Dear family and friends..
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! This week was insane! My brain is fried! We had so
many crazy changes and met so many crazy people this week....I love
the mission!
Here are a few funny stories from this week.
We added this sweet old lady as a new investigator but she is so
confused. Hahah! We went back for our return appointment with her and
tried to follow up with her about her reading in the Book of Mormon
and came to realize she couldn't read the paper copy because the
letters were too small. So we tried to help her download the gospel
library app onto her smartphone but for some reason or another it
wouldn't download, so she told us to wait a minute and then she
wandered into another room and grabbed an iPad. The iPad was dead so
she went to the other room again and grabbed a charger. Her eyesight
must be really bad because the charger was totally wrong. It was so
funny because she was standing there trying to plug the charger in but
of course it wasn't working so she was getting a little
frustrated...poor women. Haha! Of course I tried to inform her that it
was the wrong plug but she kept on insisting that it had worked
before. She is just so cute! After five minutes of trying her hardest,
she finally gave up and we told her that we would get her a Book of
Mormon in bigger print but it was so funny because Hermana Niemann was
trying so hard not to laugh that her face was getting red. Oh I love
my companion!
Next funny story takes place while we were tracting in this
neighborhood. So there are several clues to finding a Spanish home,
number one being "do they have Christmas lights strung up?". There was
this house that had Christmas lights strung up so we knocked. To our
surprise, a short Russian women answers the door. That kind of caught
us off guard! But Hermana Niemann is an excellent missionary and
immediately asks if we could show her a video about Jesus Christ in
Russian. As soon as the words "Jesus Christ" come off her lips, the
lady goes loco crazy! She is all like "JESUS IS FRIEND! Love Jesus!
Amen! Amen!" And wringing her hands everywhere.
We were afraid she was
going to give herself a heart attack by how excited she got! Finally
we got her to calm down by saying "yes, Jesus is our friend too! We
love him too!" and we tried again to show her the video but she played
gestures with us till we figured that she was trying to tell us she
was busy cooking so not right now. We respected that and said our
goodbyes and then walked away. We are like a block down the road when
we hear a voice behind us yelling "Girls! Girls!" and we turn around
to see her running towards us waving a book in the air above her head.
She gave both of us a book named the Life book and then pointed at it
and said "Jesus! Friend! Your friend!" and then gave both of us a hug
and then ran back to her house....well that was a first! Haha! Hermana
Niemann and I skimmed through it and honestly it solidified my
testimony more of the Book of Mormon and the church and how everything
just is true. In this book, there was just so many confusing
interpretations of Jesus Christ and God. I'm so grateful we have the
Book of Mormon that solidly tells us truths.
Super spiritual moment: We had a lesson this past Sunday with Juan and
his daughter, Fatima. They are amazing! Just super humble and super
prepared! I don't think I ever told you all this but Juan is on date!
For September 24th! And now we are working with Fatima to get her on
date but this last lesson we had with her proved that she wants this.
Even though she is an eleven year old girl....she wants this.
We were teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ which consists of faith in
Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy
Ghost, and enduring to the end. We focused a lot on baptism and ended
up showing Fatima and her dad the baptism of Jesus Christ. (The bible
video form). As soon as the video was done, I asked her what she had
felt while watching that. She was quiet for a long time just really
thinking about it, and then finally she said "I felt
loved".....wow....I have never heard that response before.
So many times I have heard peace or calm...but not love.
I then asked her why
she thinks she felt love. Again she was quiet for a while (she really
is a deep thinker) and then she said "because of everything he did for
me and now he is showing me the way". Wow, I could of hugged her in
that moment. She totally understands! She understands who the savior
is for her! That is incredible! We had the opportunity to extend the
baptismal invitation and she said yes immediately. And I know it is
because in that moment she felt the savior's love for her.
So some of you may have noticed that I'm back on Facebook again! Our
mission officially has permission to do online proselytizing. It is
super weird! We got on them this week to clean them out and it brought
back so many old memories and some of the things that I miss about
home. To be completely honest.... It was rough and it was so easy to
become distracted while cleaning it out but as soon as I remembered my
purpose, the spirit came back and then I could see how marvelous this
tool is! I think it is amazing that the lord is using something such
as face book to hasten his work and I am super grateful for this
opportunity to use it! What an incredible blessing!
So as you can see there are so many miracles and so many adventures
happening here. It I such a blessing to serve the lord in such this
short time. It really is just a short time. What a blessing.
I love you all,
Hermana Paredes
Over and out.
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