Sept. 9, 2009

This week has been great! I had some depression at the beginning of the week but that is not uncoomon here and satan works very hard to get people down. Especially if they are not obedient. If I am not obedient, Satan combines his bullcrap with my other guilt from being disobedient and he brings me super down about things. However, this week, I decided that I would follow every single rule absolutely. 100%. I have talked about doing this in reality but it never really happened to this past week. I am going to send home all my gum and any other thing that was against the rules because I want the blessings of being obedient. We have so many nitpicky rules that used to drive me crazy but now I look at it as a challenge and it is honestly fun to be like, "ok now I cannot do this also, let's prove that it won't even bother me." Everyday we receive more rules from the district leader or branch president or even from the mission president but whatever it is I will follow it because the blessings are in blindy following.

Also, this week I talked to my progressing investigator in california, Nicole Candelaria, over the phone in the RC twice. Her life has changed so much in just the past two weeks. She radiates happiness now and she is in love with this gospel. The Lord just won't let her drop it. It is burning so deeply within her heart that she cannot stop seeking more truth. She met with the missionaries in her area on saturday and she asked them to be baptized as she committed to me she would. They gave her a baptismal date of October 24th, which made me very upset because I thought that it was so stupid to wait because she is so eager right now. However, I now think the date may be inspired because I feel strongly that her husband needs to be taught the gospel before she is baptized or her baptism will destroy their marriage. As of yet, he is not happy about her joining the church but I think his heart is softening and she has asked him to come to church for a long time and he always said no, but his work gave him an extra day off on sunday which hardly ever happens (God's hand), and he said he would go to church with her one time. I asked Nicole if here husband would let me talk to him about the church and she thinks he will. She is going to talk to him and tell me about it when I talk to her on Tuesday. I think that the Lord may soften his heart and then they both can join the church and raise their family in righteousness. Nicole committed to go to church yesterday, and I haven't talked to her yet but I am pretty sure she went, and she listens to the scriptures everyday on LDS.org because she doesn't read well enough to read them. She keeps asking me to fly out for her baptism but I told her I cannot because I will be in houston, however, we are going to keep up communication through mail.

My experience with Nicole has been an absolute tender mercy from God. The conversations with her are my favorite thing about the week. I pray for her and her family in every single prayer I say which is quite a bit as a missionary. Her testimony is so sweet and it enlightens my day.

Other than that this week has been pretty uneventful. In my class, we are playing a game were two people are anonymously selected through a drawing to be "Nativos" and they are supposed to speak solamente en espanol for the entire day. When it is time to judge, 24 hours later, the class votes on the person they think was the native and the native receives points depending on how convincing they were that they were the native. Makes sense. My explanation is not very good but anyway, I am one of the nativos right now but because it is the weekend and I have p-day today, we don't have class until tonight. I have been the native for three days and have hardly spoken anything other than espanol. My espanol has grown so much during these three days it is honestly hard to speak in english or even to think in english. I love spanish. It is so fun.

No mucho mas tiempo pero yo quiero compartir mi testimonio con ustedes. Yo se que Jesucristo es mi salvador, y redenter, y tambien se que le morio por mis pecados y que Jesucristo me ama. En el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

Ten seconds more. Love ya, bye