Have Faith, Do your Best, and the Lord will do the Rest!

Hey how's everyone doing today?  This week was a great week and we were able to see lots of miracles with both new investigators as well as old investigators!

Bueno, to start off, I would like to share a little bit about Yenien and Elias. Yenien, 9, and Elias, 11, are brothers and they both have great desires to be baptized!  They live under super humble standards, in a home that is about ten feet wide and ten feet long, and sometimes their Mom- Silvina- doesn't have the means to even feed them!  But we do our best to help them out with the things we have and both Yenien and Elias are just darling because they never forget to thank Heavenly Father in their prayers for having a roof over their heads.  Anyway, I already love them so so much and I just know that they are going to be baptized!!

During exchanges this week I was with Hermana Bailey from Lehi, Utah and we had two really special experiences.  The first was with a less active member named Patricia who hasn't gone to church in 9 years.  She stopped going because she got offended by a few other members, but she promised that she will got to church the 25 of October!  It was great though becasue we asked her if we could do service for her and she told us that she needed help chopping firewood!  So imagine that, two gringas who have never cut firewood before, trying to swing a heavy ax!  We were all dying of laughter, including Patricia, and if I am being honest I was super super close to cutting my foot off haha. (sorry not funny Mom and Dad ;) ) I swung and completely missed the wood (what happened to my hand-eye coordination from so many years of playing tennis? haha) and then almost cut off my toes!  But we are all good so no worries there.  After, we were walking in the street and had the impression to talk to this girl named Jenifer.  We had never talked to her before but she told us to come right in and teach her!  We taught her the Restoration of the Gospel and at the end of the lesson she said, "Ya know chicas, normally I reject everyone who comes to preach something religious to us but with you guys it was different.  God told me to let you guys in and listen to your message and I'm glad I did!  Thank you so much!"  The lesson had gone really well and she even commited to being baptized in November!  So we are super excited and it was a good week :)

Saturday night I was just exhausted form the week because we had worked super hard.  Unfortunately that day I had let the tiredness get to me and I was also a little bummed because one of our most progressing investigators told us that he didn't want to listen to us anymore.  Fernando had listened to all the lessons and gone to church 8 times, but told us that he doesn't want to be baptized nor listen to us anymore.  Anyway, that night I prayed hard and asked Heavenly Father to forgive me for letting the tiredness and discouragement get to me that day.  As I was praying though, I felt the comfort of the Lord as a random phrase came to mind which said, "Have faith, do your best, and the Lord will do the rest."  It was comforting to hear that because lots of discouraging things happen in the mission, but that simple little phrase brought me the hope and confidence that if I just continue working hard and having faith, the Lord will do the rest.  So for all you reading this, don't stress out because life is hard, just have faith, do your best, and the Lord will do the rest!

quote of the week:

"No, God does not need us to love Him.  But oh, how we need to love God!  For what we love determines what we week.  What we seek determines what we think and do.  What we think and do determines who we are - and who we will become."

Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Mommy good luck in Haiti this week!!! You are such an incredible example to me and I look up to you more than you know :) LOVE YOU!! Also, Mimi, I hope your surgery goes well today!! Feel better, love you!! Oh, and thank you for the amazing package you and Bubba sent me!! Made my day!