Hope everyone had a good Halloween on Saturday! I'm thinking back and I just realized that I didn't eat one piece of candy...Im buying a bunch of discount Halloween candy today though to make up the difference. That's the way to go anyways. Halloween night we actually had quite a few teaching appointments set up (a lot of our investigators don't celebrate it because apparently its like celebrating Satan, they are pretty righteous investigators) but we did have a little bit of time to go trick or treating. Actually, I had the idea to go reverse trick or treating. We taped some smarties to the back of pass along cards with a picture of Christ and info about the Book of Mormon and rang some doors and literally said "Hi! We are reverse trick or treating, here's a picture of Christ and some candy" haha it actually worked pretty well we taught a few lessons because of it. We had dressed up like Mormon missionaries so our costumes must have been pretty convincing because people actually listened to us. I did tape a little piece of paper to hermana gibson's tag though that said "viene" So we were hermana baugh and hermana viene. Va (pronounced the same as Baugh) means going and Viene means coming so I thought that clever and at least I got a kick out of it haha.
-Things are still going really well here. We had a full week to just focus on our area without any extra meetings or exchanges and we were able to teach the most people I ever have in my whole mission! I feel so blessed in this area. We were also able to make some good progress with our correlation with the ward and our gospel principles class which are things we have been trying to improve for a while now so it was good to see some progress. Joel is all set for baptism on Saturday, he' s interviewed and everything. He would already be baptized but he knows he wants to be baptized on the 7th because it's a holy number. He does have a point. Pray that this week goes well and that he stays strong! the pre baptismal week is always the worst. Maria and Jose are doing extremely well and even brought their 25 year old daughter to church and sunday and Jose wore a white shirt. You know things are getting pretty serious when investigators start wearing white shirts. Maria downloaded the gosepl library app this week and I swear she is going to finish reading everything on that app in a few weeks. We got to our lesson one day and she was telling us about all these things she had been reading about in Preach my gospel ( the book that we use as missionaries that teaches us how to be missionaries and how to teach) and then another day we taught them about tithing and fast offerings and she said oh yeah yesterday I read about fasting on the app and how you have to start and end with a prayer so I did one. Who does that?? They are pretty cool. This week I had a few neat experiences where I felt like I was really able to teach with the spirit and explain things in a way that I hadn't before. Joel and Jose both had doubts about tithing. In thier individual lessons this week about tithing, I was able to say two things that really helped them to clear up their doubts. With Jose we talked about how it's not God who needs the money from tithing, it's us that needs the sacrifice and blessings of tithing. He really was able to gain a better understanding of it after gaining that persepective. With Joel, he has always paid his tithing but has never done it through a church. He always takes out his 10 percent, and then has that money ready to use whenever he sees someone in need or feels inspired to give it to someone. I was really trying to think of how we could help him gain a better understanding of tithing and to gain a testimony that God wants us to pay it to the church to be able to build his kingdom. I was reminded of Malachi 3:10, which wasn't weird because we use that scripture every time we talk about tithing, but it stuck out to me how it says to "bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house..." It says right there in the bible that we need to bring our tithing to the "storehouse" or to the church of jesus christ, so that He will be able to use those sacrifices we give him in the best possible way. He had never thought about that scripture that way before and completely understood it after. It was just neat to see how the spirit prompted me to say two things that compeltely helped them to resolve their doubts.
- Francheliz (the 25 yr old from puerto Rico who isn't married) is still doing really well. We sitll haven't been able to meet with her and her husband together though since he only has one day off a week and things have come up the last two weeks but he does still want to learn. We were able to have a really good lesson with Francheliz this week though that was just about the atonement. I really loved that. Just having a lesson completely focused on the atonement, what it is, why it is so necessary, and how she can apply it in her life more. I asked Francheliz what her favorite thing she has learned is since she started meeting with us and she told us that it is how she has learned that she has the responsibility as a mom to teach her son how to believe in God and pray and live the gospel. She learned that when we read the family proclamation with her and she realized for the first time how big of a responsibliity she has as a parent. It's so cute to hear her five year old say the closing prayers for the lessons now because she taught him how. I've really learned that not every person is going to go all the way, get baptized, the whole shabang. In fact that very rarely happens. But If I can help someone learn how to do something so simple as knkowing how to study the scriptures or say a prayer, then it is all worth it. Que les vaya bien
con mucho carino
Hermana Baugh
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