Living the Dream: Fuente De Mis Bendiciones

Hola Everyone. Shout out to the cousins this week. Ashley loved, loved the engagement pictures and story. Congratulations. I am so happy for you and Zach. Karissa--wow, you look gorgeous. Karissa and Andres are married! It will be fun someday cousines to meet both of your men. I love you all so much.

Wow, I have soo many blessings. Serving a mission is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, have I told you that I LOVE my life? I have the best companion, area and people to teach ever. We have really been blessed this week to find so many great people and FAMILIES to teach!!! La familia Ortiz let us in because we offered to help Cythina (7 years old) with her homework, then they fed us a dinner and we shared a message and had a family prayer. The spirit was so strong and Julio (the dad) said, "I really want my daughter to grow up and be like you girls". We also got a referral from Hermana Melix for a guy named Miler and his family. WOW, they are soo prepared to hear the gospel. They just hang on to every word we say and he said, "So what I get from this is like Jose Smith we need to ask? If it's true, pray, come to church and we can know too?" WHAT!?

We had one of the most special moments of my mission this week. Hermana Jimenez had us over for dinner and made us a great meal. Hermana Skidmore tried her first "chile de arboles", then we shared a scripture with her (the one mom sent me in D&C 98:2 about being patient in the Lord) and talked about the Lord's timing. She bore her heart and soul to us with her testimony and then we sang a hymn and she just cried. She said every time a hymn is sung it makes her think of her mother. In her prayer before we left she thanked the Lord for having us over and giving her comfort that can only be found through HIS servants. It was very powerful. We have actually been singing a lot now in lessons and they LOVE it! Who knew that a little song is the key to a Latino's heart? haha. I love these people soo much. I am pretty sure I am Latino now. This is such a beautiful language.

Great news!! We have been teaching Andrea Mata (Ana's daughter, she is 9 almost 10 years old) and she wants to get baptized!!! We have had some really fun object lessons (also another golden thing Latino's love) and she is so excited. Ana is amazing and has been such a good influence on her. She works so hard for her daughters and is a great example. So Andrea's baptism will be Friday!! It has been such a blessing to teach her. We are hoping this will soften Tati's (her 13 year old rebel daughter) heart. Also Roxanna, Ana's sister has been coming to church too. Great things are happening with the Mata family.

We had a really fun lesson with Juan Carlos this week! We went over "La Armadura De Dios" and he was loving it. He is so ready and soo excited. After he came out of his interview with Elder LaDuke yesterday he was just beaming!!! He has been reading his scriptures every day. Such a stud, his baptism is Saturday!!!

I went out to South Sac this weekend for intercambios with Hermana White and Hermana Carlson (visa waiter to Argentina). We taught soo many Guatemalans I was loving my life. One of them , Flor, even invited me to go visit her and stay in her house. They have some really great investigators out there and it was fun to learn from those sisters. Hermana Skidmore did a great job of taking care of our area, she is incredible and I am so lucky to have her as my companion.

This week will be crazy but I am so excited. I love you all and hope you have a great week. Thanks for you love and prayers :)