Smile Because It Happened: Week 36, April 11, 2016

Zone conference April 8, 2016

Ok, I'm not very clever and as such, I can't think of a cool way to start off this letter, sorry about that. =)

I have learned that, no matter what, you can have awesome adventures if you put your mind to it. This past Monday we had Noche de Hogar (family home evening in Spanish) with President and Sis. Keyes; they are members of the mission presidency. We were with our district and spoke about our favorite conference talks and the revelation we received from them. It was such a spiritual boost to spend time with other missionaries talking about how we can apply modern revelation to our investigators. The snacks afterwards helped too =)

I really am grateful for modern revelation that has taught us the importance of spending time together as a family. Family Home Evening was instituted to help families stay strong in these last days. Now, more than ever, we can see that the family is under attack and as a shield against that attack, we have family home evening. I love my family and I am so grateful that we made FHE a priority in our family. Even when we were extremely busy, having to mesh at least 4 adult schedules and the extracurricular activities of the younger ones, we managed to have family home evening at least once a week. We also read scriptures and prayed together every night. Some nights it was in shifts, but usually we were together, and these nights made a profound impact on me. Now, I have the joy of sharing my experiences and knowledge with others; I get to watch other families increase their unity and happiness by teaching them the importance of living the gospel of Christ together.

Now, continuing with the week, we celebrated a good friend of ours' birthday. Her name is Dolores and she invited us specifically, and the other missionaries, because she loves being with us. I love her dearly; she is an example of charity and patience in my life. It was a privilege to celebrate with her and we were able to get her a gift, although we were late, which she loves. I arranged a boutique of flowers for her and Hna. Felix picked out the accessories for it (such as the vase and rocks in the bottom). It was amazing seeing her be so happy over such a simple gift.
We have been doing a lot of service lately, such as cleaning homes, and I just love it. I love seeing peoples' faces get lighter because a weight (even it it's as small as a dirty bathroom becoming clean) is taken from them. We may not always be able to fix everything, but I know that the Lord will take care for the hard things and I can help with the smaller things. I can't mend a broken heart, but I can show Heavenly Father's love for them by listening to them talk, bringing them cookies, or raking their yard. One of the best parts of missionary work is service.
Besides finding service opportunities this week, we have been out working; our goal has been to work harder AND smarter. We spoke with our bishop, Bishop Rodriguez, and asked for a list of part-member and less-active families to go and visit. We came back later that night, about 3 hours later, and he had a list for us! Now, half of the families he gave us live outside of our area, but it's still amazing to see how fast he responded! We have also been finding miracle by trying to visit these people. For example, we went to visit one woman on the list, but she wasn't home at the time. I really needed to use the restroom (one of the hardest aspects of missionary work is finding a restroom =) ) so I knocked on the neighbor's door. Fortunately, the woman who answered the door is a member and she let us in. When we spoke with her, we mentioned that we were looking for her neighbor and this good woman gave us a lot of helpful information. As we were about to leave, I asked her one last question; "Do you know if any of your neighbors speak Spanish?"
She was able to point out a home a few doors down that she knew spoke Spanish, so we walked down to see if anyone was there. There were 2 men outside eating and one, seeing us, approached the gate. We started speaking with him and he told us that although he doesn't own the house (he's currently renting) he would love to meet with us outside to listen to our message. This man, Oscar, works for a member of the church and so he's heard a lot about our beliefs and he has Sunday off! It was kinda indirect, but by following the prompting to speak with Bishop, acting in faith by going to the woman's house, and then by persevering, we were able to find someone new to teach.
Another miracle that happened, and still makes my heart swell, happened during dinner on Saturday night. The member who signed up to feed us ran out of time to prepare a meal and so she invited us out to eat at a buffet called Chuck-o-Rama (it's not as bad as it sounds, I promise!) All 6 missionaries went with her (because there are 6 of us serving in the same ward) and another friend, Dolores, whom I mentioned earlier because of her birthday. We had just about finished eating and were talking about taking a picture outside. Before we stood up, a man approached our table to speak with us, the missionaries. As a disclaimer, this is very common here because there a quite a few members who love missionaries. They either have someone out right now, just got back, about to go, or had an awesome set of missionaries in their ward and as such, they love to talk to us.
I am now accustomed to people randomly speaking with us, so I wasn't too surprised to see this man. He asked how our week had gone, if we're being fed, and what our plans are for the week. We all made our comments, just making small talk, when he pulls out from his wallet a large sum of money for each of us. He said that he hopes that we have a great week and enjoy going out to eat for lunch one day. All of us were taken aback, I feel like for obvious reasons, and tried to give the money back. He wouldn't accept it, even after multiple attempts at returning the money. We were all a little shell shocked, but made sure to thank this man, and his family profusely. They were there that night to celebrate a little boy in their family getting baptized that day. He was an amazing kid and the Spirit was so strong because of that family. This man will forever be in my prayers and memories for the service he rendered. It wasn't just about the money, but the fact that he would sacrifice to help the work of the Lord go forward. We are going to use the money wisely in order to bless those we serve for what more can we do to honor this man? This act of service has touched my heart deeply and I know that the Lord will bless him and his family for what they did.
The rest of the week continued with miracles. We saw them when we saw our plans change because we had been prompted to make the plans we had, yet not many of them came to pass. I'll share one more story that actually happened last night. We had just left dinner, which had been from 6-7pm and we debated about visiting the planned people by walking or by bike. We decided to go get our bikes, which seemed like a little bit of overkill for our plans, and when we came out of the church with our bikes, a man stopped us to ask for consecrated oil. We didn't have any, but we were able to bike to a member's home to get some and then meet him at the house with the sick person. If we hadn't returned for our bikes, I doubt that we would've run into the man, let alone be able to help him and the woman receiving a blessing.
The Lord works miracles in this day and age and we get to be a part of them! =) If we are open and willing to receive promptings, not only will our lives be blessed but so will others'.
I love you all! I hope that you are seeing God's miracles in your lives today. Be good and remember who you are!
Love,
Hermana Lindh