This week has been fantastic! We had another baptism, another Hondureano, Victor Escobar. He is a sweet 19 year old who is related to the other men that got baptized the last week and who were confirmed just yesterday. It is so much fun to see the Lord's had in other's lives as they move forward with faith and start changing their lives for the good. Victor is such a sweet guy, and maybe he will one day serve a mission, we'll have to wait and see. He would be a great missionary. I love Honduras. Everywhere we go we find another person from Honduras. We go out to find someone in some random part we have never been before and boom! there is someone from Honduras that we just taught about the Restoration right there on the street. Hna. Martinez and I feel like Honduras magnets. last night we went to see a woman named Sullapa (weirdest name ever) and i thought she was from Cuba. We contacted her a week ago, but she didn't have time for us. We kept going back to her house, but she was never home. Last night, Hna Martinez gets this feeling to go see Sullapa. Ok, whatever...so we go and do. We give everyone three chances, or three door stop bys. This was her third. We get there, i am fully expecting an unanswered door. We knock and wait. A face pops out of the window, and then pops in again. This is usually the sign that we are being "ignored." But we still wait (the light was perfect for shadow puppets, it was 8:35 pm, almost time to quit, and it had been a long day). We wait for a while, and then the door opens to Sullapa. She was sleeping but she let us in and told us her life was kinda difficult right now. So we taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with a focus on Faith and repentance. She soaked it all up. She believed what we said. We left her with a commitment to read and pray. We are going back on Wednesday to teach her and her husband. It taught me a lot. You just never know. Oh yeah, we found out that she is from Honduras, Olancha, where everyone is from. When we asked her where she was from she said Honduras. My companion asked if she was from Olancha--she looked at us surprised, and said yes! She thought we were a Godsend. we just are that good.
Sister Martinez has taught me a lot about faith. We both discussed that we have problems with faith, so we decided to have a faith goal. Our zone wanted to get 50 new investigators, so we were going to get 25 of those 50. We decided that if we set that goal, trying to help the other companionships in our zone reach that goal, with the Lord's help we would be able to see the fruits of the labors of our faith. We worked really hard and ended up getting 24 new investigators. We ended up teaching 39 total lessons, with 5 AMT's. It is phenomenal to see that if you focus in one area and are efficient in that one area that the rest of the areas also increase. This week our faith goal is setting 15 baptismal dates because our zone goal is 35. I don't know how we are going to do this, but the Lord has shown me that if we can get 25 new investigators, starting on Thrusday with only 6, then 15 baptismal dates is totally doable. Plus, we have all these new investigators who need dates, so, we are just going to have to work hard with those we have. It has been interesting also, because when we would go to visit a potential or a new investigator, if those certain people did not end up being intersted, the Lord would place others in our path who were interested.
There is this one set of streets that i have always wanted to go on because it looks so cool on our area map. so one day we decided we would go contacting down that street, just to appease my curiousity.So we go, no one is down any of those streets. we see a bunch of kids playing on the street (finally) but i feel like we should keep going, turn left actually. So, we do that. We turn left. We run into this 16 year old kid who is pretty cool. Then his dad comes out to talk with us. He is golden!!! He tells us about his beliefs--he is LDS he just doesn't know it yet. Tonight we are having an FHE with his family because he loves his family and wants them to be together to hear this (good) and he also invited his siter-in-law and some other in-laws because they should hear it too (great!). So, by turning left we ran into an entire family who wants to hear our message. That took a lot of faith, because to the right we could see people, to the left there was nothing. but, when listening to the Spirit we found someone who was ready. The Lord knows what's up.
And the Lord also taught us that we need to rely on the little promptings of the Spirit. If you feel like you should turn left, though that doesn't seem logical, turn left. If you only have 20 minutes left in the day, but you feel like you should stop by someone's house, who is never home EVER, you stop by and then teach them the thing they need to hear from God at that moment. It is so much fun, and so humbling, to be the Lord's instruments. It is amazing to think that He trusts me, little old 23 year old me, with such important tasks, like listening to the Spirit so that I might give comfort to one of His children. I am humbled to be here now, among so many choice associates, in and out of the church. My heart is bursting as the Lord answers my prayers and helps me do seemingly impossible things. He has helped me with my Spanish, He is helping me with my faith. He is allowing me to have this opportunity now to serve Him full-time. I am blessed.
THis week we are going to have a scavenger hunt--we are looking for a couple of things and throughout the week we are going to find them, a scavenger hunt for some new black shoes from a five dollar shoe store (these things are so cool. they have name brand shoes for 5 dollars or less. i don't know how legal these shoes are, but we don't ask questions. plus, its not like we are in a dark alley, they have a store and everything. i just love that they are so cheap!) We are looking for a map of Honduras so we can see where Olancha is and where we want to go when we have the chance, in the future, to go to Honduras. I have to go to Honduras, I just have to. they have the sweetest people there and we have baptized half of the country already). We have a couple of other things we want to remember our companionship by.
We are having a fall festival today too as a zone--the ZL's put my companion and i in charge of P-day activities. so today we are carving pumpkins, dressing in costumes, eating caramel apples, having a pie eating contest and all that. i will send pictures for you all next week.
I love these emails because they trully give me the opportunity to reflect on my week, verbalize my thoughts. I write in my journal, but they seem to be more about the daily things, and they too are spiritual. But writing these letters, for someone else to read, is different, a good different.
anyway--
Love love love y
Tenga buen dia y una grande semana-
Hermana Barros
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