La fe

This week was pureetyyy amazin if I do say so myself. So I learned so much about faith this week so naturally thus came to pass the title of this email. There's a lot of things this week that happened that helped me to build it. One of which was our experience with Adam. We found Adam when we prayed about where to go finding, were led to this little string of apartments, and Adam opened the door and was really receptive to our message. He is a single dad with 3 younger boys. We taught him 3 times this week and his lessons were a definite answer to prayer for me because I felt like I hadn't been able to teach that strongly and simply with the spirit as I did with him in a while. But Adam recognized that spirit so easily, accepted the baptismal invitation and we were able to set a baptismal date with him. But, both hermana phillips and I for some reason didn't feel right about it and about continuing teaching him and after praying about it we knew it was because it would probably be best for Adam and his progression if the english elders in the ward he would be attending taught him. We are allowed to teach whoever we find in our mission, but we knew that Adam would have the best experience and have the most ward support if he was taught by the missionaries in that ward. So that was a really hard thing to do this week and it took some faith but we handed over our date set (that we have been working sooo hard to get for soo long) to the english elders. Probably the best gift they're ever going to get haha so I hope they are grateful.

- Ok so remember how I asked all y'all to pray for that family of 5 with 3 girls from mexico? Well now Im about to tell you what that was all about. Hermana Phillips and I had been praying for a few days and asking heavenly father for a specific family to find and share the gospel with in the coming week. We both, and Im not kidding, felt inspired after praying both individually and together that this was a family of 5 with 3 girls from either mexico or guatemala. And then I told hermana phillips somewhat hesitantly "for some reason though, Im only feeling the mom and the girls as being strong, that 5th person isn't super solid for some reason but I know the number is 5" SHE HAD FELT THE SAME WAY TOO. Then we made a lot of plans to actually find this family... we fasted, we made lists of places we could go to find, we studied about the family all week, we prayed about members and people we needed to call and ask about this family, and we told our whole branch council about this family during church and challenged them to help us find them and pray for them. That probably took the most faith, telling our branch that we were going to find them but I knew that by doing all of these things that Heavenly Father would somehow put this family in our path. One evening we were doing some finding and hna phillips was like we need to make sure we go back and knock that door. We ended up talking to a bunch of other people and it got to be pretty late and we ran out of time. But as we were leaving I saw the door that hna phillips had talked about and was like waiitt no we can't go till we knock it. So we did and a lady opened it and invited us back the next day to share a message with her (from mexico, family of 5 with 3 kids....but it was 2 girls and a boy). I was like man it's so close... but it's not exactly what we asked for! So I was kind of like did we get our family wrong? is this the one we are looking for? But anyways, we went back the next day and as we were leaving the appt with her, I saw three little girls run back inside their apartment. I knew instantly we needed to go knock their door. So we did and Ruby, thier mom opened the door and was totally receptive to us! And GUESS WHAT. She is from mexico, has 3 little girls and a boyfriend!
(remeber how we felt like that 5th person was there but not really?)  She is now a new investigator and we are going to go see her again today. It was really neat for me to see how heavenly father really does answer specific prayers if we do our part and show our faith. That is the key, that we show our faith and then the miracles come. Maybe we didn't find the family through the branch and through all of our finding and asking people and all of that, but all of those things showed our faith and ultimately blessed us with this miracle. 

- I have been studying the story of Alma and Amulek a lot in the Book of mormon this week and it has never stood out to me so much as it does to me now. It is crazy...there are all of these amazing stories in the book of mormon that I feel like I never appreciated because I never really took the time to truly read the scriptures as much as I do now. But what was amazing to me is that Alma and Amulek preached the gospel day and night, completely submitting them selves to the will of the Father and to trying to help their hermanos but they just kept getting slammed. Thrown in jail. Beat up. Forced to watch their friends be thrown in the fire and die. Questioned, tied up, everything. And they just took it all and had faith the entire time, never doubting that what they were doing was right even though all of these horrible things were happening to them. Then in Alma 14:26 Alma finally pleads with the lord and asks to be given the "strength according to our faith which is in christ even unto our deliverance... and they broke the cords with which they were bound." Ever miracle that happens is directly proportional, or according, to our faith. And it can't just be any faith, it has to be faith that is centered in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the kind of faith that is enabling. And he doesn't just ask for the the chords by which they were bound to just fall off...he asks for the strength to do it themselves. That is the attitude we need to have if we expect miralces and answers to our own prayers. We need to first have faith centered in Christ, act and do everything we possible can in our power, then the Lord's hand will be revealed. Basically, faith is pretty awesome. I am so grateful for the experiences I am having every day that help my faith in my savior to grow. I hope everyone has a great week, and to my family- nos vemos pronto!

Con amor

Hermana Baugh