course, and Jose Luis and Citlaly showed up with Zoila in their car. We got her inside and kept her dry, helped her change, waited another hour for the branch pres to come back, got a chair in the water, and had a beautiful baptism, in which they only had to change chairs once and our mission leader had to go get in the water to hold her legs down. But Zoila was just so happy and undaunted by it all, and after was just crying and saying how wonderful she felt. The next day she was there in the front row before anyone else, ready to be confirmed.

So...that was awesome. 

I know for a fact I've never met anyone like her and hopefully I'm just like her one day. 

This week we also got to go to the TEMPLE! It was positively beautiful. 

It was also my companion's birthday and everyone made us pizzas and gave us referrals, which worked for us. So all in all, it was just a really good one.

I love you all!

[P.S. Kelsi's trainer, Hermana Bastian, is now in her district, and they finally got to wear their matching dresses that they bought back in April.]

Up the Canyon

Well. It was a fun week, starting with our special secret trip with President. I guess he had agreed with two other hermanas to take them to the canyon for one reason or another, and then secretly came up to us in zone conference and asked if we wanted to come along so it would be more fun. So we took a bus up to Tuxtla last week and spent the day in America, because that's what it felt like! Riding in the car through the canyon and stopping every once in a while to look at cool stuff, talking about their grandchildren and cows, eating sandwiches and brownies, hiking through trees, and listening to sister George nag President about directions or let's go get popsicles they're RIGHT there or what are you SAYING in Spanish I can't understand, and he mostly remains quiet and smiling haha. They're so cute, they remind me of my grandparents. And then President wanted to buy this cool carved alligator but they kept raising the price and claiming it was the same and he wasn't going to buy it, so I went over and bartered as my mother taught me in Ecuador and we got a decent price for two. 

So that was fun. Then we went back to Mexico! Woo! 

So one day we were walking along up a hill looking for a contact from the day before. When suddenly there's this string in front of my face and I did a double take before plowing into it. It was so confusing until we heard all this giggling and looked to see a ton of little kids on both sides of the street with ends of the string. I was like "What IS this?!" and they all started giggling louder and running away, but then they came back and we talked to them and after messing with them a little told them we were missionaries from America and we visited families and talked about Jesus and my companion gave the oldest one a contact card. Then I was like Who else wants one--"YO YO YO!" and we gave out all these contact cards, and then I said we wanted to bring a movie to watch with them and whose mom could we go talk to. The oldest took us to see her mom and she was cute and we started visiting them. They're really special girls and understand what we teach, so we'll see what happens. 

So I guess I should tell you about Viridiana. It was only the most BEAUTIFUL BAPTISM EVER. We saw her every day this week and she was nervous but firm and excited.  So we knew she had an aunt and uncle who were members in Tuxtla, but what we weren't expecting were the 20+ aunts, uncles and cousins that showed up and flooded the room, brought a musical number, and cried about how they'd been praying for their family here in Coita. It was such a powerful day, and Viri was crying as well, and hugged me and said "Thank you for everything." Those moments make every uphill step, disapointment, drop of sweat and every other cost more than worth it. Everything was so beautiful. YAY VIRI!

And Viridiana's friends, la familia Lopez:

As for C., who I said I'd explain this week, she went to Tuxtla a couple weeks ago and talked to her Catholic dad who confused her, and then she went to Catholic mass and got this huge emotional experience and took that for her answer. We tried talking to her and explaining how the spirit really works, and the blessings of the temple, but she wasn't budging. She said she wouldn't come to general conference because that would be going against her answer. But she DID come, and I think she secretly knows it's right. She'll come around. That was hard for my companion, and I was surprised that it wasn't anymore for me. I've learned to trust completely, because what we see is only for a moment and one day they'll all come back. We're doing our work and it'll all work out. Maybe even really soon!

That reminds me of something we were reading this morning. It was in the Teachings of President Joseph Fielding Smith manual, and it talks about why is it that bad things happen when we're doing everything right, and other people who don't seem to be doing anything right seem to have it great. He said it is because this is their world. Those who are of the world get its fruits now, but this world is heading towards its end. This is not our world. We have another one, and we cannot let anything that we see, experience or want here get in the way of getting there. Our blessings are eternal if we are living by eternal principles. As we put OUR trust and all of our faith in Jesus Christ, His world will become our world. 

