Jessica's Mission Blog: "The jokes of Esperanza" (September 1, 2014)

so this week! man i dont think we have worked as hard ever in our lives! a couple weeks ago we had the talk from zanni about how we should have the goal to baptize evry week of our misison! so during planning we really focused on how we could accomplish this. well i am completely exhausted and man we just worked so hard. i really can testify that organization is essencial to being an effective part of the lords army. so! this week we saw so many miracles!

we saw that we had 4 girls who are menos activas and are in young womens, well the age group. so this week we put together a yw activity! we made invitations and talked to all and their families. one MA has been very difficult but when we introduced this to her she got so excited and totally opened up. she gave us toonnnsss of ideas! everyone else who we met with was super excited about it. we were going to introduce the program personal progress and then play games but then only one girl came. so that was a little annoying but she ended up coming to church with her mom on sunday! so even though it wasnt that huge of a success, it was for us because one girl came back to church :)

waiting for people to come to the yw activity in the chapel!

with jose! ah what a guy. he is so special! so this week we had daily contact with him. he is reading and is very exciting for his bap. date. this week we had 2 lessons in the chapel with more members. he loves it and is continuing to quit smoking. in his prayers he thanks god for putting him in this place so that we were able to find him, and hes just doing so good. until sunday! ugh so he didnt come to church because one of his friends got stabbed and almost died so him and the guy he takes care of went to visit him. we met with him sun night. he had smoked a little more than the last day but then he said, idk why all these things are happeneing right now, (with a smile) is it because the devil doesnt want me to get baptized or is it god testing me to get to this point. so he gets it! but he needs to come to church the next 2 weeks or he cant achieve his date! he really is determined though.

sleep over with the sisters

lucila! the 13 year old. its so sad how one week can be so good for someone and the other just completely turned around. so she stopped reading and said she doesnt want to come to church. she still wants to get baptized but in a year maybe. it is really sad and tomorrow we are going to have to have a drop lesson if she doesnt commit to a date. :( but yeah we talked to her mom about the personal progress thing and she was excited but said they cant do anything right now as a family because her spouse is crazy....o there is definitely going on that we dont know about but god has a plan for them and we just need to make sure we do what he wants with this plan.

we found so many news this week, one is a family of 5. the parents and 3 little girls. they are a cute family and have a very strong faith in jesus christ so yeah we have a cita with them, we found some more as well and are very excited to work with them! and yeah as i said we worked so hard. we didnt get to work monday because it was cleaning day and on tues was pday, but that included we taught 27 lessons! and this week we are determined to teach 30. the thing is we just are not wasting any time by chatting, we listen for their needs and teach, we open our mouths and we will just continue this approach. the more lessons we teach the more people will progress. the key is also to have meaningfull lessons. quality over quantity everytime! but yeah that was my week. worked super hard but none of our inv came to church. it is okay though because we know we did all we could do!

so funny!

remember how that menos activa fainted? well we went back this week and had a lesson with her neighbor who is also a less active. he told us how after we left everyone was laughing at how serious we were....so now we are even more of a joke here! haha also there is a reference that weve tried 3 times. each time she was really rude and slammed the door shut. but for some reason we had the strongest impression to go back and write her a note, so we did and we began by saying "even though youve rejected us 3 times already we feel like we have to come back" hahaha

the note!

and spiritual! this morning i was meditating about what and who i am. like divine nature stuff and i decided that 3 things that i want to be more of is my love of people, give service, and my love for god. so i decided to study a little more about what love is. not love like husband wife love but just love for god and fellow man kind of love. haha :) it was a great study but i just want to share a few scriptures.

1 john 4:7-21. in vs 7 it speaks about how love is of god and when we have love, we are in unison with god. in vs 14, the disciple testifies that because god loves us, he sent his son. and really i echo this testimony. nothing shows gods love for us more than jesus christ and his sacrifice, the atonement. and 3rd, in vs 18 it says that perfect love casteth out fear. in relating this to the work of the lord, missionary work, when we truly love our fellow men we will share the gospel. we will not have fear because what we are sharing is eternal life. so we can see that love of god in effect helps us to love our brothers and sisters. in reality, we are all just a big family and god loves each and every one of us equally. even more, jesus atoned for the sins of all mankind. for everyone! not just our friends, and not just for the people who we have a good relationship with. i hope all of us and try to see this picture more clearly. and love everyone we see with a full love, with charity and understanding. its the power of love that changes peoples hearts. (chessaaayyyy) but really the love of a friend, of family and the love of god changes and opens hearts.

welppp that is my week everyburdy i hope everyone has a great fun and happy successful week! besitos!!

xoxoxo

hermana sanders