Monday, May 8, 2017

Muchos Milagros!!


Hola Todos!

            What a week it’s been!  It was super busy….y tuvimos muchos milagros (we had a lot of miracles). I can’t believe I hit 15 months on Wednesday!  Time flies when you’re doing the Lord’s work.
            This week we had the wonderful opportunity to go to San Antonio and have Zone Conference.  There were so many wonderful trainings given on how we can work better with members! We've seen so many wonderful miracles happen by applying the things that we learned!  I love member
missionary work!  One miracle that happened this week happened on Sunday.  We had 15 investigators at church because of the fellowship that they have from the branch!  It was wonderful to see all our
investigators at church and enjoy all the testimonies that were given.  Another miracle that happened came towards the end of Sacrament meeting.  There was a moment of silence and then all the sudden I see Precious (one of Pearl’s daughters) walk up and bare her testimony.  She wrote it down and read it off to us at the pulpit.  It was the sweetest thing ever and the spirit was so strong. She has learned so
much and grown so close to her Heavenly Father.  To see her understanding the gospel at a young age is such a blessing and miracle to see.  I’m so excited for her and Pearl to get baptized in a couple weeks!  They are so ready.  I just love them!  Anna, Pearl’s mom, is doing so well too.  The whole family is willing to give up everything to follow Jesus Christ and His example and I love seeing them
understand the Gospel better each time we go over and teach them.  Precious said the closing prayer with us in one of our lessons that we had this week.
            Another miracle that happened was on
Sunday morning as well.  We were texting some of our investigators and got an impression to text Anna Flores, one of our other new investigators, and invite her family to church.  She had said she was planning on it but that morning her house flooded from her toilet.  We hurried and put our shoes on and headed right over to help her.  When we arrived there was water everywhere. We spent a good couple hours drying things out and Anna turned to us and thanked us and thought it was crazy that we happened to come at the time she needed help (milagro).  Her and her family came to church with us that morning and loved it (milagro).                                                                                                                       I had the wonderful opportunity to go on exchanges with my awesome Sister Training Leader Hermana Newman (who was one of my first companions) In Eagle Pass. It was so wonderful to get to serve with her again for a day.  She has grown so much since the beginning of our mission and I loved being able to learn from her and am so excited to apply the things she taught me.  She is a wonderful missionary and I
just love her so much!   We taught so many lessons in Spanish together and had the wonderful opportunity to do service and help someone move.  She's in a biking area so we spent the day biking and it was the greatest thing because we got to talk to so many people and also got chased by some wild dogs which was the funniest experience of my life.  I’m glad to say we're ok.
            It’s getting hotter here and all the Scorpions are coming out again!  I’m glad I wear shoes all the time but it’s crazy to see some people walk around with no shoes.
            We got to have an awesome lesson with the Sanchez family (one of the less active families that we're working with). We played a game with them that related to the lesson that we wanted to share with them and
they loved it.  I’ve seen by having an object lesson people seem to understand and pay attention more which is awesome.  Sister Sanchez shared her testimony multiple times with us throughout the lesson and it was great!  Their family really wants to make it back to church.  I’m super excited to continue meeting with them.
            We saw so many more miracles throughout the week.  We met a couple of new investigators that I will hopefully talk about next week. The Longoria family is doing well.  We got to have a wonderful lesson with them this week and one of the members from our Branch came with us. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and they loved it and were so into it.  Sadly they didn't come to church this Sunday but hopefully they can make it this week.  Kris Poff is doing so well.  She has quit drinking tea as well as smoking and is loving being a missionary to her husband Jim and sharing with him everything that she is learning!  She’s so awesome!
            I wanted to end my email this week by sharing a thought from my studies.  In 2 Nephi
2:11–14 - there really is opposition in all things.   President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explained that opposition helps us grow stronger; “Life will not be free from challenges, some of them bitter and hard to bear. We may wish to be spared all the trials of life, but that would be contrary to the great plan of happiness, ‘for it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things’ (2 Nephi 2:11). This testing is the source of our strength”
            President Ezra Taft Benson explained that opposition provides choice; “Opposition provides choices, and choices bring consequences good or bad.  The Book of Mormon explains that men are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil (2 Nephi
2:27).  God loves us; the devil hates us. God wants us to have a fullness of joy as He has. The devil wants us to be miserable as he is. God gives us commandments to bless us. The devil would have us break these commandments to curse us.  Daily, constantly, we choose by our desires, our thoughts, and our actions whether we want to be blessed or cursed, happy or miserable”.
            Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles commented on how opposition relates to happiness: “Indeed, without the existence of choices, without our freedom to choose and without opposition,
there would be no real existence. This is so much like Lehi’s metaphor of how, in the absence of agency and opposites, things would have resulted in a meaningless, undifferentiated ‘compound in one’ (2 Nephi
2:11). In such a situation the earth would actually have ‘no purpose in the end of its creation’ (2 Nephi 2:12).  It is a fact that we can neither grow spiritually nor thereby be truly happy unless and until we make wise use of our moral agency”.
            I know that opposition can make us stronger.  Opposition really does provide choices.  May we choose to be patient, know our Heavenly Father has a plan for us and we can do this!  I know that our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and find joy and peace in this life.  We can learn and grow thought the opposition and challenges in our lives.  I love y’all!  Keep being strong!
            I’m so excited for Mother's Day
on Sunday!  Everyone give my mom big hugs from me and tell her I love her!  I hope y’all have a wonderful week.  Be safe!

Con Amor,
Hermana Mann








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