New e-mail 9/9

it is starting to cool off here, which is nice, but it makes me scared for winter. The people in the ward are the BEST!!! this is what a ward should be!! One of the members in the ward council set up a meeting and gave everyone who showed up, which was sadly only the missionaries, a list of less actives that we needed to track down. It is fantastic!! These people really care for others. We have an investigator that the elders have been working with forever, and she just passed her baptismal interview yesterday! I am sooo excited. We are going to help her set up the program for her baptism this Sunday. It is so great to see how different the people here are. They love having us. There is a lady in the ward who's daughter is serving in El Salvador, and the daughter sent her mom an email telling her to help us in any way and to feed us. So I asked that sister if she would come with me to the Spanish gospel principles with our investigator, that way she feels welcomed. it is great to sit in a class and not understand a word the teacher is saying, its like my high school nightmares all over again...

So I will tell you like that daughter told her mom, help the missionaries. GO and tell them that you are willing to help. I will testify to you right now that when you help bring people unto Christ everything in your lives will work out. Helping the missionaries and doing missionary work is the best way to help yourself and your family. I have seen this happen. The Lord takes care of those who take care of others. So go and let them know that you are WILLING to help them, ask them what you can do, and then do it. Trust me, they will follow up. feed them. it is hard to live off of the budget that we are given. And for some missionaries, they are not blessed with parents like mine who can afford to send me money when I need it. Please make sure that they are not eating beans and rice every night for dinner, because that does happen.  Take care of them and treat them as if they were me.

 I know that this is where I am needed the most right now, and I am so glad that I have come on a mission. I have learned, and am still learning how to truly care for people, and how to receive personal revelation from God. Study the scriptures with the family. 

Understanding 

Insight

Revelation 

Conversion

This is how I study my scriptures. I will read a couple of verses, and then go through this list. 

Understanding: what do I understand about what I just read.

Insight: From what I understand, what insights do i get out of this. 

Revelation: From those insights, what is it that God is trying to tell me? What is it that He wants me to learn from this?

Conversion: If that is what God is trying to tell me, what am I going to do about it?

You guys can do this as a family, and/or on your own. I have gotten more out of the scriptures than I ever have. I have also come closer to Christ. Try this for a week as a family and then tell me how it goes. 

9/3 e-mail

Sorry that I didn't write yesterday, but Sister Lee and I went to the temple with the other missionaries and then we went to a red sox game!!!!!! It was the best pday of my life. I have so many stories for you.

First off we are living with a member family, on a farm. It it awesome. They have two little girls and a little boy. Dorthy, Lucy, and Ezra. They are all super blonde and adorable. Ezra is about 1.5 years old, and he will run/waddle down the hall screaming. It is sooo cute. We have our own bedroom and bathroom. It is the Master bed/bath. Which means that we also have a walk in closet. It is sooo humid here!! it is so bad. it actually got foggy last night. I couldn't believe it. So we share the land we live on with a bunch of chickens, a goat named buttercup, a sheep named Lydia, and a pony named Sunset. It is super cool.

Second, guess who is driving!!!! That's right me! So we get here on Thursday and we share the area with our zone leaders. elders with power, hahahaha. anyway, so we get here on Thursday, and on Friday night we go to help someone move and then eat dinner at their house. They live in New Bedford. So we drive over there and Sister Vieira, the mom that we live with, told us that when we park we have to park across the street from their apartment. So there were two parking lots. I pulled into the first one, which was deserted, and there is a sign saying city parking only, or something like that. So we look over and there is another one. However, the barbed wire fence around it didn't cross my mind at the time. So we decide to park in the second one. We park in a slot that is labeled visitors. So we go and help the family and eat at  their house, and when it is all done the dad goes to walk us to our car. They had locked the gate. The opening we had driven through was now padlocked shut. wunderbar. So it also just happens to be labor day weekend, which means that there wasn't a chance to retrieve it until Tuesday. Thankfully we got it back and everything was OK. Our elders had to take us everywhere because everything here is so spread apart. It was crazy!!!!!