50 First Discussions

So I wanted to give you and update on Carmen! She is the older sister of a member here that we have been teaching off and on that we set a baptismal date with a few weeks ago. She's the one who can hardly hear us when we teach haha. Well turns out that Carmen has more than just problems with hearing...we've been learning that she has problems with remembering things as well. We haven't been able to see her very much for the last few weeks because of health problems, but every time we go visit her she has forgotten everything we have taught her the lesson before. She has had some neat experiences that have testified to her that this church is true...but everytime we go to visit her she starts out the lesson by saying "I didn't read the Book of Mormon. This religion isn't true and I don't want anything to do with it. Who even is that Joseph Smith person? None of that's true." Then we have to go over with her again what the Book of Mormon is and the restoration, she feels the spirit and says "wow I have chills all over and feel so happy, this must be true!" We have to convert her and help her to have a converting experience every time we see her. But the horrible thing is that by the next time we come back, she's already forgotten it all:( So we don't really know much else we can do. But this whole experience with Carmen has reminded me of that  movie 50 First Dates. Haha kind of babylonian but it's about a lady who gets in an accident and has short term memory loss and the man she was originally in love with has to get her to fall in love with him every single day because she always wakes up the next day completely forgetting who he is. I feel like this has been our experience with Carmen, but it has been the 50 first discussions. Each lesson, we have to bring the spirit and help Carmen to recognize it so she can be converted over and over again. I was thinking about how I could try to do this more---really thing about how I can become more personally converted to the Lord every day.

- We went on another exchange this week but it was with the YSA sisters. It was so different than any other day I've had in my mission. We spent the entire day contacting and talking to people on the USF campus.  We taught so many lessons to so many different people- there were a lot that were from different countries in europe and the middle east which was neat. It was neat to see a different aspect of missionary work. But I was pretty happy to get back to my spanish investigators haha.

-Some neat miracles from the week-- We taught Francheliz the law of chastity (the 25 year old investigator from puerto rico I talked about last week) and she said that she wants to get married so that she can obey god's commandments and be able to be baptized. We were ecstatic. Something I realized during that lesson is that one of my favorite parts about being a missionary is teaching people about the commandments. Because when someone learns a new commandment that they previously were not living, they are learning about blessings that heavenly father is willing to give them that they have been living without but will now be able to have.
- Another neat thing was that we helped an Hermana set up for her baby shower this week. While we were in the church setting up, a lady named Alejandra came with her two kids Edith and Sebastion (15 and 14) and she was looking for the information for the spanish church service. They are from colombia and were baptized in 2012 in new jersey but have been inactive for the past two years while living here in Florida. She had a dream the week before though that told her she needed to come back to church and she had driven to the church building (30 minutes from her home) 3 times that week hoping someone would be there. It was a miracle we were there when she got there! They stayed and helped set up the baby shower and we got to know them better and to teach them this week as well. They are such an amazing family and their kids are awesome. They came to church on sunday too and she wants us to help her get to the temple. God doesn't give up on his children!
- Sad thing... remeber how I met my first Uruguayan here in the Tampa 5 ward? Well she was pretty old and passed away this week:( The ward hosted a funeral and it was a great service. I'm going to miss my Uruguayan.

-Last thought. I was reading Mosiah 3:19 this week which reads
     For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forevver and ever unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. 

I was thinking about the first law of motion. Or maybe thats not what it's called, I feel like I have forgotten everything related to science haha. But in my head the first law of motion is something like this : an object in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by and eqaul(or greater than) and opposite force. I was thinking about how that law applies to this scripture. How we will continue on our course of being natural men, until we choose to act upon the  greater and opposite force (or promptings) of the Holy Ghost. It is only then that we can change our course into one of digression into one of progression of becoming a Saint. All those childlike attributes it says that we will obtain through that process are all christlike attributes. It makes sense that if we follow the holy ghost, which reveals the will of god, that we will become like Christ. Because it is because Jesus Christ had that one attribute of being able to PERFECTLY follow the will of the Father, that he was able to have all of those other attributes mentioned.

Hope you all have a great week
love hermana baugh