The last thing I want to mention this week is our zone conference. As a zone we're starting a 40 day fast! And I want to invite any of you to join if you'd like to! What we did was chose a day and started with a fast, then made a list of all the things that impede us from feeling the spirit or having it with us always that we want to put on the sacrificial altar. For 40 days we will be marking how we did that day, filling in a square black if we completely failed, an X if we didn't do well, or leaving it blank if we were consecrated! The goal is get the spirit with us and get it strong and purify ourselves as missionaries or members. I'm so excited, and I've already felt results.

I love you and pray for you all! May God bless you in your week! 

The Powers of Heaven

Hi! So THAT was the best conference of my life and I'm not even kidding. Usually everyone has gone to Tuxtla to the stake center by the temple, but only up to 15 go at best so this year we experimented with the internet and projector thing in our very own chapel. My companion and I went early Saturday morning just as excited as could be and set up the chairs like a movie theater and sat in the front row. Like I've been talking about general conference since July, and I've been more excited than for Christmas. We had a BEAUTIFUL first session, and about 30 people showed up. For the second session it was us and Emanuel, the tech guy. But that's okay because holy technical difficulties, we could barely get through it. The elders came a little late and one other lady and although we missed some talks to annoying pausing screens and viruses, we pretty much got the whole second half.

But SUNDAY though. We got there in the morning to see a full chapel, including C.(!) which was crazy and in a minute I'll tell you why (not. Next week); A member's husband who we'd invited; a couple other progressing investigators and a new one who was the niece of a new member that said she was interested. We talked to her after the meeting and she was just so beautiful. "I really liked that, when can you come visit me? I just want to know the truth and follow God." And the miracle was that pretty much EVERYONE talked about prophets which was just the most perfect and powerful thing. 

Well, the night before we had texted V. to make sure she was coming on Sunday since it was the last attendance she needed to be baptized this coming week. She pretty much just said "Sorry I won't be able to, have a great night!" Wait, WHAT? We let her know it was important and she needed to come so her baptism wouldn't be postponed and she told us she wanted to postpone it and didn't feel ready. But that's ridiculous because she's the most ready person in the world. But Satan always works hard and I knew that. So we told her to read her Book of Mormon and come to at least one session and afterwards we would talk, and she agreed.

Anyway that was scary. We realized we hadn't seen her in 5 days since she had moved our appointment and then we couldn't that day and then she started working. And then we found out that Citlaly and Jose Luis hadn't seen her in that time either because of crazy things in their life. DON'T LEAVE YOUR INVESTIGATORS ALONE! All they do is get attacked. Well we went and saw her at work real quick beforehand and she did come to the afternoon session. I felt the spirit so strong that whole session, and felt like every talk was talking to her. Don't be afraid, read the scriptures, stay steady, etc. But then suddenly Elder Bednar stands up with his "My message is for those of you who aren't members." POW. And I think all five of us just like jerked up and listened. After the session we all went into a classroom to talk and the spirit was so strong. We had some scriptures prepared to read to her but after the prayer before my companion could start, I just asked how conference was for everyone and looked at Citlaly. She talked about how it was her first one and yesterday both sessions had just answered all of her questions and spoken to her, and shared lots of experiences, and her conversion experience and started crying really hard and talking about her family and the change she's seen. After she finished Jose Luis talked about how special it was to watch his wife go through her first experience and bore his testimony as well. And then we all looked at V. and she started crying as well and talking about how she's just been scared and confused because her family didn't want her to do it. She said she never doubted that she wanted to be a member of this church but she felt so alone and started getting scared. We were all crying, I'm not a crier and I was crying, and my companion and poor José Luis did a really good job of just being really chill in a room of crying women haha. But I cannot describe the spirit in that room. We kept talking and read Alma 7:11-15 and the powers of heaven and angels were just in there with us telling us that this baptism was not to be canceled. Such cool stuff. 

Another AMAZING thing that happened this week is that we had a conference with President, aaaaand he told us that once a transfer we get to go to the TEMPLE! We get to go to the temple! I'm on cloud nine and can't wait, I think we're going to go next week for my companion's birthday. The TEMPLE! Honestly the temple is the thing I've missed most on my mission, (except you mom, of COURSE.) And also, after the conference when we were taking pictures, Pres. George leaned over to my companion and asked if she and I wanted to go to the canyon with them on Monday because they had promised two other hermanas they'd take them and it'd be more fun if we went too. Real sneakily. Well, YEAH! So that's why I'm sending this early and about to head to Tuxtla to meet with Pres. and his wife. We thought it was so funny, we'll just pretend we're not President's pets, because we totally are. Haha not really but we are friends and I'll send pictures next week!

Love you all!