What a week! 4 exchanges later and I'm exhausted, but it was a great week!
We saw so many miracles! Jaqueline, our sweet little 8 year old investigator prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true at the end of one of our lessons and it brought Hermana Woodruff and I to tears. It was so sweet and precious. She then prayed about it again between then and our next visit, and when we came back, she said "this morning before school I wanted to ask God again if the Book of Mormon was true, and my cousins were being really loud and annoying, so I locked them out of the room so that I could pray and concentrate. And i got an answer that the Book of Mormon is really true!" :) tears, again. She is such a doll. Then Desiree, one of our 13 year old investigators that we picked up last week told us that she really enjoys reading the Book of Mormon and it makes her feel good, so she decided to keep reading more than what we asked her too, and in a week she has read all the way up to Alma 2!!
AND THEN, Vanessa, (12 years old, and one of the kids that wants to be baptized but needs permission from parents), came to church again, she comes every week, and I saw her go pay her tithing to bishop. She does it every week and she's not even baptized. We actually talked to her dad this week. We go over to their house at least twice a week, and whenever we're over there, Israel and Saul (the dad's/husbands/knuckleheads) always go through the back window so they don't have to talk to us- SO, we finally were able to catch him on his way out and talk to him about his kids' baptisms, and he said they can get baptized as soon as they stop saying swear words and fighting with each other! Which is a miracle! So we're just working on them with their bad words and loving their brothers so they can get baptized hopefully in February. Another miracle in that household (this family tree is crazy: 4 different families live in this same house, all related, all the kids want to be baptized, dads are not members, all the women want the gospel, half of them are baptized). So, Lupita is the sister in law of Leti, our investigator, and she is an inactive member of 7 years. She decided to sit in on one of our lessons with Leti this week and she was the one who helped us catch Israel, and after seven years of never going to church, SHE CAME TO CHURCH YESTERDAY! That whole household is our main focus, with 5 potential baptisms. We're just fasting and praying for Saul to let Leti get baptized and for the kids to behave.
We taught Jacobo yesterday about the Word of Wisdom and he said that if it's a commandment from God to not drink coffee, then he will stop drinking coffee :). We're trying to help him have the faith to talk to his boss about changing his work schedule on Sundays so that he can come to the full 3 hours instead of 30 mins of sacrament meeting. He has to do that before he can be baptized, but as of right now, his baptismal date is on February 8. Oh, Jaqueline and Desiree also have baptismal dates for the 8th :).
We had another less active lady come to church yesterday who never comes :) and a non-member husband of a lady in our ward came 2 weeks in a row now!! It's so exciting to see these people progress :)!! Then on exchanges I got to go to my old area here in Oceanside for 2 days, and there is an inactive lady who missionaries have not seen in years because she's never home or never answers, and we found her!!! And she let us in to teach a lesson!! It was great!
We ran into a couple more deaf people this week! Heavenly Father has been putting them in Hermana Woodruff's path and it's so cool! I don't really follow any of it, but it's still exciting anyways. We've been able to teach the one we met last week twice, but she might have to work with the english ward since nobody will be able to help her in the spanish ward when hermana woodruff leaves. We'll see what happens.
Remember Blanca in Vista? Well, Hermana Magana is in my old area in Vista right now and is teaching Blanca and her husband, and they're going to be baptized!!! I'm not sure of the date, but I'm pretty sure I'll get to go!!!
Scary story that happened last night- we were sitting in our car outside our investigator's house preparing for a lesson, and a man walks out of the neighbors house, comes and stands by our car, looks at us, and then goes to open hna. woodruff's door! She screamed "lock the door!" so I did really fast and then he just stood there by our door, and we floored it out of there. I have no idea what he was going to do, but that was scary. It was also in the dark ghetto, which makes it even better.
So, that was my week :). Exchanges were good but it's nice to be back in my own area. Some of the exchanges were in English and some were in Spanish, but even on the English exchanges I ended up teaching or contacting in spanish anyways! I love my companion Hermana Woodruff! She's so funny and obedient and hard working, I really enjoy serving with her and hope we get another transfer together.
I love you all and hope you have a fun, safe week! I'm excited to read your talk dad, I'm sure it was great! And thanks for that quote on sacrifice mom! I love it!
You guys are awesome and I'm proud of you all!
Love,
Hermana Inman
p.s. April 16th is the day, I'm pretty sure. I don't like to talk about it, though.
