Have you seen it yet??? The Church
has produced a special video just for Easter! The Missionary Department
has asked us to promote it. The goal is for over 100 million people to
view the video before Easter Sunday. Please share it on facebook, through email, etc! Please use the hashtag #BecauseofHim to promote it. The website is: easter.mormon.org
*Or you can find it en espanol at: pascua.mormon.org
Yesterday, we had a new investigator (Carlos) attend
church. He was a referral from a member family. After the services, we
met at the members' home and had a meal (Peruvian....soooo rico). We
watched the video with Carlos and he felt the Spirit so strongly! He
said he's been searching for the true church, and this is the only
church he feels comfortable in! He has a daughter that he wants to get
involved too. This movie was truly inspired:) I encourage you to share
share share it!
Last week, I mentioned that an Apostle was going to
be visiting my mission. I'm super excited to announce that ELDER DAVID
A. BEDNAR will be visiting us early next month! I'm really happy because
his talk was my favorite in the most recent conference! Along with him
will be Elder Lynn G. Robbins (Presidency of the Seventy), Bishop Dean
M. Davies (2nd Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric), Elder Jorg
Klebingat (Seventy), Elder Christ Lansing (Area Seventy), and President
Alan Baker (Virginia Chesapeake Mission). All of the missionaries from
the Chesapeake Mission will also be in attendance. This is going to be
HUGE. I'm so excited:)
*This past week, a lot of things out-of-the-ordinary happened...
On Wednesday
night, our car was towed. We always park in the same place in this
apartment complex, and this time we got towed:( We walked out of the
lesson, and our car was just gone. Hermana Agurcia thought it had been
stolen, haha. Fortunately, we had a member with us--Hermano Dimas who I
LOVE. He drove us to the gas station (ATM) so I could take out a whole
lot of cash. Then we went to the towing place and waited for thirty
minutes for someone to show up. (This was also at 9:30 pm.) Dimas
let us chill in his car and we watched some old church movie called
"Pioneers in Petticoats," or something like that. So Mom, if you're
watching my account, and you see that some money is missing.....this is
why. It wasn't a big deal and everything worked out okay:) I'm so
grateful that we had Dimas with us!
The lesson we had just completed was with Absalon
and Natalia! They're not ready for baptism yet, because they need to
attend church at least three times. If Absalon can't find enough work
during the week, then he has to work on Sundays. BUT, they've decided to
be married!!!!:):):) We extended the invitation for them to be married
and Absalon basically proposed right in front of us:) I'm so happy!
Natalia attended church yesterday and she LOVED it! She said that she
wants to be baptized now!! (This is after many weeks of her reminding us
that she was already baptized Catholic as a bebita.)
Thursday,
we had a lesson with David. He's very pentecostal, and pretty
difficult. He wants to learn, but doesn't want to change. He asks us
random questions like how much we pray and fast. And whether or not we
speak in tongues. Anyway, at the end of the lesson, we asked if there
was any service we could do for him. He jokingly said that we could come
back and rake his leaves. When we got in the car, Hermana Agurcia said
that we should actually do it. I was very confused, because the word for
leaves is "hojas" which also means sheets. I thought he wanted us to
wash his sheets;)
Anyway, we got in touch with the Spanish Elders and
the Fredericksburg Elders (they live together) and invited them to come
with us. We showed up at David's house and began raking leaves. About
one hour into it, he stepped outside. (We didn't know he was home
because he normally works during the day.) He helped a bit, but mostly
just chatted with the Elders while they worked. Diana (mom) came home
from work and started crying when she saw all six of us missionaries in
the yard:) She went to the store and bought a lot of food. She came back
and commanded us "COMAN" so we took a little descansa and ate:) Then we
went back out to finish the job. Unfortunately, we ran out of bags
before we ran out of leaves. We filled 60 bags! We were there for about 4
hours. We probably needed only 5 more. David loved the Elders, and so
we've decided to pass him over to them. We're going to continue teaching
the mom, especially since she wants us to help out with her daughter's
8th birthday party this week. Here's the best part: Hermana Agurcia and I
forgot to pack pants...so we did all of this in skirts;) wooo!
We spend a lot of time in the same two apartment
complexes: Wellington Woods and Crestview. Most of our investigators
live in one or the other. Because we're there so often, we contact our
progressing investigators near daily! We also know a lot of the
Americans, and we pass them on as referrals. There's this one girl named
Amanda, and we always say hi to her. Yesterday, she approached us and
said she needed help with something. Her car had run out of gas because
both the gas and mileage gauges are broken. She had a two gallon gas can
and $5. Even though it was Sunday,
we felt it was appropriate to help her;) We drove to the nearest gas
station and filled it up! We've passed on her name to the Fred Elders,
so hopefully something will come of it:) At least she knows that Mormons
are willing to serve!
Remember Dora? She is golden!:) She called us Wednesday
morning because she needed help with another doctors appointment. This
time, it was at Mary Washington Hospital. We live on the same block, so
we were able to walk there. It was so nice! Normally as a Spanish
Speaking missionary, we don't get to go on very many walks because we
spend most of our time in apartment complexes. Later in the day, we met
up with her family and we talked about the Book of Mormon. Dora loves us
and loves the Gospel! We just need to get her to church now! They've
begun praying as a family every night and I just love how happy Dora is
about all of this! She can really feel how the Gospel will bless her
family.
While in the same apartment complex, we did a pretty
interesting street contact. The ice cream man was driving by, and I
guessed that he was probably Hispanic. We went and bought popsicles and
also got his name and number and address:) Yay!
The last out-of-the-ordinary story is that Hermana Agurcia loves to do hair! Every Friday
we have dinner with Hermana Benavides in Stafford. She always wants Hna
Agurcia to do her hair. Her daughter, Kathy, asked Hermana Agurcia to
do her hair for prom! We met her at the church Saturday morning to do her hair and it turned out really cute!:) I wish I had pictures!
Speaking of pictures...I've attached a picture of me at the Spotsylvania County Visitors' Center. Virginia is for Lovers!:)
LOVE, Hermana Crandall
No comments:
Post a Comment